CHP Bureau

Flying blind
Many organisations operating CHP plants experience difficulty in getting hold of the information they need on the financial performance of the asset, leading to them "flying blind".

Innovate UK
BSL has received Innovate UK funding for the creation of a centralised CHP bureau. This project will run for two years starting in June 2015 and is a partnership with the University of Brighton.

Data network
The aim of the Bureau is to enable organisations to connect their units to the Bureau and benefit from aggregating operational data from a nationwide network of CHP plants. It provides users with advice on operational efficiency optimisation and facilitate the export of excess electricity to the national grid.

Challenge
Financial performance is usually performed as a manual calculation. We believe this is one of the reasons CHP systems are not more widely adopted.
The UK Government are backing CHP and see it as making a valuable contribution to total UK power capacity due to the ability to recover and use the heat produced. They have introduced a number of fiscal and financial support mechanisms designed to remove the financial barriers hindering CHP adoption.
For this we need to make the CHP talk to all types of building users – directors, engineers, heads of finance, visitors and all others – through energy displays, automated reports and other communication channels that impact building users.

Compliance reports
Used to meet all obligations to achieve exemptions from the Climate Change Levy and other government incentives.

Optimisation applications
A comparative reference model is used to assess the near real-time efficiency of the plant. Optimised run times for different days of the week and seasons are calculated.

Return On Investment display
In near time the accumulated savings made by operating the CHP plant comparing all the CHP costs with the alternative cost of sourcing the energy from the grid.

Visualisation
Energy and Sustainability dashboard allow you to visualise how well your CHP is performing and the environmental benefits made possible.

Community
Using social networks and public display we can promote live CHP case studies pushing your green credentials out into the view of your stakeholders.