ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION OF MICRO-COGENERATION SYSTEM FOR CONVENIENCE STORES IN THAILAND

The growing worldwide demand for effective energy utilization has led to numerous techniques for rational use of energy including conservation techniques and renewable energy utilization. Recently, the number of small scale buildings such as minimarts and convenience stores in Thailand has increased rapidly. However, the interest of effective energy utilization has not been focused on the implementation of the new technologies due to high investment and lack of skilled workers for the maintenance. In this study, the benefit of the implementation of micro-cogeneration systems driven by natural gas engines to meet the energy demand of Thailand’s convenience stores has been analyzed using two assessment indices, Primary Energy Saving ratio (PES) and CO₂ Emission Reduction ratio (CER) to evaluate the energy and environ-mental impact. The analysis results have shown that from the consideration of the energy production from micro-cogeneration systems, the selection of the reasonable capacity of the system depends on the characteristic of the load profile and the objective of the utilization of micro-cogeneration system. Furthermore, the electrical and thermal efficiencies of the micro-cogeneration system are important factors that cannot be ignored in an effect to enhance the performance of micro-cogeneration systems for both energy saving and environmental benefits. The results showed that PES and CER values can be increased up to 45 and 88%, respectively, due to the utilization of higher efficiencies of micro-cogeneration system.