The California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) will receive $2.2 million over four years from the U.S. Department of Energy to provide support and technical assistance throughout California, Nevada and Hawaii to drive wider development of cogeneration energy technologies as solutions to the nation’s energy issues.

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announced Monday, Oct. 21, the selection of the San Diego-based CCSE to direct the Pacific regional Combined Heat and Power Technical Assistance Partnership (CHP-TAP), one of seven regional partnerships. CCSE is the CHP-TAP program director leading the effort in collaboration with Energy and Environmental Economics (E3) in San Francisco and DE Solutions in Encinitas, Calif.

The main purpose of the DOE regional partnerships is to increase the nation’s clean energy capacity using combined heat and power (CHP) systems that capture energy that would normally be lost in industrial and commercial facilities. Instead of purchasing electricity from the distribution grid and producing thermal energy by burning fuel in a furnace or boiler, a facility can use CHP to provide both energy services in one efficient step.

“CCSE is proud to be assisting in this nationwide effort to increase efficient, on-site energy generation and to foster clean energy technologies,” said CCSE Executive Director Len Hering, RADM, USN (ret). “We look forward to working with a variety of energy and industry stakeholders to increase energy efficiency, reduce emissions, improve the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing and grow our economy.”

On August 30, 2012, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13624, “Accelerating Industrial Energy Efficiency,” promoting American manufacturing by helping to facilitate energy efficiency at industrial facilities. The order establishes a national goal of deploying 40 gigawatts of new, cost-effective CHP in the nation by the end of 2020 by helping remove market barriers. Industrial processes consume about one-third of all U.S. energy production, and almost all U.S. CHP capacity serves industrial plants.

While CHP systems have been in use in the United States for more than 100 years, it remains an underutilized resource. Currently, about 82 gigawatts of CHP are deployed in the nation, representing only about 8% of total generating capacity.

The Pacific CHP-TAP will provide education, outreach and technical assistance to a variety of stakeholders including commercial and industrial end-users, state decision-makers, electric and gas utilities, trade associations and nonprofit organizations. This assistance will focus on overcoming barriers to CHP use by evaluating the technical, economic, energy, reliability and environmental value of systems.

“CCSE has been a great resource for state and regional policymakers in identifying and reducing barriers to adoption of critical clean energy technologies, providing neutral, independent market development services,” said Stacey Crowley, director, Nevada Governor’s Office of Energy. “We are excited to partner with this team to explore opportunities to support CHP as a means to advance our renewable portfolio standard and clean energy objectives.”

Carl Volz, chairman of the California Clean Distributed Generation Coalition, an industry organization, said, “We believe this project team is well-positioned to accelerate adoption of this technology to meet both CHP installation goals in the Pacific Region and support national goals of an additional 40 gigawatts by 2020.”

About the California Center for Sustainable Energy

CCSE is an independent, nonprofit organization that accelerates the adoption of clean and efficient energy solutions throughout California. They manage and coordinate programs that support efforts of the California Air Resources Board, California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission and a wide variety of local government agencies, utilities and other nonprofits. Learn more at www.energycenter.org.