Definition
Combined heat and power (CHP), also called cogeneration, is the simultaneous production of electricity and useful heat from a single fuel source. A conventional thermal power plant throws away roughly two-thirds of its fuel energy as waste heat up the stack or into a cooling tower. CHP recovers that heat—feeding it to buildings, industrial processes, or a district-heating network—so that one unit of fuel does two jobs at once.
The efficiency case
Because it puts otherwise-wasted heat to work, a CHP system can reach total fuel efficiency of around 75–80%, and in some applications up to 90–95%, against roughly 50% when electricity and heat are produced separately. That step change in efficiency is the entire economic argument: the same gas burned to make power also offsets the fuel a facility would have burned in a separate boiler.
CHP and Bitcoin mining
Mining hardware is itself a heat engine—virtually all of the electricity an ASIC consumes leaves as low-grade heat. A miner can sit on either side of a CHP system. It can be the electrical load that consumes the power while the engine's waste heat warms greenhouses, pools, or homes; or the miner's own exhaust heat can be captured for space heating and hot water, a pattern central to off-grid and residential setups. Either way, capturing heat that would otherwise be vented turns a cost into a second revenue or savings stream.
D-Central treats heat reuse as core to honest mining economics rather than a bolt-on. See related entries on microgrid and generator (genset).
In Simple Terms
Combined heat and power (CHP), also called cogeneration, is the simultaneous production of electricity and useful heat from a single fuel source. A conventional thermal…