Free Piston Stirling Engine Based 1kW Generator

 Free Piston Stirling Engine Based 1kW Generator


Program:
GENSETS
Award:
$4,789,546
Location:
Athens, Ohio
Status:
ALUMNI
Project Term:
12/01/2015 - 09/30/2021

Technology Description:

Sunpower, in partnership with Aerojet Rocketdyne and Precision Combustion Inc. (PCI), proposes a high-frequency, high efficiency 1 kW free-piston Stirling engine (FPSE). A Stirling engine uses a working gas such as helium, which is housed in a sealed environment. When heated by the natural gas-fueled burner, the gas expands causing a piston to move and interact with a linear alternator to produce electricity. As the gas cools and contracts, the process resets before repeating again. Advanced Stirling engines endeavor to carefully manage heat inside the system to make the most efficient use of the natural gas energy. New innovations from this team include the highly efficient and high frequency design which reduces size and cost and can be wall mounted. The heater-head assembly acts as the heat exchanger between the burner and the enclosed working gas, and the higher temperature allows for greater efficiency. Aerojet Rocketdyne will assist this effort by developing high temperature materials to use in this process, while PCI will add a novel catalytically-assisted, two-stage, burner to maximize heat transfer to the heater-head.

Potential Impact:

If successful, Sunpower’s project will facilitate development and commercialization of economical, efficient, and durable CHP systems for residential use. These advancements support progress toward ARPA-E’s overall goals as follows:

Security:

Innovations developed in this project could help households and businesses become more energy self-reliant and less susceptible to energy-related outages through distributed, local generation of power and heat.

Environment:

Widespread adoption of high-efficiency residential CHP systems could decrease overall primary energy consumption and therefore reduce CO2 emissions associated with electricity generation by up to 10%.

Economy:

Cost-effective natural gas-fueled residential CHP systems could offer consumers lower electricity and heating bills.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. David Tew
Project Contact:
Mr. Gary Wood
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
gary.wood@ametek.com

Partners

Aerojet Rocketdyne
Precision Combustion, Inc.

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Release Date:
10/16/2014