What Makes a Building Product Green

Microturbines use natural gas, propane, or other fuels to generate electricity on-site. The same principle is used as for large gas turbines at power plants, but microturbines are much smaller and, thus, designed for distributed power production (producing power where it is needed). When combined with cogeneration equipment—heat exchangers that make use of otherwise-wasted thermal energy—the overall efficiency of microturbines can be increased to over 60%. Microturbines have a number of applications, including off-grid generation, utility peak-shaving, emergency back-up power, and combined heat and power (cogeneration) at restaurants, commercial laundries, hospitals, manufacturing plants, and office buildings with dehumidification or absorption cooling systems.