ReGen Power Systems LLC, a company that has adapted a 19th century technology to meet the energy and environmental needs of the 21st century, has secured $5 million in equity financing to continue development of its low temperature differential engine to convert waste industrial heat to power.
The investment by 21Ventures, LLC, and the Quercus Trust will fund the design and fabrication of two prototype engines. The first will be a 10kW engine for purposes of evaluation and testing. The second will be a 500kW engine to be installed at a corporate user site for field testing.
"As an external combustion engine, our design will be capable of using a wide range of heat sources to produce power," notes ReGen President, Ricardo Conde. "We plan to offer engines that operate at 250º Centigrade for furnace exhaust, and others at 100º Centigrade to condense low pressure steam."
"Not only will the engine use ‘free’ fuel," Conde explained, "but its use will produce power without producing a single molecule of greenhouse gas."
ReGen said the engine will make power that would otherwise have been produced by a polluting central power plant. As a result, it will be environmentally positive as well as economic. The new technology could be useful in many major industries, including paper, chemicals, refining, steel, aluminum, glass and cement.
"In the U.S. alone, industry wastes the heat equivalent of more than 20 gigawatts of power each year," according to David Anthony, Managing Director, of 21ventures. "If this energy were converted to power using ReGen’s technology, it would eliminate the need to build twenty nuclear power plants."
The $5 million funding will also enable ReGen to fabricate several follow-up beta units for broader field tests, and to design a production prototype.
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