Cogeneration and the Citrus Industry

The purpose of this presentation is to acquaint you with cogeneration, provide techniques for quickly assessing its possible application at your facility, and provide direction for implementation, if appropriate. Cogeneration is the sequential production of steam and electricity from the same energy source. It is sequential in that the energy first produces electricity and then useful thermal energy. This application is called a topping cycle because the power production precedes the thermal application. It is the one that should be of most interest in the citrus industry, and the one that will be addressed herein. The other configuration, the bottoming cycle, is where the energy source for power generation is from heat recovered from a high temperature thermal process application such as often exists in the metal processing industry. Paper published with permission.