Guest Blogger: Kelly O’Connor
Have you ever had your leg hairs singed by the heat from your car’s exhaust pipe or while hopping on your Harley? As a kid, do you remember being terrified when you saw smoke leaving the side of your house just to find out it was only from mom doing a load of laundry or cooking up a feast? On a cold winter morning, have you ever warmed the tips of your fingers with the steam of yours freshly brewed cup of coffee? I’m guilty of all of these and could name about twenty other instances of wasted heat that surround me on a daily basis.
Most of the time, heat is viewed as a waste by-product from machines doing their jobs. Heat is used to create these machines, then later produced from that machine’s final product at work, and most often abandoned and left to wreak havoc on the workers in its vicinity (and overwork their sweat glands). Heat also escapes into our atmosphere and many times, can do more harm than good.
For being such a great conductor of power and energy, we sure do let it go to waste far too often. Compressors are a prime example of a machine that produces heat as a result of doing the job. What is the best way to harness that heat energy and use it for good? Can we power another compressor with it? Or what if it could help power the whole plant? What ideas do you have around using heat ‘waste’ to reenergize other components of our customers’ businesses and how can we make it happen?
Contact Kelly at: kelly_o’connor@irco.com
I know that our server farm generates a LOT of heat. I’d love to see that routed into power generation so that we could reduce our carbon foot print.
That’s exactly my thought. Why waste our heat energy if we can use it for something else. It’s both greener for our environment and for your business. Do you have any ideas on ways to capture that heat as energy?
There are many sources of waste heat as Kelly mentioned. These are considered “low grade” energy sources as the temperature is relatively low and therefore difficult to use for generating electrical power. However, as the world is paying more attention to carbon emissions and energy consumption, even low grade waste heat is getting a lot of attention.
There is a technology currently available that can be used to harness low grade waste heat to generate electrical power. It is called Organic Rankine Cycle, ORC. It operates similar to steam generation power plant except that it uses a working fluid that boils at much lower temperature than water. Energy output from ORC is a rotating shaft that can be easily used to drive an electrical generator or any other rotary device.
An ORC system is expensive. The payback can be years which make it difficult to justify the investment. However, this market is undergoing a shift which is driven by carbon and energy metrics. This technology is evolving to become less expensive and more efficient. ORC will also become more versatile and will be compatible with a wider variety of waste heat sources.
Commercialization of ORC systems will not be immediately apparent to consumers, but it will definitely serve a growing demand in industrial applications such as compressors.
Dear sir
I am the representative of Trumph word susung Apt In Korea.
We installed your Micro tubine MT250(2 each) two years ago from Hyundai Heavy Industres co.
In this time there are serious problems in a maintanance expense and A/S system.
So we consider disuse your Micro tubine in the near furture.
That would be negative influence in your export business area.
Before set up the system, we knew there is little matintanace expense and HYUNDAI adversiting 80,000 hr over time by there catalogue.
But Now Hyundai ask 40,000$ maintance expense in a every 8,000hr and we have to exchanve air fillter 2,000$ in a two month.
If there are some defect in a tubine we have to waitinng one or two month for fix that.
Anyway our Apt want to save the electric charge but MT250 are no helpful in our side.
I want to send all evience document(HYUNDAI, Catalogue, working problems, merit rating etc.) directly to your head office.
And hope your kind consideration.
Let me know the adress and fax,phome number.
Best regards
Ben Lee
82 16 538 2565
Hi Ben,
Thanks for your comment. I’ve sent you a message offline and would like to help you resolve your issue as soon as possible.
Kind Regards,
Katherine
I once worked in a building where the temperature was often so chilly that we all had little energy-consuming space heaters at our feet and wore sweaters even in July. I’d gladly take “waste heat” from anywhere rather than have to generate it just to keep my toes warm!
Instead of converting the heat to energy, it would be neat if there were a way to just re-route the heat to chilly office workers… through cubicle walls or floor tiles…..
Good topic!