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Western Governors' Association White Paper on CHP

The Intermountain CHP Center and Initiative led the development of a white paper on CHP for the Western Governors Association (WGA) Clean and Diversified Energy Advisory Committee. The paper recommends policy actions western governors and policymakers can take to increase adoption of clean and efficient CHP and help meet the WGA goal of 30,000 MW of new capacity by 2015. It also details the benefits of CHP, the current and installed base in western states, fuel price and supply impacts, transmission and distribution issues, cost curves, timeline for bringing generation online, examples of successful state and regional policies, and remaining barriers to increased deployment.

The WGA has a goal of building 30,000 megawatts of clean energy by 2015, increasing energy efficiency 20 percent by 2020, and providing adequate transmission for the region. To better understand the feasibility and options for these goals, it set up a series of task forces including advanced coal, biomass, energy efficiency, geothermal, solar, wind, and transmission. CHP was originally overlooked when the task forces were set up, but now is included. The next step is for the CDEAC to integrate key recommendations and overarching issues from all of the task force reports. The effort will conclude in March 2006.

CHP White Paper

More information on the WGA CDEAC and the other task force reports