Background

The UK’s single most emissive enterprise is power generation. Thermo-electric (T-E) – Fossil fuelled power stations contribute 42% CO2, 62% SOx and 62% NOx of the UK’s total emissions. Long term plans still include 80% of the UK’s power coming from T-E power generation, such as Fossil, Nuclear, CHP and Biomass. Despite large efforts by the power generator companies, all forms of T-E power generation lose an average 50% of the energy they generate to the environment as low grade heat. There is an urgent need to find a way of recapturing and reusing this waste energy in order to maximise usable energy output from scarce natural resources.

Objectives

• To validate the theoretical performance and viability of the VOLTVESSEL unit, identify price performance critical design elements by completing a detail design of Heat-pipe, Turbine and Electronics sub-systems to enable a 24 month return on investment.
• To optimise the price performance of the VOLTVESSEL design 
• To build test optimise and validate a working 10kW VOLTVESSEL
• To evaluate the feasibility of a 100kW VOLTVESSEL module by creating a viable 100kW design and Business case.
• Verify choice of end users power generators and system integrators for the Full project Pilot study

Project Outcome

Existing heat-driven generator cycles operate at temperatures of several hundred degrees centigrade, making them unsuitable for use for generation from low-grade waste water. Pera have created a low cost modular concept to convert around 10% of the energy contained in such water to electricity, at temperatures as low as 50°C. Based on heat pipe technology, VOLTSVESSEL (patent granted) combines a novel design with innovative moulding technology to maximise energy recovery whilst reducing installation and maintenance costs to a viable level.

If just one 1GW power station were fitted with VOLTVESSEL, it would save 285 KT of CO2 emission p.a, equivalent to removing 105,000 cars from the road.