Inventing a way
Products
Our patented products can be used in a wide range of applications
Residential heating
By replacing your mid efficiency furnace with our Heat Powered Heat Pump, you could immediately cut your gas consumptions nearly in half. This would reduce GHG emissions more than an electric heat pump at a lower cost.
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Encouraging the use of electrical heat pumps has been an important part of our path to a net-zero carbon future. We can see why from the table, showing a possible emission reduction of 39% and a cost reduction of 6%. However, the table also shows that Stratitrope's heat pump can significantly exceed an electric heat pump's performance in terms of CO2 and cost reduction. Greater cost reduction means a lower "green premium". This results in faster public adoption, and more money available for other emission cutting technologies.
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The values in these tables are based on the average costs and emissions for electrical production in the USA. These vary by state and country. In some areas, with high renewable power generation, an electric heat pump might be the better solution for climate change, but on average in the United States and Canada, Stratitrope's heat pump would often be the best choice.
Residential Heating with Generation
We showed above how we could reduce the carbon footprint of heating by 50%. Here we show that we can reduce the entire combined electrical and heating footprint by 45% using a stratitropic heat pump generator (SHPG) to supply electricity to homes. Since we extract heat from the environment and send the excess heat to the home as " enhanced cogeneration" we can generate power more environmentally than we receive it from the grid. The final column shows what happens if we generate added power and sell it to the grid (at the same price that we purchase it). As the heating requirement in the home increases, the benefits of overgeneration also increase.
Here, we can see a possible emission reduction (Electrical Plus Heating) of 30% by using an electric heat pump, and a cost reduction of 4%. However, using a Stratitrope Heat Pump Generator could result in emission reductions that are 50% greater than even the electric heat pump, and we can do it while saving more that 10 times, the cost when compared to an electric heat pump.
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While home heating in the winter, the enhanced cogeneration results in power generation with emissions levels below the USA average and well below many states. Selling power back to the grid during these times means lower overall CO2 discharge.
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Comparing column 4 with column 6 above we can see that we used 5.1 kw (11.5-6.4) of additional heat to generate 4kW of additional electricity (1.5+2.5) . This is an effective efficiency of 78%. "On January 22, 2018, the worlds most efficient combined cycle power plant achieved 63.08%, a Guinness world record achieved by Nishi-Nagoya Thermal power station No. 7-1 in Japan" Our effective rate of 78% exceeds this by 24%! The actual generating efficiency the is less than that, but since we are already extracting heat and providing enhanced cogeneration, the incremental usage results in an effective efficiency is a true measure of its environmental impact.
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The highest heating load for commercial and residential buildings occurs in the winter at night. Yet these are also low electrical demand periods. This provides an excellent opportunity to charge batteries, produce hydrogen or to charge electric vehicles. This effective efficiency means that charging electric vehicles would be cleaner and cheaper than using grid power. Further, It would reduce the requirement for new renewable energy to meet demand.
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Electric powered heat pumps though beneficial, increases the demand for electrical power, making the production of clean power more costly and the task of grid upgrades even more onerous. Off loading this generation to clean distributed generation like the Stratitrope HPG would allow us to avoid and even replace some of the dirty electrical sources. By its nature it reduces carbon immediately, buying us precious time to build a truly sustainable generation infrastructure.
Aside from the obvious emission and cost reductions, these products have other benefits
Renewable Natural Gas
According to the most recent inventory report, U.S. landfills released an estimated 109 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) of methane into the atmosphere in 2020; this represents 16.8 percent of the total U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions across all sectors. This is why, under the Renewable Fuel Standard program, an increasing number of facilities are processing this raw biogas generated from landfills and wastewater treatment facilities, into RNG, that can be injected into the Natural gas pipeline network. This is an important aspect of reducing carbon because it reduces existing emissions while producing a green energy source.
Part of the LFG to RNG process requires the removal of harmful chemicals that have built up in the landfill including siloxanes and non-Methane Organic Compounds (NMOC). These are usually removed using a regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO) to destroy the chemicals before exhausting them to the atmosphere. However, the oxidizer often contains methane (2 to 4%) that is also burned during the process. Stratitrope's Heat Pump Generator can harness this heat to provide chilling and generate power.
How it Works
The diagram shows the proposed pilot configuration to be used at an RNG plant that is now under construction. The Stratitrope Heat Pump Generator is shown as the HPE in blue near the bottom of the diagram. Here HPE means Heat Pump Engine. Heat is extracted from the Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO). It is supplied to the HPE at high temperature and returned at a slightly lower temperature. It provides power and chilling.
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An integral part of the LFG to RNG conversion is to remove the excess moisture. This is done by chilling the LFG first at low temperature, then again at high temperature . In existing plants, this is done using an electric chiller. A plant converting 5000 SCFM of dry gas may require up to 400 tons of chilling. There is enough heat in the oxidizer, for the HPE to provide all of the plants chilling requirement while generating power to be used in other parts of the facility.
A Stratitrope Heat Pump Generator providing chilling and Power generation for RNG facility
Energy Storage
Solar and Wind power are dependent on nature and can't simply be generated on demand. That's why energy storage is a critical part of our renewable future. Many storage methods are currently being used or explored. This includes air compression, where air is compressed when power is generated, then expanded through a turbine later when electricity is required. One of the current limitations of compression is that much of this energy is lost in the form of heat during the compression and storage period reducing recovery efficiencies
The Stratitropic process intrinsically provides cooling while it generates power. In fact, the heat it absorbed from its surroundings adds to its power generation. This Stratitropic compressor could make a significant improvement in energy Storage.
How it Works
The cooler a gas , the less work is required to compress it, and the lower the final temperature of the compressed gas. As the Stratitropic compressor (STC) compresses the air, it intrinsically produces a heat pump chilling effect that can be used to precool the gas. Standard air intercoolers would be used to limit the increase in temperature during compression, but the chilling effect could be used again to cool the final compressed gas below the atmospheric temperature. This means that during storage, its temperature, and energy storage, would actually increase as it grew closer to to ambient temperature.
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Remarkably this method uses the energy of its own compression to create a portion of the power and uses the heat from the surrounding atmosphere to further add renewable energy to the system
A thermal solar driven Stratitropic Compressor storing energy as compressed air
