Industrial Cogeneration - Insights and Observations

Industrial cogeneration competes for funds with new industrial manufacturing facilities. New manufacturing capacity or production modernization programs have historically received investment priorities over utility systems. Due to rising energy costs and higher percentages of energy-content in overall manufacturing costs, new interests are being directed to the potential for reducing costs and improving company earnings by having well-designed industrial co-generation systems. Methods and techniques for achieving the highest available returns-on-investment are presented. Equations are proivded for steam turbine topping industrial cogeneration systems which are formulated with the objective of achieving the best selection of system design parameters which have the highest possible returns-on-investment.