WhisperGen set up micro CHP manufacturing Joint Venture with MCC

Three years after announcing their 80,000 micro CHP unit deal with Powergen (now E.ON) in the UK, WhisperGen have finally managed to set up a JV with Spanish white goods manufacturer Mondragon CC to produce their 1kWe Stirling engine microCHP unit for the European market.

This is really good news for those who have been eagerly awaiting the availability of mass produced units following Powergen's limited roll-out in 2004, since when WhisperGen units have been rather hard to come by! No announcement so far from E.ON as to when they will be offering the mass produced units in the UK, but rumour has it that they should start to become available to the general public in 2009. Meanwhile a number of trials are taking place in Germany and Netherlands, so we could see a real European launch at the same time.

Bearing in mind that WhisperGen units were available in 1998 (as marine diesel, DC variants) it is salutory to see just how long it takes from prototype to commercial product; something to bear in mind when new entrants claim they are "launching next year" when they have yet to install more than a handful of trial units. Still, there could be other micro CHP units out there in the not too distant future with Microgen probably the leading contender.

For more information on this and other micro CHP click here

EON partner with EC Power micro CHP

You may have seen the news that E.ON have signed a deal with EC Power to distribute their micro CHP products in the UK. This rather confusing announcement is due to the number of definitions of "micro CHP" floating around.
Micro CHP is an MG (Micro Generation) technology and thus falls within the EU definition of MG which includes anything below 50kWe (for electrical generating technologies) or 45kWt (for heat producing technologies).

Nobody seems very clear about whether this is an "either/or" definition for CHP technologies. Various alternative definitions seek to clarify the situation, including one from the Carbon Trust who categorise what used to be called "micro CHP" as "domestic micro CHP" including only packaged units designed for individual homes, whilst "commercial micro CHP" comprises an assembly of ancillary components such as boilers, heat exchangers etc in a plant room configuration. The EC Power unit, at 15kWe electrical output, is clearly in the latter category, although I would tend to refer to it as "mini CHP".

Whatever the definition, it is good news that E.ON, a major energy company, has set up a deal with EC Power (incidentally a subsidiary of Norwegian oil and gas giant StatoilHydro) and their gas-fired mini CHP technology is being successfully installed in sheltered housing, schools and offices where it provides an excellent payback due to its very flexible operation which allows it to track either electrical or thermal demand.

For more information on the EC Power product range click here.
For more information on other micro CHP products and micro CHP generally, click here

Flavours of micro CHP

Amazing! In the last three days we have had announcements of deals of as many different micro CHP technologies. Firstly Ceres (Solid Oxide Fuel Cells) announced that Centrica (aka British Gas) had bought into 10% of their company, then EON announce a deal with Energetix to trial their Organic Rankine Cycle unit, then Disenco announce another manufacturing deal with Malvern boilers. What does it all mean?

Ceres have been hyping their fuel cell technology which promises to be the answer to a maidens prayer with all kinds of developments including demonstrations of their "wall mounted" micro CHP unit. Much like Microgen and Acumentrics, they have demonstrated only that it is possible to erect very substantial brick walls. Unlike those two developers they have yet to demonstrate a packaged micro CHP product providing heat and power in a live application. Whilst BG may have plenty of cash to squander on promising technologies, I really cannot understand their simultaneous promise to order 37,500 Ceres fuel cell micro CHP units. What on earth are they thinking of? Why not 37,501 units? Ah well, it is their money!

Energetix, on the other hand, with their Genlec unit, have demonstrated a very credible if modestly efficient genuinely wall-mounted micro CHP unit. This product, at first appears rather pointless. It has a nominal efficiency lower than other technologies and is a couple of years behind them. So what is the big deal? Just the fact that it actually exists and might actually deliver what it promises! The Genlec unit uses readily available components so should be relatively cheap or at least predictable cost; it is very flexible in operation, so may have more or less nominal efficiency in the field; it is genuinely wall-mountable, not a 100kg monster like Microgen nor the size of a wall-mounted dishwasher like Acumentrics. Is this important? Some say it is as the majority of boilers sold today are wall-mounted; others say not as this is just a fad and there is nothing wrong with floor-mounted products.

Disenco now have an engine manufacturer and a boiler partner. If their partners can produce the 3kWe products to performance and life requirements it is still quite a challenge to overcome the vagaries of the export reward schemes and recover some value for the electricity produced.

So, plenty of oportunities and plenty of challenges; at least it is good to see micro CHP really making some progress and with luck presenting us with a choice of products to suit our various needs.

