Cyclone Power Technologies, Inc. (Cyclone Power) has opened a new division for generating sales of its new waste heat engine (WHE). The company’s division is operating under the name WHE/Generation. The new division will market and manufacture the WHE systems for applications like small-scale cogeneration, solar thermal electricity production, biomass combustion, and the engines for auxiliary power units for trucks and RVs.
In the coming months, WHE/Generation will launch a new consumer oriented web site, and contract with the manufacturers and installers to handle the forecasted sales of these systems.
Public response and interest in the WHE has been overwhelming, said Frankie Fruge, chief operating officer of Cyclone Power. We are — or should I say, the WHE is — finding many underserved niche markets that may provide substantial revenue opportunities for the company in 2009 and beyond.
For instance, the company will install the first beta WHE system at the Bent Glass Design in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. This system will harness the waste heat from customer’s glass manufacturing furnaces, and is anticipated to produce enough electricity to light their 65,000 sq. ft. facility while offering a very attractive two to three-year payback. This type of money-saving, the resource-conserving option has not traditionally been available to the tens of thousands of small industrial facilities that produce low and medium quality waste heat insufficient to run large turbine systems.
With the demand for energy efficiency on the rise, spurred on by federal and state incentives, the WHE can provide cost-effective green solutions to factories, foundries, restaurants, dry cleaners and other heat producing locations everywhere, added Fruge.
The compact, lightweight WHE is a six-cylinder steam engine that is capable of running on waste heat as low as 225 degreesF and pressure as low as 25 psi. The engine attains maximum efficiencies at about 600°F and a steam pressure of 200 psi, at which point one WHE can generate about 16 HP, 30 ft. lbs of torque, and a little over 10 kW of electrical output. Due to its patent-pending valve mechanism and radial spider bearings, which enable for efficient piston movement, the WHE will self-start immediately upon the introduction of steam to cylinders. This makes engine ideally suited for the passive or secondary energy production like cogeneration or solar thermal applications.
The company’s business model is research, development and licensing of its new external combustion engine technology, of which the WHE is the first expected to be placed into commercial production. The goal of the WHE/Generation division is to expand the company’s potential revenue streams by building business-to-business and business-to-consumer sales models.