Designing Hybrid Combined Heat and Power Systems: An Introduction to New Features in NREL’s REopt Lite Tool

Funded by the Department of Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has added important new features to its free solar+wind+storage online optimization tool, REopt Lite. The new features will help building owners, energy managers, and emergency planners assess opportunities for combined heat and power (CHP) systems to provide economic savings and power essential services with onsite resources during grid disruptions. The tool was developed to assist users in quickly and simply evaluating the costs and benefits of implementing distributed energy resources for electric bill savings and improved energy resilience in facilities across the U.S.

This webinar focused on REopt Lite’s new CHP capabilities. The new CHP module allows users to evaluate the economic and resilience benefits of four types of combined heat and power prime movers (reciprocating engines, microturbines, combustion turbines, and fuel cells) as well as chilled water storage, hot water storage, and absorption chillers. These technologies can be evaluated on their own or in combination with solar PV, wind, and battery storage to assess the benefits of hybrid CHP systems.

Kate Anderson, who leads the Modeling and Analysis Group at NREL, provided an overview of REopt Lite for anyone new to the tool and Dan Olis, NREL senior engineer, introduced the new CHP features. This was followed by a demonstration of the new combined heat and power capabilities by Bill Becker, REopt Lite developer.

This webinar was a presentation of Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Project. Learn more at www.resilient-power.org.