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| <p>SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1</p> |
| <p>TALKING POINTS</p> |
| <p>BY</p> |
| <p>FRANK CAMPBELL,</p> |
| <p>Director, CANMET Energy Technology Centre-Ottawa</p> |
| <p>Welcome and Goals for the 3rd Annual Microturbine Applications Workshop</p> |
| <p>DATE 22nd Jan 2003</p> |
| <p>Ladies and Gentlemen,</p> |
| <p>Good morning and a very warm welcome to the 3rd Annual Microturbine Applications Workshop. Rob Brandon asked me to say a few words to set the Workshop in context and outline what we hope to achieve in the Workshop.</p> |
| <p>As you know the Canadian federal Government has ratified the Kyoto Accord and now the hard work starts to meet the challenging targets that Canada has accepted. As part of Canada’s overall strategy, the CANMET Energy Technology Centre has had a program promoting the utilization of large scale combined heat and power for some years. Today’s workshop reflects a somewhat new direction within our CHP activities – a Distributed Power Generation program, led by Rob Brandon from our laboratory in Ottawa. </p> |
| <p>The potential for distributed power generation, especially when combined with heat recovery, is huge. Finland in 1998 produced 75% of its thermally generated power using combined heat and power plants; Denmark produced 67%. Both the US and Canada have a long way to go. The technology showcased in this Workshop is one of the ways to significantly improve the situation.</p> |
| <p>I am advised that when Rob Brandon suggested a year ago in Washington that Calgary in mid-January would be a great place to hold the next event there was some muttering south of the border. We heard about inhospitable climate, freezing temperatures and the like. However, Anne has secured a hotel right next to the airport so one can walk from the plane to the workshop without even putting on one’s parka. Not that it’s especially cold; it’s been a pretty mild winter in Alberta this year. We had hoped to allow you to experience some –30C temperatures but no such luck. At the same time, we have to recognize that we have presenters and attendees from warm climates such as Australia and Japan who might find this a bit oppressive. Moreover, they may find it surprising that while we clearly have high heating loads in the winter in Canada, most of Canada, Calgary included, have hot summers (often > +30C) with high cooling demands. Because such extreme climates mean high utilization hours, this is good news for combined heat and power.</p> |
| <p>And just to show you what is possible and so that you all leave Alberta with the proper understanding of the role of modern technology in a cold climate, on the site tour (Thursday) you will see red roses (which by the way is the official symbol of Alberta) growing near Red Deer Alberta, in the Morningside greenhouse that uses four microturbines to provide power and heat.</p> |
| <p>Over four years ago CETC recognised that microturbines would require effective heat recovery systems if they were to achieve their market and environmental potential, and so we assisted Canadian companies who were developing such concepts. This workshop features several presentations that use Canadian fabricated components for heat recovery. Mariah Energy Corporation, based here in Calgary, is a leader in the development and commercialisation of this concept, and indeed the location of this company is one of the reasons for the location of the workshop here in Calgary. </p> |
| <p>Cost effective heat recovery systems are necessary for microturbine technology to be environmentally appropriate. From the beginning, our vision for microturbines was that of a packaged boiler system that produced electricity. Another part of the CETC vision is that microturbine CHP has to be installed with a minimum of engineering overhead. Based on what we have seen to date we think that the technical goal of reaching highly efficient heat recovery has been demonstrated, but that much more work needs to be done on reducing the installation and project transaction costs. I hope that we will see some good examples of project implementation in the presentations so we can anticipate a decline in installed project cost in the future.</p> |
| <p>I would see one of the goals of this workshop is to identify those concepts, installations, project management, and operations that work and those that do not and lead to high costs. I would ask presenters to be honest and open when sharing those things that did not work as expected, as it is probably more important to share the “lessons learned” than to expound on those aspects that went well.</p> |
| <p>The novelty of microturbine technology has worn off and now the challenge is to find those market niche areas that are high value but are also large enough to make a reasonable business case to sceptical customers. I might suggest that one of the goals of this workshop might be to share ideas and concepts that would help all present - suppliers, end users and consultants- discover these market niches and the associated value propositions. I note that this afternoon’s program is on using waste fuels and agree that if the cost of fuel cleaning and compression can be reduced that this is indeed a promising area. The Japanese project from Meidensha in the area of using waste liquids in microturbines is of special interest and I want to acknowledge all our guests from overseas, Holland, Sweden, Germany. Perhaps next year we should put International in the Workshop title.</p> |
| <p>We all need to co-operate and do more with limited funds, in particular sharing current data and results so that funds are not spent duplicating work whether it be within a country or internationally. The CETC Distributed Generation Program has tried hard over the years to carry out research and demonstration projects with many partners including several Canadian provincial gas and electric utilities, several of whom are giving presentations in this Workshop. CETC has just started a new four year program in the area of thermally activated cooling which we believe to be an important area that is very complementary to Distributed Generation. We are working with partners in China and the UK and although we do not have anything to report this year we hope to have some results to report on next year to compare with the work being done elsewhere in this important area.</p> |
| <p>I want to call your attention to the fact that this Workshop is being supported by a number of organisations. NRCan recognises the support of the workshop by Alberta’s Climate Change Central and the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada. The Canadian Distributed Resources Association (CANDRA) is a gas and electric utility association that is focussed on distributed resources and has been a supporter of this Workshop from its inception. Finally I want to especially acknowledge our co-organizer, the Office of Distributed Energy and Electric Reliability of the US Department of Energy, in particular Debbie Haught. Distributed Generation is one element of the work plan under the Memorandum of Understanding that exists between Natural Resources Canada and the US DOE. CETC has also had a great working relationship with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in this area and Rob has asked me to thank Dave Stinton of Oak Ridge and Stephanie Hamilton of Southern California Edison who helped in the workshop organisation.</p> |
| <p>So enough from me. I can see from the program that this is going to be a full day. I hope that you saw enough of the interesting posters last night to whet your appetite and that you also take the time to participate in the fascinating field trips. Enjoy the workshop. Thank you</p> |
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