President’s
Message
Looking out across the changing energy landscape, it is exciting to observe a growing awareness and greater
appreciation for district energy. Planners,
policy makers and energy professionals
from around the world are recognizing
district energy as a proven, community-scale solution to enhance energy security,
stimulate local economic development,
and deliver more sustainable, lower-carbon
energy services. District energy is gaining
ground through more than simple window-dressing of government-subsidized
demonstration projects, but through hon-est-to-goodness policy engagement
designed to generate real industry growth.
Around the globe, and especially
here in the U.S., district energy systems
are now increasingly seen as effective
investments for optimizing combined
heat and power or tapping indigenous
energy resources such as surplus industrial waste heat and renewable lake or
ocean water. Whether this enhanced
popularity is due to last year’s record-high
oil costs of $147 per barrel or to recent
government activity on climate change
legislation, district energy systems are
gaining traction as a near-term carbon
emissions mitigation strategy.
In the U.S., the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) Industrial Technology
Program has recently re-purposed the
eight Regional Application Centers (RACs)
to a broader mission that encompasses
education, outreach and support for
clean energy technologies, including district energy, combined heat and power
and waste energy recovery. The RACs will
be working to accelerate investment in
larger-scale CHP of 20+ MW to achieve
even greater market penetration for energy-efficient technologies that mitigate carbon
emissions.
DOE has established an ambitious
agenda for CHP to expand from 9 percent of U.S. electricity generation in 2008
to 20 percent by 2030. In the large commercial and industrial segment, this will
involve the increase of over 82 GW of
generating capacity from 77.6 GW in
2008 to reach 160 GW by 2030. Re-powering existing heat-only district systems in
cities and campuses to adapt to combined
heat and power is a key near-term market
opportunity. Leveraging the potential for
waste-heat recovery is another highly
valuable strategy. IDEA is slated to provide
technical program support to the RACs in
pursuit of the district energy segment.
Re-powering existing heat-only
district systems in cities and cam-
puses to adapt to combined heat
and power is a key near-term
market opportunity.
Also at the federal level, legislation has
been introduced in the Senate Climate bill
to increase support for district energy
development. The Thermal Energy Efficiency
Act (S. 1621), co-sponsored by Sen. Bernie
Sanders, I-Vt., and by Sen. Jeff Merkley,
D-Ore., is structured around the importance of thermal energy as a resource for
heating and cooling buildings. The bill
effectively sets aside revenue generated
from the sale of carbon-dioxide emission
allowances to provide grants and loans
through the State Energy and Environmental
Development (SEED) programs for development and expansion of district energy
systems.
This legislation is also significant in
that it is a rare exception: It does not focus
legislative language entirely on electricity
and provides program recognition and
support for thermal energy. Since 40 percent of all energy used in buildings is for
heating and air conditioning, it only makes
sense to have policies focus on thermal
energy development and optimization, as
contemplated in the Sanders-Merkley bill.
The bill’s genesis reflects a dozen or more
community-scale, biomass-based, district
energy development schemes under consideration in Vermont and New Hampshire.
At the state policy level, district energy
and CHP have gained solid program footing in places like Massachusetts, with the
Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard;
Connecticut, with the Clean Energy Fund;
and New Jersey, with public benefit funds
invested in highly efficient cogeneration
via grants dispersed by the Board of
Public Utilities. In fact, many states have
been driving investment in clean energy
technologies and will continue to lead in
this area. IDEA will be covering state
energy programs and an update on federal climate and energy policies as part of
the agenda for the 23rd Annual Campus
Energy Conference to be hosted by the
University of Nevada, Reno, Feb. 9-12,
2010. (The distribution workshop precedes the conference Feb. 8-9.)
Of course, there is also real momentum outside the U.S. We just returned
from the Fourth International District Cooling
Conference, hosted by the IDEA Middle
East Chapter in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates. In the past 10 years, more than
1 million tons of district cooling capacity
have been constructed in the Middle East,
largely in the UAE.
While the global financial crisis has
affected the pace of development in
Dubai and difficult market corrections are
under way, district cooling has been widely
accepted as an important infrastructure
alternative to traditional air-conditioning
systems that transpose high peak demands
on the power grid. Members of the IDEA
Middle East Chapter are engaged in
addressing the complicated market challenges of limited water supply, subsidized
and inequitable electricity rates and providing customer satisfaction across the
entire GCC region. The current economic
slowdown presents an opportunity for
