Dual Energy Use Systems for Industrial, Commercial, and Building Applications

Integrated dual energy use systems, optimized to provide both electrical (or mechanical) and thermal energy for industrial process heating/cooling or for commercial and residential space conditioning needs, are energy efficient and economic alternatives to conventional single-purpose energy systems. Numerous prime movers, including diesels, gas engines, steam and gas turbines, combined cycles, and other advanced conversion systems, together with an array of different primary energy sources such as gas, oil, coal, biomass and municipal solid waste fuels and thermal storage and control strategies, can result in a complex variety of system configurations. The United Technologies Research Center (UTRC), working with the U.S. Department of Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute, and state and local governments, has developed methodologies and procedures to screen, evaluate, and select optimum dual energy use systems (DEUS) for industrial parks, commercial developments and residential applications or combinations thereof. This paper describes methodologies developed and provides examples of the dual use energy systems defined for use in: (1) single industries, (2) multiple-industry industrial parks, (3) recovery of waste heat from a nuclear fuel processing facility, and (4) burning of solid and municipal waste sources. In addition, specific sites are described which include residential, commercial and industrial developments being implemented in the Eastern and Western sections of the United States.