ENVIRONMENTAL AND FINANCIAL ASSESSMENT FOR A CCHP DISTRICT PLANT IN A CITY IN ROMANIA

The benefits of cogeneration that is highlighted also by the European Union through different directives along with the energy legislation in Romania has started to raise some question on what it will be the cost to improve and expand this system and how to make it even more energy efficient. Of course, one of the solution is to transform a cogeneration system into a trigeneration system and upgrading or changing the equipment inside them to newer ones but there will be still another issue. What will it happen with the new neighborhoods that have appeared during the economic boom between 2008 and 2013 and with the residential buildings that are still being constructed somehow chaotic? The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that small district CCHP, for only 4 or 5 residential buildings is viable and with many benefits for the investors and for the environment. We concluded that for a small number of residential buildings in one of the largest cities of Romania, the optimal solution is by using mature technologies along with a fuel that has a pipe network very well structured and allows future development.