Assessment of the Impact of Renewable Energy Expansion on the Technological Competitiveness of the Cogeneration Model

Abstract

The rapid transition from an efficiency-oriented to a renewable energy-based green environment raises questions about the sustainability of cogeneration models in the coming era of climate change. For securing the technological competitiveness of a cogeneration model in terms of sustainability, it is essential to come up with alternatives that can flexibly respond to changes in the market conditions. From the surveyed field operation data of the cogeneration model applied to an apartment complex, it was found that the actual operation performance may differ significantly from the theoretical expectation. Through diagnostic simulation analysis, the main cause of the disappointing performance in the case of the current cogeneration model after installation has been assessed, and the importance of a consistent operation strategy was demonstrated by the event-based correlation analysis based on field operation data. The impact of the rapid expansion and dissemination of the renewable energy market on the relative primary energy savings benefit evaluation of the cogeneration model was analyzed for various operating conditions.