Waste heat

I would like to wholeheartedly agree with Philip Andrews who pointed out (Waste of energy; SN 3/11/14) that the waste-heat from the Gremista power station is not used in the district heating scheme, which is already short of heat and could be extended yet further if this heat were made available.

Not only does use of the power station waste-heat save fuel, it also saves investment in power station electrical capacity – ie. by using the diesel waste-heat to displace expensive electricity heating, less money overall need be invested in generating capacity.

Furthermore, modern diesels are extremely efficient in small sizes and there is a case that a number of small and quiet automatically-controlled diesels could be distributed around the islands close to large buildings and clusters of dwellings.

Again use of the waste heat would reduce the peak demand for electricity and reduce the overall size and cost of electricity generation.

David Andrews (no relation)
Bath
Somerset

Link to comprehensive report on Combined Heat and Power and District Heating, written by the Joint Research Centre, Petten, under contract to European Commission, DG Ener: http://setis.ec.europa.eu/system/files/JRCDistrictheatingandcooling.pdf