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Capturing energy waste can save billions of dollars

Posted March 08, 2012 in Press Releases

Report recommends central role for combined heat and power in Ohio

The use of combined heat and power technologies in Ohio could save billions of dollars currently lost in the state’s inefficient electric system, according to a report released today by Policy Matters Ohio.

Combined heat and power, also known as cogeneration, produces power by capturing and recycling heat that would otherwise be wasted. Ohio’s electric power industry, the biggest source of the state’s energy waste, squanders nearly one-third of all energy consumed in the state.

“This is a waste of both scarce resources and money, and results in large amounts of unnecessary toxic and carbon emissions,” said Amanda Woodrum, Policy Matters researcher and report co-author. “Ohio lags behind other states in the bang it gets from its energy bucks. New York state gets more than twice as much output from the energy it consumes.”

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has rightly made CHP one of the ten pillars in his energy policy, the full details of which are likely to be released next week.

A strong role for CHP makes sense. Ohio has the potential to generate a quarter of its electricity from CHP, but current CHP generation is less than 2 percent of capacity, according to the report, Capturing energy waste in Ohio: Using combined heat and power to upgrade electric system. A 10 percent increase in CHP's share of total electric power capacity (a boost of 3.6 gigawatts), would create $1.3 billion in annual energy savings while reducing emissions by 13 million metric tons