by Brianna Crandall — September 29, 2010—The U.S. Department of Energy recently helped the Thermal Energy Corporation (TECO) celebrate the opening of a new combined heat and power (CHP) plant at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. The 48 megawatt facility will provide steam, chilled water, and electricity to the 18 institutions comprising the TMC campus—the largest medical center in the world.
Supported by an award of $10 million in DOE funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the project helped lead to the creation of more than 400 new jobs during the facility’s construction and now constitutes the largest on-campus, district chilled water system in the country.
CHP power plants generate both the heat and electricity needed for industrial processes on-site, instead of using electricity from the grid, explains DOE. The electric and waste heat generated as a byproduct of the gas turbine-powered facility is converted to steam and chilled water that is then repurposed for use in air conditioning, space heating, dehumidification, sterilization, and other processes throughout the campus.
While the conventional method of producing separate heat and power has a typical combined efficiency of 45 percent, the TECO CHP system can operate at efficiency levels approaching 80 percent, says DOE. The new CHP plant is expected to save the Texas Medical Center up to $1.5 million a year in energy costs and reduce the Center’s emissions by roughly 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.
