STUDY OF DIFFERENT MICRO CHP ALTERNATIVES FOR RESIDENTIAL APPLICATION

The growing worldwide demand for less polluting forms of energy has led to a renewed interest in theuse of micro combined heat and power (CHP) technologies in the residential sector. Micro CHP is thesimultaneous production of heat and power in a single building based on small energy conversion units.The heat produced is used for space and water heating and possibly for cooling, the electricity is usedwithin the building.In this paper, two typical CHP types for a residential building are analyzed, namely ECOWILL gasengine plant and LIFUEL fuel cell plant. For each facility, two different control strategies are studied: tominimize annual energy cost and to minimize annual CO2 emissions, using an evaluation modelconstructed in the optimization software package LINGO. The analysis result shows that the fuel cellsystem serves the assumed residential building better than the gas engine system. With the operationof optimal economic benefits, annual energy cost is reduced by about 26% compared with theconventional system (served by utility grids). On the other hand, considering the optimal environmentalbenefits, annual CO2 emission is reduced by about 9%.