Tomasz WALEK
Silesian University of Technology, Poland
Effective production and use of electricity and heat is a great challenge due to the exhausting resources of primary fuels and the need to take measures to protect the natural environment. Cogeneration, or combined generation, is the highly efficient conversion of energy contained in fuels into power and heat. It can be implemented both on a large scale in CHP plants and a small one in micro-cogeneration units. The article presents analyzes of power and heat demand in buildings of various purposes and types of use, from residential buildings, through hotels and guesthouses, to swimming pool complexes and production plants with constant energy consumption. For the buildings analyzed, the selection of specific capacity of the MCHP XRGI gas-fueled micro-cogeneration systems has been presented, which aimed at ensuring the highest possible financial benefits for end-users. The annual operational savings possible to achieve in individual types of buildings have been shown. Then, simple investment payback periods for individual cogeneration system applications have been presented. This made it possible to determine for which types of buildings the application of gas micro-cogeneration is economically justified. Objects with a payback time of fewer than 5 years, which can be reached even without any subsidies or investment co-financing, are medium-size hotels with swimming pools, large hotels with or without swimming pools, swimming pool complexes, water sports centers, and production plants with year-round demand for thermal energy.