Americas News
GE Marine to Sell New Heat-to-Power System
U.S. marine products company GE Marine has signed an agreement to become the exclusive provider of a heat-to-power system for commercial and military marine vessels, according to the system's creator, Echogen Power Systems LLC (Echogen).
The system captures exhaust heat energy that would normally be vented from gas turbines or diesel engines and instead uses it for power generation.
Unlike other heat-to-power systems, the technology uses supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) - heated CO2 that has properties of both a liquid and a gas - as its working fluid, making it more compact and economical than a traditional steam system.
"This product is an important addition to GE Marine's existing worldwide product portfolio, given fuel efficiency and emissions are very important to ship owners and operators," said Brien Bolsinger, vice president of marine operations at GE Marine.
"Converting energy that traditionally gets exhausted out of a stack into useful power allows the overall system efficiency to increase by up to 30%."
Echogen said the product can operate efficiently in a broad range of exhaust temperatures, and the working fluid can be expanded for cooling or a combination of power and cooling.
The power systems company plans to test a 7 megawatt (MW) version of its system this quarter and then develop 2MW and 0.4MW versions which it plans to start selling in 2016.
The Ecogen system was a runner-up in the Wall Street Journal's 2011 Innovation Awards.
