State Opportunities for Action: Review of States' Combined Heat and Power Activities

Elizabeth Brown, Kalon Scott, and R. Neal Elliott, P.E., Ph.D.

September 2002

Summary/Purpose

Combined heat and power (CHP) has been the focus of federal attention since the mid-1990s. However, many of the market barriers to CHP are at the state level. As a sign of the maturing of the CHP market, a number of states are now undertaking activities to address barriers to CHP, and some states have begun to provide incentives to encourage the development of systems in their states.

This report, the first phase of a larger project, outlines current state-level activities regarding CHP in the areas of interconnection, emissions standards, and financial incentives offered for CHP. During the research for this report, the authors encountered many difficulties in obtaining information and also discovered many barriers to the installation of CHP that are not specifically covered here. These other barriers include complex rate design issues that aer utility-based as opposed to state-based. Utility regions are only covered topically and where they are clearly the largest barrier or incentive. Moreover, because this report intends to educate the public about the difficulties of installing CHP, specifically not covered in this report are utility-owned CHP facilities and large investor-owned utilities (IOUs).

34 pp., 2002, $13.00, IE022

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