AAEF Expert Speaker appears before capacity crowd on Monday
Contacts:
Steve Patterson, steve@arkansasadvancedenergy.com or (501) 537-0190
Mollie Merry Campbell, mollie@arkansasadvancedenergy.com or (501) 537-0190
LITTLE ROCK: Arkansas has the potential to generate another 1800 MW of electricity from Combined Heat & Power (CHP) facilities, according to Jennifer Kefer, Executive Director of the Alliance for Industrial Efficiency during her remarks Monday in Little Rock.
Kefer was hosted by the Arkansas Advanced Energy Foundation (AAEF) as the latest in the Foundation’s expert speaker series on emerging advanced energy technologies. A capacity crowd of 85 advanced energy industry leaders, power company officials and policy makers filled the Copper Grill Meeting Room in downtown Little Rock.
CHP captures energy that is normally lost in power generation, most commonly at manufacturing facilities, and uses it to provide heating and cooling. Prominent examples in Arkansas include the Pine Bluff Energy Center owned by Calpine which generates 216MW of electricity and the University of Arkansas CHP system in Fayetteville which generates about 5.2MW of electricity.
Kefer said the combined total of all 15 CHP facilities in Arkansas amounts to 560MW of energy and that given the right policies and willing investors, additional capacity of about 1800MW exists in the state. Kefer said natural gas is the fuel source for about 70 percent of the nation’s CHP facilities. She cited growing interest in CHP, especially in the manufacturing sector, because “it reduces costs for fuel input and it is the cheapest form of efficiency. CHP can be installed at a fraction of the cost of solar and wind power.”
She said utilities are interested in CHP because it helps defer investment in future power plants and typically qualifies under state energy efficiency goals.
She listed some barriers to expanded CHP deployment, including competition for investment capital; a patchwork of state interconnection rules across the U.S, and uncertainties about the future price of natural gas.
Kefer’s slide presentation is now available online here.
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The Arkansas Advanced Energy Foundation, a nonprofit organization, was established in 2011. The foundation, which operates exclusively for charitable and educational purposes, performs research, public education and economic and workforce development in support of its mission to create jobs and grow the advanced energy sector and Arkansas’ economy as a whole.
The Alliance for Industrial Efficiency is a growing coalition of business, labor, and non-profit organizations that advocate for policies that increase U.S. manufacturing competitiveness through industrial energy efficiency, especially the use of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and Waste Heat to Power (WHP).