Development of CHCP systems in urban areas: An opportunity to increase power generation efficiency and mitigate CO2 emission

Global warming, increasing of energy demand, depletion of fossil fuel resources and therefore, higher energy costs are the key factors that make wise utilizing systems, which are more reliable and environmentally friendly. Meanwhile distributed generation (DG), such as renewable energy systems and combined heating, cooling and power system (CHCP) plants, play an important role in this context. Compare to centralized generation (CG) in conventional power plants, CHCP systems in DG networks offer more efficient energy generation, less fuel consumption and thus, less greenhouse gases (GHG) emission. Due to these advantages and generating a variety of by-products with high reliability, cogeneration systems are appreciated in different applications such as commercial, industrial and residential areas. In this paper, CHCP systems with available technologies are briefly presented as a form of DG. In addition, electrical demand of a residential district of Tehran is analyzed according to the current status and future augmentation. Then, the recoverable waste heat which can be used in space heating or desalination process is modeled using TRNSYS (Transient System Simulation Tool) software. At last, the fuel saving and the CO₂ abatement are evaluated according to the simulation results.