EURELECTRIC EXAMINES PROS AND CONS OF COGENERATION Saturday 08
February 1997 Cogeneration offers a very efficient way to
produce heat and electricity simultaneously but conditions for
significantly increasing its use may not exist in all Member
States, says Eurelectric, the European Grouping of the
Electricity Supply Industry. Cogeneration is the combined
generation of heat and electricity in a single plant, which uses
some 80% of the heat often lost during power generation, thus
helping reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Eurelectric's position
on cogeneration, namely, that it should be given "the
appropriate weight within a coherent (EU) energy policy", is a
response to a request for industry input from the European
Commission, which is currently drafting a Communication on
promoting cogeneration in the EU. Eurelectric considers that for
cogeneration to live up to its potential, several preconditions
must be met. There must be a continuous heat demand (from
hospitals or industrial drying processes, for example