Extract Energy provides the smartest low-temperature waste heat energy capture technology on the market. But what is waste heat?
Nearly 65% of the world’s energy is rejected as waste heat.
Forman, et al, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
Heat generated during industrial and other processes must be rejected to keep materials and equipment cool. The cooling liquid running through these facilities contain sufficient energy called “waste heat”.
Factories, refineries, food and beverage plants, as well as high-tech industries like data centers produce waste heat during the use of their equipment.
This heat – a byproduct of industrial, manufacturing, data mining and other processes – is typically filtered down drainage, or dispersed into the air.
This release of waste heat largely contributes to annual CO2 emissions and affects global ecosystems.
Going to The Source
Historically, industrial use was the largest source of waste heat contributing to global C02 emissions. In recent years however, new business sectors and technologies have begun contributing to global waste heat streams. For example, operations that use large amounts of server and computing power generate significant heat and require a cooling system in order to function efficiently. When cooling processes are cycled, the now-warmed liquid or vapour is discarded.
Incumbent waste heat capture technologies are only able to work efficiently within higher temperature ranges, 300-500° C. Some of those technologies also required an additional power source such as battery, or even fuel, to perform. This made them inefficient and created their own carbon footprint.
Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) technology offers a solution to convert medium-low grade waste heat into energy. The temperatures of medium-low grade heat that ORC systems use most efficiently can still be up to 300
°C+. So even with ORC advancements, the majority of waste heat cannot be captured.
The Extract Energy Solution
Low-grade waste heat, between 70-150°C represents the largest percentage of by-product that can be converted to energy. Even with more recent waste heat capture technologies, finding a solution to efficiently use that lower temperature range for maximum benefit had yet to be achieved. That is, until the Extract Energy heat engine program began.
This groundbreaking device uses innovative shape memory alloys and materials science. The Extract Energy heat engine is a proprietary technology that creates the most usable energy from the lowest temperature waste heat sources.
By using the Extract Energy heat engine for low-grade waste heat capture, our projection is to reduce over 3 gigatonnes of CO2 by 2040. By comparison, that is equivalent to the emissions of every single car on the planet.
Interested in our joining pilot program?
If you’re ready for the next evolution in clean energy, then connect with the Extract Energy program now to begin reducing emmissions and start saving on energy costs.