July 25, 2023 — The Combined Heat and Power Alliance commends the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations for reporting its Energy and Water Development Fiscal Year 2024 Appropriations Act to the full Senate. The bill provides $58.095 billion in total funding for the Department of Energy, Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and independent agencies. The report includes several favorable funding measures for the CHP industry, most notably support for the CHP Technical Assistance Programs (TAPs), which helps America’s factories and businesses reduce emissions and stay ahead of China and other nations on economic competitiveness; research and development for CHP’s role in delivering clean and reliable power to the industrial and commercial sectors; and use of clean fuels such as hydrogen with efficient CHP systems. We’ve pulled out the language from the report with explicit mention of CHP technology:
Advanced Manufacturing – “Within available funds, the Committee recommends up to $15,000,000 to provide ongoing support for the Combined Heat and Power Technical Assistance Partnerships and related CHP Technical Partnership activities. The Department is directed to collaborate with industry on the potential energy efficiency and energy security gains to be realized with district energy systems.” (p. 90)
Building Technologies – “The Department [of Energy] is encouraged to continue exploring research and development that can advance systems and appliances, driven by delivered fuels including renewable fuels and hydrogen, to meet consumer demands for high efficiency and environmentally friendly products in residential and commercial building applications, including heat pumps with power generation and water heating, increased utilization of renewable fuels and hydrogen, appliance venting, hybrid fuel-fired and electrically-driven systems, distributed carbon capture, mitigation of behind-the-meter methane emissions, and onsite (micro) combined heat and power to include cooling and integration with renewables.” (p. 92)
Hydrogen – “The recommendation provides not less than $94,000,000 for the research, development, and demonstration of solid oxide fuel cell systems and hydrogen production, transportation, storage, and use…The Committee recognizes the importance of advancing solid oxide fuel cell systems, especially for distributed and central power generation electrolysis, combined heat and power, and storage applications.” (p. 105)
There is additional funding in the report that the CHP Alliance supports pertaining to natural gas decarbonization, hydrogen technologies, and carbon management. CHP units achieved significant emission reductions when used with natural gas and can achieve even greater emission reductions when using renewable and decarbonized fuels such as biomass, clean hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, renewable natural gas or biomethane, and renewable propane.
We will continue to the monitor the situation between the House and Senate as a final FY24 E&W Appropriations bill is reached.
You can view the full committee FY24 Energy & Water report here.