Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Heat Recovery Solutions launches generators to mop up waste heat for power
US-based Heat Recovery Solutions has unveiled its waste heat power generation machine and says its parent company has raised USD 7m from existing investors, partly to help fund development.
HRS has developed a machine capable of converting waste heat into electricity. The device can be used to turn heat generated by “reciprocating engines, biomass boilers and industrial processes” into power, which can either be re-used or sold back to the grid.
In an interview with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Brad Garner, president and CEO of HRS, said that the current machine has a net power output of 100kW and a shelf-life of up to 30 years, adding that more than one device can be installed at any site. The firm is looking to roll out a 750kW system around 2012, said Garner.
The machine is unusual in that it can operate at high speed, generates power in a small space, and can be moved around, said Garner. He added that HRS develops and sell a product, not a project, and that it can be moved from location to location. Future clients could include factories, metals plants and cement plants among others, said Garner.
One of HRS’s systems costs around USD 3,000/kWh installed, Garner said, adding that the firm is focusing its attention on European markets with strong policy incentives for waste heat. At present these include Italy, Germany, Spain, Slovenia and the UK.
In a statement, Garner said: “Small-scale waste-heat-to-electrical power generation is now ready for the mainstream”, adding that “this is a commerical purchase based on economics. If you’re wasting heat you’re wasting money”.
To date, the company has installed nine units and has a “solid” customer back-log of 28. In Italy three machines have been installed for a capacity of 300kW, at a saw mill which will sell the electricity for 350 days a year to Italian utility Enel. In a statement, the firm said that this is the first deployment of its kind in Italy and will generate over EUR 400,000 additional revenue for the mill annually.
In Slovenia, HRS is installing generators at a landfill site outside Ljubljana, the capital city; a biomass plant at a saw mill in the town of Kamnik which burns waste wood products; and two biogas plants, one in the country’s north-east and one in the south-east.