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Waste heat is generally recognized as one of the untapped power opportunities of industrial manufacturing, and a new company in Londonderry, N.H., has been formed to take advantage of it.
Waste Heat Resources Inc. was founded late last year with the aim of bringing to market a waste heat power-generation system based in part on technology it acquired from Florida-based Cyclone Power Inc. Waste Heat Resources (WHR) paid $500,000 for the license to Cyclone’s 92 horsepower Mark V automotive engine, which is designed to run on exhaust fumes, and has added what officials call an “Energy Forge” to help power the engine using waste heat.
When connected to a blast furnace or other industrial heat source, the WHR system will use that energy to create high-temperature steam, which will combust in the exhaust engine, creating the mechanical motion needed to generate electricity. According to officials, under a typical application with a constant temperature of approximately 840 degrees Fahrenheit, the Energy Forge will be capable of producing 430,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. Based on an average household usage of 18,000 kilowatt hours per year, that translates into enough electricity to power 24 homes per year, for each furnace attached to the system.
Energy from the system, which is aimed at industrial facilities, can be used on-site or fed back into the grid and produces no additional emissions, according to officials.
“We’re turning a waste product into a resource,” said co-founder and COO Carl Mueller, whose career history ranges from developing commercial and residential real estate to being an actor, director and producer (he appeared on “All My Children” and “One Life To Live” in the 1980s and 1990s).
Mueller founded the five-person company with CFO Marc Charbonneau, a former executive with industrial control products maker Horizon Solutions Inc. in New York, and CTO Matt Frazier, a consultant in the industrial control and co-generation equipment industry.
The company has already begun the process of installing its test units on the furnaces at the Grafton, Mass., plant of Wyman-Gordon, a maker of metal components for a variety of industries. While the company is currently installing the first of what is expected to be eight systems across five furnaces at the plant, executives estimate an eventual output of more than 3.5 million kilowatt hours per year, with a power savings to Wyman-Gordon of more than $430,000.
Officials would not disclose names, but said they are in talks with other potential beta testing customers.
The company has been funded by a network of investors interested in clean investing, which Mueller said has been “very supportive.” The company will not be looking for venture capital, he added.
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