External Combustion | Green Energy News

October 10, 2004 – Vol.9 No.29

EXTERNAL COMBUSTION.

Though the history of the Stirling Engine goes back to the 19th century, there’s been little commercial development.

Too bad. They hold great promise.

Stirling Engines are external combustion engines which translates into low emissions. They’re versatile. They run on just about any fuel or source of heat. And they can be very efficient as they lend themselves easily to combined heat and power installations.

In what will be one of the first commercial installations of STM Power’s Stirling Engine generators, Northern Power will install 7 of the 55-kilowatt generator sets at a vegetable oil processing facility in Port Newark, New Jersey. The Stirling engines at the Aarhus United plant will run on oil distillate and waste oil to provide up to 65 percent of the plant’s power requirements and 12 percent of the its thermal needs.

Since the fuels are bio-products the emissions are greenhouse gas neutral. The grid-connected system will operate 24/7 and will save the company almost $300,000 per year as the burning of the waste products displaces natural gas for energy at the plant.

The $1.7 million project will be paid for, in part, through the New Jersey Clean Energy Program which offers a $1.50 per watt incentive payment up to 30 percent of the project cost. With the incentive the net cost should be reduced to $1.2 million.

Visit Northern Power at http://www.northernpower.com/ , STM Power at http://www.stmpower.com/ and Aarhus United USA http://usa.aarhusunited.com/.