ReGen Power Systems secures funding for heat capture kit

Cogeneration equipment company ReGen Power Systems has scooped $5m (£3m) in funding to help bring its stirling engine-based heat conversion technology to market.

The New Salem, MA-based firm closed the equity financing round with 21 Ventures LLC and the Quercus Trust. The investment will be used to fund the production of two prototype units, designed to harvest heat from industrial plants and convert it to electricity.

The company's design uses heat exchangers to capture heat from industrial plants such as glass furnaces. The exchangers transfer the heat to piston-based stirling engines, which are used to generate electrical power instead of regular turbines.

Chief executive Dick Meloy said that the company's equipment will operate in the one to five megawatt range, which he claims is generally too small for turbines. He added that there is a $9bn revenue opportunity in selling stirling engines to smaller plants in the US alone.

The company will produce two types of stirling engine. The first will be designed to operate at higher temperatures, and will be suitable for heat intensive industrial facilities such as glass, steel, aluminium and cement works.

The second will operate at 100 degrees centigrade and will act as a steam condenser. "That suits industries that produce lots of steam, such as pulp and paper, chemicals, and petroleum refining," Meloy explained.

The stirling engines could also serve as the power conversion element in thermal solar power generation, where mirrors focus the sun's rays to create steam, he said.

The company hopes to start selling units commercially by the end of 2010, and Meloy said that when operational and manufacturing costs are taken into account, the technology could deliver electricity at about six tenths of a cent per kilowatt hour.

However, that price would not include upfront capital expenditure on the equipment, which could cost $1,200 to $1,600 per Kw, and installation costs of between $250 and $600 per Kw.