On Friday, January 9, Ian Burnes of Efficiency Maine Trust came to the first Log Lunch of the year in Dodd to speak about using waste heat as an energy efficiency strategy. After graduating with an economics degree from Wesleyan, Burnes worked for the Maine Northern Forest Alliance and the Governor’s Office of Energy Independence and Security. Currently, he works as the Strategic Initiatives Team Leader for Efficiency Maine Trust, Maine’s energy efficiency utility that works reduce energy use in power plants.
Historically, electric generating plants sold both their generated energy and their waste heat. However, with the New Deal’s focus on electrification, power lines began to take electricity into rural areas, but such means could not transport the waste heat away from the plant. Thus, the sale and reuse of this byproduct of production became obsolete. With modern plants creating vast amount of wasted heat, Efficiency Maine Trust has sought situations in which businesses need both electricity and thermal power. Such a solution is called cogeneration, a type of electricity generation that creates and uses both electricity and heat simultaneously. Cogeneration not only increases the efficiency of production but also emits fifty percent less tons of carbon per year than conventional energy generation. Additionally, they produce energy locally and thus more reliably for communities in the context of increased climate uncertainty. Burnes works with colleges, public institutions, and businesses to promote cogeneration solutions; for example, one hospital he works with now satisfies all of its heating and cooling needs from the electricity generator in its basement. However, private enterprises have been more resistant to the cogeneration switch in his experience.
Burnes believes that to solve global warming the U.S. must build new infrastructure. With their high levels of efficiency and reliability in the era of climate change, cogeneration plants would be excellent additions to an updated American infrastructure portfolio.
For more information about Efficiency Maine, visit http://www.efficiencymaine.com.
By Sara Clark ‘15
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