CHP performance under the warming climate: a case study for Russia

Abstract

Vulnerability of the cogeneration technologies towards the climate change is addressed. Climate and energy modeling approaches were combined to simulate operation of a modern binary-cycle combined heat and power (CHP) plant across Russia. It has been shown that a heating loads decrease combined with an increase of the extreme cold temperatures is determining a crucial vulnerability mechanism for CHP technologies development under the climate change. A heating load criterion was elaborated to describe a dependence of the CHP performance on the local climate conditions. The proposed criterion was applied to generalize results of the fulfilled numerical modeling. It has been found that the climate-related CHP efficiency deterioration observed since the middle of the 20th century attained 0.3–0.9% points across Russia contributing to the current crisis of the CHP technology nationwide and increasing carbon intensity of the cogeneration sector. Peak heating demand management has been discussed as a potential adaptation strategy. The CHP efficiency drop may be leveled by an adjustment of the extreme cold temperature values according to the observed climate dynamics when designing the CHP plants.