BOULDER, Colo. — Cool Energy has announced the successful demonstration of a new system for converting waste heat into electricity. According to the company, this new waste heat recovery technology can significantly boost the efficiency of diesel generators, reducing fossil fuel use by 10 percent.

For the demonstration, the company connected its patented 3kW SolarHeart® Engine system to a standard 30kW diesel generator to produce additional electricity from waste heat that would otherwise be lost.

Sam Weaver, CEO of Cool Energy, said that this product is “the culmination of six years of effort. We have successfully demonstrated that our SolarHeart Engine energy boost system generates carbon-free electricity simply from the exhaust waste heat of a diesel generator. If our power conversion technology was used globally on small diesel generators, nearly 500 million gallons of diesel fuel per year would be saved in the telecom sector alone.”

More than 60 percent of the energy created by engine generators is lost as wasted heat, noted Cool Energy. With the SolarHeart, the company said it has achieved 22 percent efficiency in heat to electricity conversion. Applied to distributed electricity generators, this amounts to a 10 percent fuel savings. In mass production, the company said its system will pay for itself in less than one year in many situations.

For more information, visit www.coolenergyinc.com.

Publication date: 1/7/2013