Why Central Utility Plants Should Convert to Natural Gas Generators
Increasingly, central utility plants are choosing Combined Heat and Power (CHP) because it creates revenue. Using packaged generators like these that integrate heat recovery components and controls, plants can produce electricity, heating, cooling, and mechanical power from a single source. It squeezes every bit of energy while using as little fuel resources as possible.
Central utility plants, that serve hospitals, college campuses, and manufacturing production facilities, are especially good candidates for the CHP generation approach because they’re associated with lower costs and operate under critical outages and disaster periods.
Impressive Benefits of CHP Natural Gas Generators
Some of the immediate benefits of using CHP as a reliable energy source for refineries, hospitals, and manufacturers are:
- Increased control over energy expenditures
- Lower energy loss with up to 90 percent efficiency
- Dramatically reduced emissions up to 50 percent
- Strengthened security in times of natural disasters
Some of these organizations and plants realize that choosing CHP means staying ahead of the curve since electrical costs are expected to only rise with time, especially in comparison to gas.
Five More Reasons Central Utility Plants Switch to Natural Gas
1) Peak Shaving
Peak shaving events, powered by your natural gas generations, could save your town’s ratepayers money. As you manage demand and eliminate spikes, you can lower and smooth peak energy loads. By doing so, you’ll reduce the cost of charges for demand.
2) Demand Matching
Further, as a central utility plant that has flipped over to gas-powered energy generation, you can produce energy for massive electrical demands using the power grid. As mentioned, electricity costs are predicted to rise, and cutting dependence on electricity for high energy demands means incredible savings over a CHP generators’ lifecycle.
3) Fuel Reliability
It’s just not practical or reliable enough for many plants to depend on scheduled diesel deliveries and refills. Your fuel supply is at the mercy of these deliveries, with all their shortcomings. However, through a natural gas line, you can hook into a constant and complete fuel source that can keep up with your needs through surges and peaks.
4) Lower Gas Pricing
Gas prices are at historic lows compared to the cost of other fuel sources, like diesel. Your plant can start saving immediately because of the reduced cost of this source of power generation. As you save more from your CHP generator, you’ll see how making this revolution for your plant improves your bottom line and means more stable energy for your customers.
5) Cleaner Emissions
Not only will switching to natural gas save you money, but it will save on emissions as well. It is estimated that natural gas can reduce emissions up to 50% when compared to diesel, which makes it a clean-burning, popular choice in urban environments where air pollution is a problem.
Boost Savings and Performance with Carter Power Systems
Reliability and cost are just two reasons that organizations and plants are increasingly choosing to adopt CHP. In fact, the potential savings and performance boosts are the most cited benefits that newly revolutionized plants mention. Anyone who will deal with rising electricity costs stands to benefit from changing their primary fuel source to natural gas-powered CHP.
If you think your central utility plant could benefit, determine if you qualify by assessing your location with a simple, convenient assessment tool from Carter Power Systems.