Executive Summary
Introduction
Many light industrial and commercial markets rely heavily on natural gas as their energy source and, in 2018, these sectors used 27 percent of California’s natural gas supplies. These markets are considered as potential users for combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) systems, yet are underserved and unserved because CCHP has technological and economic challenges. The main barriers to adoption of microscale CCHP with adsorption chillers are due to their limited availability, effectiveness, and California’s dependency on natural gas.
Further, climate change is causing a forest health crisis in California, with a tree mortality emergency that has seen over one hundred million trees dead and at risk of being ignited in catastrophic wildfires that would emit substantial carbon emissions. There is a pressing need for an economical and climate-sensitive approach to reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire, while also addressing the state’s need for natural gas alternatives and clean renewable energy.
All Power Labs has been at the forefront of small-scale gasification technologies for more than 10 years, designing, engineering, building, and deploying compact biomass gasifier generators. The production of electricity from gasification creates multiple sources of heat, providing additional energy related opportunities when harnessed — including the generation of cooling by integrating an adsorption or absorption cooler.
The research conducted under this project developed the CCHP PP30 Power Pallet, which holds great potential for directly addressing the dependency on natural gas for combined heat and power (CHP) applications and contributing to California’s clean energy goals. The developed technology improved the previous version of the All Power Labs’ Power Pallet by integrating a more robust CHP and adsorption cooling system, which was selected based on the scale and energy range of the system and project.
The CCHP Power Pallet technology holds promise in supporting progress towards a number of important state energy policies and laws, including:
- Senate Bill 100 (De León, Chapter 312, Statutes of 2018) – California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program
- Execute Order B-55-18 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045
- Senate Bill 350 (De León, Chapter 547, Statutes of 2015) – Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015
- Renewables Portfolio Standard Senate Bill X1-2, (Simitian, Chapter 1, Statutes of 2011); SB 107 (Simitian, Chapter 464, Statutes of 2006); SB 1078 (Sher, Chapter 849, Statutes of 2002)
- Assembly Bill 32 (Nuñez, Chapter 488, Statutes of 2006) – The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006
- SB 1122 (Rubio, Chapter 612, Statutes of 2012) – Bioenergy Feed-in Tariff
- Senate Bill 96 (Rubio, Chapter 612, Statutes of 2012) – Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, Statutes of 2013
- Proclamation of a State of Emergency 10-30-15
