Definition
Trigeneration, also known as combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP), produces three useful outputs from a single fuel input: electricity, useful heat, and cooling. It extends cogeneration by adding an absorption chiller that turns recovered waste heat into chilled water. Because one fuel stream serves three loads, overall fuel utilization can far exceed what separate electricity, heating, and air-conditioning systems would achieve.
How the third output is created
A high-efficiency engine or turbine generates electricity. Its exhaust and jacket heat are recovered for direct heating, and a portion is routed to an absorption chiller, a refrigeration device that uses heat (not a mechanical compressor) to drive the cooling cycle. Heat that would otherwise be rejected in warm months, when heating demand collapses, is instead converted into cooling, keeping the recovered energy productive year-round.
Why it matters for compute and mining
Data-bearing and hash-bearing facilities both produce continuous waste heat and both need cooling. Trigeneration lets a site self-generate power, dump excess heat into an absorption chiller, and offset its own cooling load, a tight thermodynamic loop well suited to a Hashcenter that co-locates Bitcoin mining and AI compute. It also smooths the seasonal mismatch that plagues simple heat-reuse schemes, where summer demand for warmth disappears just as the equipment runs hardest.
The chiller at the heart of this loop is detailed under Absorption Chiller, and the two-output predecessor concept is covered in Waste Heat Recovery.
Estimate heat value in the heat-savings calculator.
In Simple Terms
Trigeneration, also known as combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP), produces three useful outputs from a single fuel input: electricity, useful heat, and cooling. It…