The use of affordable distributed energy (DE) is a core strategy in reengineering the nation's energy generation and delivery systems to support increased power demand.

Technological advances are producing small, modular, power-producing equipment, capable of being located close to the point of use that is cleaner and more efficient than large, central power stations. The advantages of this approach are:

• For businesses, DE can reduce peak demand charges, reduce overall energy use, ensure greater power quality and reliability, and reduce emissions.
• For large utilities and power producers, DE can augment overall system reliability, avoid large investments in transmission system upgrades, reduce transmission losses, closely match capacity increases to demand growth, and open markets in remote or environmentally constrained areas.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory improves distributed generation (DG) technologies through research and development supported by DOE's Distributed Energy Program, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in the following two areas.

As a National User Test Facility the Cooling, Heating, and Power (CHP) Integration Laboratory supports research and development of energy-efficient distributed generation systems for business and industry.

For more information on the CHP Integration Laboratory, contact Abdi Zaltash by telephone: 865-574-4571 or e-mail: zaltasha@ornl.gov.