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A Ranking of State Combined Heat and Power Policies
Abstract
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) has been identified
as a significant opportunity for greater energy
efficiency and decreased environmental impacts of
energy consumption. Despite this, the regulatory and
policy landscape for CHP is often quite discouraging
to the deployment of these systems, despite their
many benefits to customers and society at large. That
the landscape changes considerably from state to
state only confuses the matter.
Of all the various types of distributed generation,
CHP systems encompass technologies particularly
hard hit by policies and regulations that do not
actively support their deployment. Given the large
size of some CHP systems, interconnection standards
that clearly delineate interconnection processes for
multi-megawatt systems are necessary. In addition,
since many CHP technologies emit incremental
criteria pollutants as part of their operation, the
manner in which emissions are regulated by a state
can significantly impact the financial realities of
running a CHP system.
In the absence of strong federal guidance,
interconnection standards, tax incentives, tariff
designs, environmental regulations and other policy
measures that dramatically impact the attractiveness
of CHP projects can only be significantly addressed
by state lawmakers and regulators. State activity is
essential to creating a policy framework that
encourages CHP. Within the past several years, a
number of states have made significant strides in
implementing more “CHP-friendly” policies. Some
states have worked to develop these policies at an
accelerated rate while others have done little. In
many cases the difference between states that are
proactively encouraging CHP and states that are
ignoring it all together is stark.
This paper will identify which states are leading
the way, which states are following, and what the
policies of all states look like at this current point in
time. It will define what “CHP-friendly” policies are,
what makes a good policy better, and discuss the
manners in which a variety of states have chosen to
approach CHP. CHP system developers will come
away with a clearer picture of each state’s unique
CHP barriers, potential CHP customers will
understand how their current CHP climate compares
to that of other locations, and state lawmakers and
CHP advocates will be able to learn about best
practices in policy creation that already exist in the
field.
Subject
Combined Heat and Power PoliciesCollections
Citation
Chittum, A.; Kaufman, N. (2009). A Ranking of State Combined Heat and Power Policies. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /91069.