Fossil fuel and biomass fed distributed generation and utility plants: analysis of energy and environmental performance indicators

Power electronics and control play a key role in the distributed generation plants, particularly if they are part of complex systems where end-users, electricity distribution and transmission, utility power plants, bi-directional flow of power and information, renewable sources and environmental impacts are strictly integrated. A deep knowledge of the performances of these systems, compared with those of utility plants, is the base for implementing their control and monitoring with the goal of optimizing the energy and environmental performances. The increase of utility plants efficiency, up to 60% in large combined cycle power plants (GTCC), may jeopardize the advantages associated with distributed generation. This can occur even in the case of cogeneration, when heat recovery is not thoroughly designed and exploited. A comparison between distributed generation and utility plants based on a few key performance indicators is reported under different working conditions and fuels.