Competitive Product Development for Combined Heat and Power Technology

Running Head: COMPETITIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
COMPETITIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of University:
Author Note:

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Executive Summary
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) technology is considered to be one of the effective methods to
reduce the emission of CO2 done by the use of energies. In this regard, the steam turbine micro
CHP units are popularly used in the domestic and small scale sectors. Therefore, the purpose of
this development plan and proposal is to explore all the possible aspects of the CHP technology
by including the marketing exposure of the technology to the development plan for producing
micro CHP units in a company based in UK. In a conclusion, the report clearly depicts the
opportunities for the company to develop CHP technologies and maximize its market
capitalisation with the growing demand of CHP products in UK market.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Potential technologies......................................................................................................................4
Types............................................................................................................................................4
Combustion turbine.....................................................................................................................5
Steam boiler with steam turbine..................................................................................................6
Advantages and disadvantages....................................................................................................6
Process of evaluation.......................................................................................................................7
Outline of the current CHP unit.......................................................................................................9
Stage gates.....................................................................................................................................10
Discover.....................................................................................................................................10
Scoping......................................................................................................................................11
Business plan concept................................................................................................................11
Product definition and analysis..............................................................................................12
Business plan.........................................................................................................................12
Project plan............................................................................................................................13
Feasibility review...................................................................................................................15
Development..............................................................................................................................15

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Testing and validation................................................................................................................16
Launch and implementation......................................................................................................16
Internal and external factors..........................................................................................................17
Responsible persons.......................................................................................................................18
Details of the authorisation............................................................................................................19
External assistance.........................................................................................................................20
Recommendation...........................................................................................................................21
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................22
Reference.......................................................................................................................................24
Appendices....................................................................................................................................29
Appendix1:................................................................................................................................29
Appendix 2.................................................................................................................................30
Appendix 3.................................................................................................................................31
Appendix 4.................................................................................................................................32

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Introduction
The demand of the energy supply is increasing in a rapid pace nowadays. Primarily the
developed countries and the specifically the European countries are the major users of the energy
supply (Newbery 2016). Energies are used from the big industries to the domestic purposes.
However, with this indiscriminate use of the energies in terms of natural resources lots of
environmental issues are emerged in a phenomenal way. Ecological imbalances are further
intensified with the global worming and emission of CO2 in the environment (Allan et al. 2015).
One of the major reason behind this is the over use of natural resources. Therefore, in UK people
are looking for alternative energy resources and try to reduce the direct use of natural resources.
In this regard, the UK government also puts enormous attention towards saving the world from
an inevitable apocalypse (Turner, McGregor and Young 2015). The Climate Change Act of 2008
was enacted in this regard to prevent the environment by reducing the emission of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases. As per the vision of the Climate Change Committee of the UK government,
the authority sets a target to reduce the carbon emission up to 80% by 2050 (Committee on
Climate Change 2018). The UK people are also moved by the government decision and
enthusiastically join the National Adaptation Program of saving the earth. It can also have an
impact on the energy supply market in UK. The random price hike in the carbon energy supply
leads to use of the renewable energies. As per the market survey in UK, it can be argued that in
2016 there are 3.5 million customers using gas. Moreover, according to the report most of those
customers at an average of 30% to 50% are preferred electric heating more than the traditional
use of gas despite of investing more money on electric heating (Ofgem.gov.uk. 2018). One of the
actual causes is the issue of global warming. However, people with poor income structure and in

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the rural communities only 13% use electric heating facilities. In fact, the use of electric heating
is becoming a great prospect in the UK market. In this context, the Combined Heat and Power
(CHP) technologies are considered to be the best effective remedy to not only reduce the cost of
heating rather having an eco-friendly perspective as well. CHP is an energy efficient technology
that generates electricity and absorbs heat to decrease the waste of heat energy (GOV.UK 2018).
CHP technologies are used primarily in the medium scale industries and thermal energy stations.
Moreover, recently the micro CHP is used for domestic purposes also. It can be argued that the
CHP are very cost effective and avoiding energy losses up to 80% in compare to the traditional
technologies that save only 50% energy (Webb 2015).
In this regard, the purpose of this report is to develop a plan for incorporating the CHP
technology in the manufacturing unit of the company. Moreover, the report also emphasises on
the cost effectiveness of the implementation, production possibilities and the marketing exposure
related to the CHP technology. In fact, the evaluation of the pros and cons related to the CHP
technology are also incorporated into the discussion so that it can deliver a better understanding
of the purpose and relevance of the report.
Discussion
Potential technologies
Types
As far as the type of CHP technology is concerned, there are two types of CHP system
configuration that are used commonly. The one is known as the Combustion turbine or the
reciprocating engine and the other is called steam boiler with steam turbine.

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Combustion turbine
Figure 1: Combustion turbine technology
(Fubara, Cecelja and Yang 2014)
The combustion turbine is associated with a gas or liquid fuel that is combusted in a
prime mover (Fubara, Cecelja and Yang 2014). For the prime mover, the technology can use a
gas turbine or reciprocating engine. There is a generator that is entitled to generate electricity and
the prime mover will be connected with the generator. The combustion engine burns fuel such as
natural gas, oil or biogas and use heat recovery to absorb heat ignited by the engine (Hannon and
Bolton 2015). As a result of that the heat is able to transform into useful energy generally in the
form of steam or heat water. In this respect, this technology is generally used in the thermal
energy stations.

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Steam boiler with steam turbine
Figure 2: Steam boiler and steam turbine
(Bahadori-Jahromi et al. 2018)
This technology generally used steam boiler for generating and absorbing heat. The fuel
is burned in a boiler and produced high pressure steam. As a result of that the steam creates
backpressure and ignites the turbine (Bahadori-Jahromi et al. 2018). It can be argued that the
steam turbine plays the same role of electric generator that is primarily used in the combustion
turbine. Due to the ignition the generator runs and produced electricity. Natural gas, oil, biomass
or coal can be used in this technology as fuel (Pantaleo et al. 2015). Moreover, this kind of
mechanism can only used in case of solid fuels or process waste streams are available.
Advantages and disadvantages
For the combustion turbine CHP system it requires less space for installation. As a matter
of fact, the running and maintenance cost of the combustion turbine is low in compare to the