History of cogeneration and trigeneration

Trigeneration (CCHP) was not invented by one person in one year. It grew out of two lines: absorption cooling, known since the 1850s, and combined generation of electricity and heat, which became widespread after the 1978 US law. In Russia, Thermax machines running on engine heat have been working since at least 2006: this is the Moscow Region Government House, a project carried out without the participation of Cold Energy (NCT); our company has been working since 2011. Below are the events in order, with notes where historians and sources disagree.

When did absorption cooling appear?

The first machines ran on sulfuric acid and on ammonia, made ice and carried frozen meat across the ocean. The lithium bromide machines on which trigeneration is built today came later.

Year	Event	What is known for certain
1850–1858	Carré creates the first absorption refrigerator	Historians disagree: 1850 or 1858, Edmond or Ferdinand
1859–1860	Ferdinand Carré's patent in France and the US	Only per Wikipedia; we did not open the patent records
1862	An ice machine is shown at the International Exhibition in London	200 kg of ice per hour
1876	The ship "Paraguay" carries frozen meat across the ocean	An absorption plant on board
1922–1923	Platen and Munters create a compressorless absorption refrigerator	Household units, not LiBr chillers

We do not give a date for the first lithium bromide chillers: it was not confirmed in open sources.

How did cogeneration and district heating appear?

In 1877, a district steam heating system was built in Lockport (New York State), which the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) calls the first district steam heating system in the US. In Russia, the start of district heating in Leningrad is considered to be 24 November 1924: heat from the station on the Fontanka was supplied to house 96 on the Fontanka Embankment. Sources disagree on the station's address and on the date, so we do not use the phrase "the first combined heat and power plant in Russia".

It is often written that Edison launched the first cogeneration in New York in 1882. We found no confirmation, so it should not be treated as fact.

What did the 1978 law change?

In the US, the PURPA law of 9 November 1978 introduced "qualifying facilities": cogeneration that is more efficient than separate generation. Utilities were required to buy its electricity. According to the US Department of Energy, cogeneration capacity in the US grew from about 12,000 MW in 1980 to more than 66,000 MW in 2000. In the 2000s the market slowed down because of the restructuring of electricity markets.

Year	Event	What is known for certain
1978	PURPA signed on 9 November	Half of the heat is counted in the efficiency calculation
1998	Capstone starts series production of microturbines	2,035 units shipped by the end of 2001
2001	The US DOE selects teams for the BCHP program	Goal: make combined generation of heat, cooling and electricity the preferred way to use energy in buildings by 2020
2012	EU Directive 2012/27/EU adopted	Heat used to drive an absorption chiller counts as useful
2019	Federal Law No. 471-FZ on microgeneration	Up to 15 kW, not relevant to industrial trigeneration

When did trigeneration become common practice?

In the 2000s, large showcase projects appeared. In 2004, a system on a 4.5 MW gas turbine was started in Austin (Texas) with a 2,500-ton absorption chiller running directly on the exhaust without a steam generator. In 2005, the Verizon communications hub in Garden City (New York) got seven 200 kW fuel cells with absorption chillers. In 2009, the US Department of Energy published the first detailed report on cogeneration in data centers, and Syracuse University built a data center with trigeneration on microturbines.

In 2017, two reference documents came out: DOE/EE-1608 on absorption chillers for cogeneration and a revision of the EPA technology catalog. We did not find a newer edition of the catalog. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data center demand grew from 415 TWh in 2024 to an estimated 485 TWh or so in 2025, and gas turbine orders in 2025 grew by 70%. On-site gas generation at data centers produces heat, and an absorption chiller turns it into cooling.

How did it go in Russia and for us?

Year	Event	What is known for certain
2006	Start-up of 3 LT 42 T machines at the Moscow Region Government House	Four Jenbacher JMS 620 gas engines, 12 MW. Shown as an example; carried out without the participation of Cold Energy
2014	Mikran, Tomsk	1.7 MW gas engine, two 5G 4L C machines of 1,100 kW each
around 2015	Central Customs Directorate, Moscow	Five Capstone C200 microturbines and two LT-14 C machines
2018	Teplichnoye, Sverdlovsk Region	The first trigeneration in Russia for a greenhouse complex, 5-year payback

These are examples, not the full list: there are many facilities, and they are collected in the "Projects" section, while Thermax projects worldwide are in the "World projects" section. More about how such a plant works is on the "Trigeneration" page.

What does this history teach?

Cogeneration and absorption cooling developed separately for a long time, and each line is well proven on its own. The difficulty lies between them: the engine and the machine are made by different factories, but they work in one circuit. So someone has to be responsible for this interface. Which interfaces fail is covered on the "Trigeneration mistakes" page, and how we take responsibility for them is on the about us page.

If you want to see how this looks for your facility, order a feasibility study or use the calculator.

Sources

Wikipedia, Ferdinand Carré: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Carr%C3%A9
Wikipedia, Absorption refrigerator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
ASME Landmark 122, Holly District Heating System: https://www.asme.org/about-asme/engineering-history/landmarks/122-holly-district-heating-system
Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg, district heating in Leningrad: https://www.encspb.ru/object/2804001551?lc=en
Wikipedia, PURPA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Regulatory_Policies_Act
DOE/EPA, Combined Heat and Power: A Clean Energy Solution, August 2012: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/11/f4/chp_clean_energy_solution.pdf
Capstone Turbine, Form 10-K for 2001: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1009759/000093639202000355/a80071e10-k.htm
Power Engineering, 31 August 2001, BCHP program: https://www.power-eng.com/environmental-emissions/doe-selects-burns-mcdonnell-to-participate-in-heating-and-cooling-generation-project/
ORNL, Advanced absorption chiller converts turbine exhaust to air conditioning, 2005: https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20080920092112id_/http://www.ornl.gov/sci/engineering_science_technology/cooling_heating_power/pdf/ISHPC-095-2005.pdf
ICF for ORNL, Opportunities for CHP in Data Centers, March 2009: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/11/f4/chp_data_centers.pdf
Campus Technology, 3 December 2009, Syracuse data center: https://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/12/03/Syracuse-U-Constructs-Green-Data-Center.aspx
Directive 2012/27/EU, Annex II and Article 2: https://legislation.gov.uk/eudr/2012/27/annex/II/2020-01-31
DOE, Absorption Chillers for CHP Systems, DOE/EE-1608, May 2017: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/06/f35/CHP-Absorption%20Chiller-compliant.pdf
EPA, Catalog of CHP Technologies, September 2017: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/catalog_of_chp_technologies.pdf
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 30 December 2019, Federal Law No. 471-FZ: https://rg.ru/2019/12/30/energetika-dok.html
IEA, Energy and AI, electricity demand: https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from-ai
IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI, 2026: https://www.iea.org/reports/key-questions-on-energy-and-ai/executive-summary