Technical Application Sub-committee

Meeting No. 2

Wednesday June 4, 2014

11am to 12pm

Attendees:Greg Guess, Lee Colten, Bill Lunsford, Jason Volz, Bruce Hepke, Lissa McCracken, Cheryl Eakle, James Bush, Robert Chatham, Orville Snyder, Britney Thompson, John Zachem, Errol Wagner, Matt Braun, Sreenivas Kesaraju, Tim Lyons, Travis McCullar, Clinton Channell, Jagannadh Satyavolu

Agenda:

5 min –Welcome, Introductions, and New Member Briefing

  • Sub-committee Background/Charter
  • CHP experience or interest areas?

30 min –Tracking Sheet Review and Update (Request a volunteer to lead each, submit as action plan item?) (Opportunity and Barrier items from the tracking sheet are noted as O and B below)

  • O1 - Waste Heat to Power
  • O2 - CHP Reliability
  • B1 - Design to minimize Standby/Demand Charges
  • LGE/KU is only utility that identifies standby rates in tariff
  • McCullar – FPB does not have a tariff specific to standby charges. Demand charges are passed through from the supplier and handled under that contract.
  • Lyons – OMU – Demand charges are also pass through unless load is directly on transmission system and directly accessing the power producer’spart of the grid.
  • Colten – How do standby charges compare to base rates?Volz –Utility bills typically consist of a (kWh) energy usage charge and a demand charge that is based off of a peak power demand window (kw charge). Standby rates are based off of the reserved capacity and thus similar to a demand charge . Lunsford – Since base rates are a fixed charged according to a rate classification further clarification is needed.
  • Snyder – Domtar makes as much as 80% of its own power and the rest comes from the open market. Contract negotiation is very important. Understand contract to avoid areas of high power cost. Keep demand as low as possible.
  • Zachem – Hospitals and computer centers have to have redundancy and reserve power. Design process such that grid demand is minimized, but account for the needed reserves for those facilities.
  • Thompson – compile viewpoints and lessons learned on this topic
  • B2 –Permitting
  • Volz – Committee should try to determine permitting requirements for different CHP system types
  • Kesaraju – First step will be to define “Universe” of CHP scenarios

-Requirements are output based

-Some modifications are considered in the regulations such as combustion turbine replacement with CHP without penalty as long as investment for the mod is less than 50%

  • Colten- A permitting decision tree would be a good tool to have.
  • Kesaraju- A decision tree may be possible if the permitting universe is small enough and well defined
  • B3 –Maintenance
  • Volz- Domtar has given the group some excellent tips on this matter

-We may also want to consider contacting equipment providers for information

  • Chatham – Manufacturers would have preventative maintenance/warranty/rebuild requirement per system.
  • Snyder – Domtar has a Siemens turbine and generator. Siemens would be a good contact.

-Equipment is specialized

-~5yr teardown requirements

-Maintenance cost must be a significant consideration

-Plant maintenance can manage day to day needs, but large repairs require advanced cost and operations planning

  • B4 –Fuels
  • Snyder - Domtar receives waste wood from local sawmills inside a max radius

-Competition for waste wood is projected to increase and cost/btu will rise

  • Chatham – Someone should reach out to forestry department about potential for obtaining wood for fuel from thinning
  • Satyavolu – Will look into other fuels availability/issues.
  • B5 - Electrical interconnection
  • Volz- would like to identify a power system interconnection checklist
  • Lyons – OMU has rigorous guidelines for interconnection of Distributed Generation type equipment

-Utility has a permitting process to go through to ensure safety

-Engineering cost may be involved depending on system size

  • McCullar- Primary safety concern is that there is a proper disconnecting means to prevent back fed power when the grid is down
  • Wagner- Regulated utilities with net metering tariffs have a process to follow for interconnection. There is a distinction between requirements for systems smaller or larger than 100kw. Larger voltage systems will also have additional requirements and all systems have to follow the appropriate codes such as NEC, IEEE, UL or other standards.
  • Volz – May be helpful to have a tip sheet for what questions to ask, or information to provide when initially approaching a utility about interconnection.
  • Lyons- Would like to pull together existing utility and other information and summarize.
  • B6 –Integration
  • Bush – Consulting Engineers are needed for CHP and more so for specific or non-standard applications.

-Information should be provided to engineers such as interval data, heat load, one line diagram of current system, anything needed to help match up to the current configuration to streamline the systems design process.

  • B7 –Thermal
  • Heat load types/options need to be defined (may revisit after looking at what we come up with on B2)
  • B8 - Electricity/Heat Load balance
  • Channell- Balancing electricity and heat demand is a big challenge

-Excess heat can be “dumped” into a remote radiator if needed for safety

-System size and load type dictate requirements for balancing

5 min - Technical Reference Library

  • Documentation of Proposed vs Final published outside the group
  • Links on tracking sheet/DEDI website
  • Each Sub-committee member can bring forth references to add to the tracking sheet

5 min - Lessons Learned DataCollection

  • New Tab on tracking sheet
  • Communicate Inside/outside the group to gather information
  • Coordinate with other subs?
  • Contact Facilities

10 minutes - Roundtable Discussion, New Items, Additional Feedback

5 min –Next steps and action item recap

  • Next Call scheduled for August 6th (First Wednesday every even month)
  • Interim communications: E-mail Bill and Jason (may also copy team)
  • B1 – Individual Sub-committee members will supply ideas to DEDI for systems design and operation. Then committee will add this item to a questionnaire or some other means to collect additional lessons learned data from operational facilities. Ultimately information will be compiled and presented in some format such as a best practices fact sheet.
  • B2–List of most common CHP system types to be compiledincluding prime mover type, capacity, heat load type, and fuel type – Robert Chatham

-Characterize required air permits based on the universe of CHP unit types listed Sreenivas Kesaraju

  • B3 – Maintenance required by type of equipment. Vendors will be contacted for information. Lunsford – Siemens, Volz – Caterpillar, and Robert Chatham will reach out to his contacts
  • B4-Jagannadh Satyavolu with the Louisville Conn Center will research availability of different fuels
  • B5 –Tim Lyons will research and organize interconnection information
  • B8 – Cheryl Eakle will call James Bush to discuss KPPC Data and provide notes to DEDI
  • Discussions after the meeting(Add to tracking sheet and next agenda for discussion):
  • Biomass sources within 50 miles is essential to make biomass CHP financially viable. Is there a way to incorporate existing biomass sources into a map for targeting biomass CHP outreach?
  • Potential for small scale plants should be discussed.This would include the Capstone Turbines, CAT on the high end around 1+ MW and below to be used in hotels, large office buildings, etc and the ViessmanVitoTwin and Honda ECOWILL on the low end for residential and small business applications. Figuring out ways to simplify utility interconnection and determine if any regulatory issues are restricting these markets could result in larger growth percentages in this market due to the much lower entrance costs.