By Rod Walton, EnergyTech Senior Editor
The exponential growth of industrial manufacturing in Asia Pacific will help drive the global combined heat and power (CHP) marker by about six percent annually over the next five years, according to a new forecast by research firm MarketsandMarkets.
The MandM report predicts that global CHP sector will top more than $35 billion by 2026, compared with slightly under $27 billion in 2021. The CHP—also called cogeneration—market includes industrial plants which utilize both their on-site power system’s electricity output but also the captured exhaust heat used in many processes.
CHP plants are usually 10 to 15-MW power generation facilities providing energy certainty for industrials who do not want to rely on the power grid or are remotely located. Their power systems can be centered around gas-fired turbines or diesel gen-sets, as well as combined cycle plants with heat recovery steam generators.
The gas turbine segment accounted for a third of the CHP total in 2020, according to MarketsandMarkets. Natural gas is a key part of the CHP generation in more than half of the cogeneration plants, according to reports, while many older plants are still fueled by coal.
Asia Pacific already generates close to 56 percent of the global CHP output, the report summary reads. In coming years, accelerating economic growth in China, India, South Korea and elsewhere in the region will push that CHP margin even higher, according to the report.
Many CHP customers could be looking into hybrid generation systems incorporating hydrogen to help meet sustainability and carbon-reduction goals. Companies working on mixing H2 and methane gas in turbines include Siemens, Mitsubishi Power, Cummins, Caterpillar, MAN Energy Solutions and numerous others.
Perhaps one of the biggest cogeneration plants in the U.S. is the 23-MW National Institutes of Health CHP power generation site in Maryland. The NIH recently replaced its original CHP power system with a Siemens SGT-600 3rd generation dry low emissions combustion system gas turbine (pictured), which operates on the same principles as a jet engine.
(Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can reached at [email protected]).
