CHP (combined heat and power) has been around in one form or another for more than 100 years. Worldwide industrial applications account for 87% of existing CHP capacity, while large commercial and institutional buildings represent 7% and district energy CHP systems in cities and university campuses account for the majority of the last 6% of the CHP capacity. Alberta has over 4,000 megawatts of cogeneration capacity up and running, dominantly large industrial cogeneration facilities. Small-call distributed CHP has been considered as the main drive of future CHP applications.

Today mCHP (micro-combined heat and power) technology is available to residential homeowners and small businesses to support the shift from carbon-intensive grid electricity to a greener natural gas alternative.

Exterior rigid insulation, triple-pane 2 low-e windows, high efficiency HRV and other energy saving upgrades are used to reduce the space heating loads of the two residential units by 20%. A 4kWe mCHP system was selected by the project team to meet 90% of the thermal loads, while generating 83% of the electricity used by the buildings.