GE Marine has signed an agreement with Echogen Power Systems, Akron, Ohio, to be the exclusive provider of Echogen’s heat-to-power system for use on commercial and military marine vessels worldwide.
Echogen’s product enhances GE Marine’s mechanical, hybrid and all-electric propulsion system solutions.
Echogen’s system captures the exhaust heat energy that typically vents to atmosphere from gas turbines and/or diesel engines and converts it to useful power. While this concept is not new, Echogen’s technology uses supercritical CO2 (sCO2) as its working fluid, which allows for a more compact, lighter and economical configuration than traditional steam systems.
“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. Converting energy that traditionally gets exhausted out of a stack into useful power allows the overall system efficiency to increase by up to 30%,” says Brien Bolsinger, Vice President, Marine Operations, GE Marine, Evendale, Ohio.
“The marine market represents a tremendous application for our supercritical CO2 engine, and GE Marine is a powerful partner offering speed and scale to market,” says Phil Brennan, Chief Executive Officer, Echogen Power Systems. “We are pleased that our technology will enable GE Marine to provide more value to its customers, while supporting Echogen’s goal of displacing steam as the power fluid of choice for engines under 50 megawatts in size.”
Echogen’s technology operates over a broad range of exhaust temperatures to efficiently extract a significant amount of energy from various applications and convert it into electrical or mechanical power. The working fluid can be expanded to create cooling or a combination of power and cooling.
In the first quarter of 2013, Echogen will be testing a 7 megawatt sCO2 engine system. Plans also call for the development of a 2-megawatt product and 0.4-megawatt product that will be available in 2016.