by Shane Henson — February 20, 2012—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently recognized two Department of Defense (DoD) facilities with the Energy Star Combined Heat and Power (CHP) award for taking an efficient, clean, and reliable approach to generating power and thermal energy from a single source—a move the EPA hopes more governmental and non-governmental facilities will take.
The CHP awards were presented to the U.S. Army Garrison in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and the U.S. Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California. According to the EPA, by using CHP technology, the award winners demonstrated leadership and a commitment to protecting people’s health and the environment while reporting annual energy savings of $6.8 million.
CHP technology produces both electricity and steam/hot water from a single heat source, using fuels such as natural gas, biomass, or wasted energy, explains the EPA. By using this technology, the bases’ CHP systems achieved operating efficiencies of nearly 65%, much higher than the efficiency of separate production of electricity and thermal energy (typically less than 50%). Based on this comparison, the CHP systems avoided carbon pollution equal to that from the electricity used by more than 4,000 homes. The CHP systems also increase the bases’ energy security and reliability, because the systems can run independently in the event of a power outage.
