COGENERATION

LAW CONCERNING COGENERATION

‘Directive 2004/8/EC of the European parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 on the promotion of cogeneration based on a useful heat demand in the internal energy market and amending Directive 92/42/EEC’

Directive 2004/8/EC imposes the promotion and development of cogeneration on the member states of the EU. The member states should develop appropriate support systems adequate to their own economic and climatic conditions. There is also an annex in this Directive presenting the formula which defines the amount of primary energy savings provided by cogeneration:

Where: PES – primary energy savings

CHPH – efficiency of the heat production in cogeneration

REFH – efficiency reference value of the separated heat production

CHPHEN – efficiency of the electricity production in cogeneration

REFEN - efficiency reference value of the separated electricity production

As an implementation for directive 2004/8/EC Poland have effectuated its own incentive system based on certificates. There are three kinds of certificates: red, yellow and violet. The certificates are given to the utilities who run cogeneration plants whose PES is higher than 10%. Then they may be sold to the power system companies responsible for generating and distributing the energy. The yellow certificates are given to the microcogeration plants supplied by natural gas and with power less than 1MW, the violet ones are given to the cogeneration plants supplied by biogas and red certificates are given to all the rest kinds of cogeneration. The number of received certificates depends on generated energy.

The idea of supporting power utilities with colored certificates is essentially very controversial. In the point of view of free market economy every profitless business unit should be either sold or closed down, whereas with certification system they are subsided. In the end, all the certification costs enlarged by bureaucracy costs will be paid by the power consumers.

Other legislative documents concerning cogeneration are shown below.

‘Directive 2002/91/EC of the European parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on the energy performance of buildings’

‘Directive 2006/32/EC of the European parliament and of the Council of 5 April 2006 on energy end-use efficiency and energy services and repealing Council Directive 93/76/EEC’

‘Directive 2006/32/EC of the European parliament and of the Council of 5 April 2006 on energy end-use efficiency and energy services and repealing Council Directive 93/76/EEC’

CONCLUSIONS

Cogeneration is a key element in the energy conservation. It significantly improves the efficiency of energy generation which results in lower energy costs. Cogeneration have many types thus various plants can be constructed depending on the thermal and electrical demands. It is also a great source of distributed generation which enhances the reliability of the power system and lowers the transmission losses because there is no need to transport power on large distances. However cogeneration does not fit in everywhere. There have to be precise surveys done to check if there is a proper demand for both electricity and heat. Otherwise such a operation would be uneconomic.

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