Nuclear energy and micro CHP

Today the British Government formally announced that it will permit the major energy companies to squander billions on nuclear. Not a penny of taxpayers money we are assured, although quite how that squares with the current £72 billion clean-up of existing nuclear committed so far I am unsure. Not that this decision will make the slightest difference to the impending energy gap as the current nukes and dirty coal close down over the next decade; after all there is unlikely to be a single kWh of nuclear electric generated much before 2020!

That is the big difference between the megalomaniac nuclear industry and micro CHP. Whilst nuclear takes decades to build before producing any power at all, micro CHP can be installed 1kW at a time, producing power from day one. In terms of capacity, if we replaced all domestic gas boilers (as they reach the end of their useful life) with micro CHP , we could in theory install 1.5 million micro CHP units every year. That is equivalent to 1.5GWe, or not far off the size of one nuclear power station in 2008, another in 2009, in 2010 and ...you get the picture. By 2020, we could have the equivalent of twelve nukes powered by micro CHP. And if it didn't work out for some reason, we could just stop installing them; on the other hand, with nuclear you have to commit to the whole £2billion (or more) price tag for a single station and if, after 10 years construction, it doesn't stack up, you have absolutely nothing to show for your money...which would you invest in?

Against this dismal background, it is encouraging to hear that Ceramic Fuel Cells have delivered yet another micro CHP unit to be tested by E.ON in the UK; that is in addition to the units recently shipped to GdF in France (home of European nuclear) and EWE in Germany. I am pretty sure that they will be producing low carbon electricity some time before 2020.

Disenco micro CHP

These guys really seem to be making some progress. Not that they don't still have a long way to go to market, but Disenco's announcement of a deal with a manufacturer is a major step forward for this 3kWe micro CHP product.

Admittedly it comes on the same day that the UK Government finally caved in to the nuclear lobby which could screw up the entire energy landscape for the next 20 years, but it does improve credibility for a technology which has suffered from interminable delays in getting products to market.

It is a sad, but unavoidable fact that whilst investors have drip fed micro CHP, the legislators have continually raised the bar by mandating increasingly higher efficiency boilers for all homes; not a bad thing in itself, but it means that model T Ford micro CHP is competing with Polo Blue Motion ICE technology. The good news is that boilers now have nowhere to go; they have hit the peak of their efficiency potential and if micro CHP can deliver benefits against today's boilers, it is all downhill from here. The Carbon Trust report has somewhat belatedly demonstrated the carbon mitigation and economic benfits of microCHP against these high efficiency boilers so hopefully, Disenco's unit will be able to establish itself as another step change in performance for domestic energy systems.

Micro CHP back in business

A lot has happened since the last entry on this blog, mainly due to my indolence over the past nine months. However, an update on an impressive range of micro CHP activities over that period:

Two companies, Yanmar (the Japanese Diesel engine manufacturer) and EC Power have both launched a range of improved CHP products in the UK including biodiesel variants.

CFCL (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell CHP) have announced partnerships with a number of European boiler manufacturers and energy companies, whilst Acumentrics (also SOFC) demonstrated their wall-mounted unit to energy companies in Germany.

Baxi, Remeha, Viessmann and eventually Vaillant declared their partnership with MEC (the heir to the Microgen technology) and expect to launch a major trial in 2008.

WhisperGen announced that they have finally struck a deal with MCC to manufacture their unit with mass production for Netherlands and Germany expected by mid-2008.

The Carbon Trust published another interim report on their extensive micro CHP field trial, confirming what most of us already knew, that micro CHP is environmentally viable and produces good economic paybacks for about half the homes in the UK based on current technologies (those with annual heat loss greater than 20,000kWh); they also pointed out that paybacks would be improved if householders could get decent value for their exported power, but that is going to be a tough nut to crack. It is not that energy suppliers are necessarily reluctant to offer a decent export value, indeed many of them are offering silly amounts presumably as some kind of PR initiative, but there is still no cost-effective method of trading exports within the settlement system nor even for ROCs.

Today, Disenco announced that they had successfully demonstrated their high efficiency Stirling based unit; this technology had led the field in the 1990's, but funding difficulties delayed development. Hopefully now they can move towards a commercial product, but the electrical output of 3kWe means they face challenges with capturing value of electrical generation for domestic installations where a substantial part of their output is exported.

All in all, it has been a good year for micro CHP with a number of products suitable for a range of applications reaching the market in UK, Europe, Japan and USA.