Industrial Distributed Energy Generation to Increase by 46 Percent by 2016
Ten years ago, the market for industrial distributed energy generation – wherein industrial users choose to generate their own power requirements rather than rely on outside supply—was typified by end-user-owned combined heat and power (CHP) facilities that met the majority of electricity, heat, and cooling demands for a site. These CHP systems range between several megawatts and several hundred megawatts, provided by combustion-based prime movers, such as natural gas-fueled reciprocating engines and turbines, or by heat recovered from a plant process.
For the most part, that definition still applies; over the last three to five years, however, a number of drivers and new contexts have emerged for the use of large-scale, user-sited generation. The industrial distributed generation (IDG) market landscape is evolving to include new technologies, systems, business models, and service providers that are altering how traditional transmission and distribution systems are controlled and operated.