Improving Fuel Efficiency based on Mini-CHPP

Improving environmental friendliness and rational use of resources is the modern trend in the development of energy all over the world. The widespread need of a large volume of heat energy limits the use of renewable energy sources in most of the territory of Russia. Effective cogeneration technologies can become the basis for the energy transition in Russia. There is a process of decreasing the share of CHPP in heat production due to displacement by boiler houses in the power industry of Russia. It is proposed to transform heating boiler houses to mini-CHPP, based on gas turbine and gas piston technologies to ensure energy efficiency and rational use of natural gas. The aim of the work is to substantiate the feasibility of transforming the boiler house to a mini-CHPP, to determine the structure of heat and electric energy generation to provide fuel efficiency. The paper proposes a fuel efficiency criterion for assessing energy supply options, that considers the efficiency of processing natural resources into heat and electric energy. The comparison of power supply options was carried out to substantiate the feasibility of reconstruction of the boiler house. The factors influencing the fuel efficiency were revealed. Variants of boiler house reconstruction were proposed and compared from the standpoint of fuel efficiency. The work has proved that transforming a boiler house to a mini-CHPP provides the highest fuel efficiency in comparison with alternative energy supply options. A conclusion was made about the optimal structure of generation and the operating mode of the mini-CHP was substantiated. The ratio of heat and electrical loads of mini-CHP plants, which provides maximum fuel efficiency, has been revealed.