Cogeneration and biomass becoming popular in Southeast Asia

According to Markets & Research, the multiple benefits of cogeneration boost its popularity in Southeast Asia. Combined heat and power (CHP) generation, popularly known as cogeneration, has emerged as a highly attractive alternative to traditional power and heat generating options in recent years due to its low capital investment, reduced fuel consumption and environmental pollution, as well as better fuel diversity. The technology has become especially attractive due to the abundance of low-cost biomass fuels. The cogeneration equipment market is set to grow at an annual rate of 10.7% to 2012.

Globally, countries are increasingly shifting toward energy development based mainly on biomass, coal, and gas to tackle diminishing oil reserves and skyrocketing oil prices and Southeast Asia is no exception to this rising trend. This region’s thriving manufacturing and service sectors present excellent growth opportunities for cogeneration equipment manufacturers due to the ability of this technology to provide dual output from a single source.

Growing environmental concerns and increasing global emphasis on reducing greenhouse gases are two of the biggest factors driving the use of cogeneration for bulk power generation. The main advantages of the technology are:

• its improved efficiency in fuel conversion, allows cogeneration to reduce the amount of fuel burned for a given energy output; efficiencies of up to 80% can be achieved, compared to 35% in conventional power generation (see image, click to enlarge)
  
• cogeneration enables companies to meet stringent emission standards
  
• most significantly, companies can make use of abundantly available fuel resources such as biomass (both agricultural waste as well as dedicated biomass) and industrial waste for generating on-site power, thereby gaining substantial cost benefits
  
• the waste heat generated can be effectively utilized for other purposes such as district heating and air conditioning applications
  
• these factors lead to significant savings in energy costs that act as a major driver for cogeneration

The research looked at the market situation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam, all countries with abundant waste biomass resources, and at the following power generation technologies:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: combined heat-and-power :: CHP :: cogeneration :: biomass :: Southeast Asia ::

-Cogeneration: Also known as combined heat and power (CHP), cogeneration is defined as an efficient, clean and reliable approach for generating electrical power and thermal energy simultaneously from a single fuel source. Cogeneration effectively utilizes the heat energy discarded by conventional power generation.
-Gas Turbines: Gas turbines are heat engines used for converting heat energy into mechanical energy. There are three important sections for a gas turbine. They are the compressor (to compress the incoming air to high pressure), combustion chamber (to burn the fuel to produce high pressure and high velocity gas), and turbine (to extract the energy from the high velocity gases). In a gas turbine, a pressurized gas spins the turbine. In all gas turbines, high pressure high-velocity gas is produced in the combustion chamber by burning fuels such as propane, natural gas, kerosene or jet fuel. This high-pressure and high-velocity gas is directed towards the turbine section to rotate the shaft, which is directly coupled to the electric generator to produce the electricity.
-Steam Turbines: Steam turbines are heat engines used for converting energy of high-pressure steam (produced in a boiler) into mechanical power, which can then be used to generate electricity. The high pressure steam from the boiler or heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) is directed on to the blades of steam turbine, which causes rotation of the shaft. The shaft is mechanically coupled to the generator to produce electricity.
- Boiler: A boiler is a sealed vessel where water is converted into steam by fuel firing.
- Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG): A heat recovery steam generator recovers exhaust heat from a gas turbine, to produce steam.

The research found that in 2005, the Southeast Asian cogeneration equipment market earned revenues of US$814.5 million and this is expected to grow to US$1.6 billion by the end of 2012 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.7 percent, largely due to vigorous industrial development in the region. While the gas turbine and steam turbine segments are developing ones, the segment for boilers is saturated. The heat recovery steam generators (HRSG) segment is currently an emerging one with limited scope.

Market trends indicate that end users are demanding highly efficient equipment to help them meet strict emission regulations. Other significant trends include the repowering of old plants and the establishment of new ones, observe the analysts. The demand for onsite power generation is expected to grow, especially in industries located in the rural areas where the fuel resources available are mainly biomass and industrial waste.