Cogeneration: a small-scale boom brewing

Small-scale cogeneration systems will be supplying school and commercial markets, according to a consultant who receives as many as 30 orders a month for feasibility studies and an Argonne National Laboratory study that estimates $15 billion in equipment sales during the 1980's. Court requirements that utilities must pay cogenerators full avoided costs and the ''package concept'' developed by equipment manufacturers have provided new incentives. California utilities are a model for utility involvement with small-scale generation, while New York's Consolidated Edison has taken the opposite view by isolating cogenerators from the grid. (DCK)