New scheme to overcome barriers to combined heat and power

BG Transco and the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions (DETR) are contributing match funding for a two-year initiative to overcome the barriers to installing combined heat and power (CHP).


The new programme is an extension of Transco’s successful feasibility study programme, established in 1997 and available through the Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA), which awards grants to cover much of the cost of a feasibility study for larger CHP (over 1MW). Through partial funding for site-specific CHP studies, the Programme aims to stimulate £1 million of work on such CHP evaluation.

“This new scheme differs from the earlier initiative in that while we have overcome the first hurdle to implementation – the technical issue – we still need to address other barriers to implementing CHP such as finance, planning, and the social and environmental issues,” BG Transco’s Ashley Guise told IEM. “How should the financial case for CHP be presented to the Board, for example, or what are the planning issues involved? By addressing these issues we aim to smooth the path for installation of CHP.”

Some £400,000 has already been awarded to 40 public and private organisations, 24 of them in industry, for CHP feasibility studies. These schemes will now be reassessed to identify if further barriers to implementation exist, and by helping applicants to overcome them.

A computer model will also be developed so potential users can ‘click’ on a barrier and be given a suggested route to overcoming it.

The UK is currently working towards a target of 5,000MW of installed CHP capacity in the year 2000, which it is broadly on target to meet. Ministers are now considering an increased target of at least 10,000MW for 2010 in the context of the climate change programme where it sees CHP as a key measure in meeting UK objectives.

For further information contact Alan Doggett-Jones, Combined Heat & Power Association on tel: 0171 828 4077.

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