What is a CHP project?

Combined heat and power (CHP) is an efficient co-generation process able to use a wide variety of fuel sources, capturing and utilising the heat produced in power generation. By generating heat and power simultaneously from the same fuel, CHP can achieve efficiencies compared to the separate generation of heat through eg a gas-fired boiler and an electricity power station. Where a demand for both heat and electricity exists in the same location, CHP can reduce energy costs as well as carbon emissions and air pollution.

CHP is technically feasible for many types of thermal generating stations, including energy from waste, biomass with CCUS (BECCS), hydrogen and nuclear, but a significant majority of plants in the UK are currently fuelled by natural gas. Such CHP schemes power hospitals, university campuses, large industrial sites and residential developments. They produce electricity from an on-site generation station which is fuelled by natural gas, (usually called an ‘energy centre’ in this context) and the heat created by the generation process