Advantages
The advantage of having some "ownership" of one's electrical power was discussed above. Actual utility bill savings are probably minimal when looking at life-cycle cost of this approach as compared to a simple natural gas furnace.
There are definite pollution-reduction advantages if the unit is replacing an electric heating system powered by a coal power plant.
Also, like other distributed power systems, the end user can configure the unit as an emergency power source in the event of a power outage.
A big picture advantage of this approach is the ability to distribute power generation, locally, at the end-user rather than a remote power plant. If deployed on a large scale, this can reduce the need for new power plant installations and free-up transmission line capacity for other uses (e.g. solar energy or wind turbine farms). There is also the reduced long-range transmission losses. Avoiding transmission line losses and power plant construction reduces costs, energy consumption and pollution for everyone. In a fully realized distributed power generation scenario, micro-CHP may be used to supplement the less predictable generation provided by solar, wind and other energy sources, and therefore increase grid reliability.
Read more about this topic: Micro Combined Heat And Power
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“If the minds of women were enlightened and improved, the domestic circle would be more frequently refreshed by intelligent conversation, a means of edification now deplorably neglected, for want of that cultivation which these intellectual advantages would confer.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We work harder than ever, and I cannot see the advantages in cooperative living.”
—Lydia Arnold, U.S. commune supervisor (of the North American Phalanx, Red Bank, New Jersey, 1843- 1855)