Name
Vortex Power Systems
Description
Vortex Power Systems are a New Zealand based clean energy start up who are developing an innovative method for converting waste low grade heat into electricity.
Greater awareness of the pressures of global warming and carbon emissions, together with increasing populations and wealth has made the need for clean energy production and improved power generation efficiencies a high value problem to solve. Approximately 25% of the world’s energy consumption is rejected as low-grade waste heat.
Vortex Power Systems’ technology uses low grade <80ᴼC waste heat recovered from thermal processes, to generate and power a controllable freestanding atmospheric vortex which drives a turbine and generates electrical power. The technology works as an add-on to industrial and thermal power generation processes, reclaiming energy from low grade heat that would otherwise traditionally be sent to cooling towers. Globally these sectors are predicted to reject approximately 160EJ of heat/annum.
VPS expects its technology would be able to service 100EJ of this market. VPS have filed a patent around its key innovation and is progressing to National Phase in major markets. The company was founded off the back of research being conducted at the University of Auckland by Professor Richard Flay, an expert in aerodynamics and wind engineering, and Neil Hawkes, an experienced thermodynamics engineer.
Vortex Power Systems has recently completed a seed round having achieved its proof of concept and is now aiming to develop designs, secure a site and receive regulatory approval to trial a demonstration unit. VPS then intends to raise funds to build the demonstration unit and then trial a pilot plant with a partner.
Greater awareness of the pressures of global warming and carbon emissions, together with increasing populations and wealth has made the need for clean energy production and improved power generation efficiencies a high value problem to solve. Approximately 25% of the world’s energy consumption is rejected as low-grade waste heat.
Vortex Power Systems’ technology uses low grade <80ᴼC waste heat recovered from thermal processes, to generate and power a controllable freestanding atmospheric vortex which drives a turbine and generates electrical power. The technology works as an add-on to industrial and thermal power generation processes, reclaiming energy from low grade heat that would otherwise traditionally be sent to cooling towers. Globally these sectors are predicted to reject approximately 160EJ of heat/annum.
VPS expects its technology would be able to service 100EJ of this market. VPS have filed a patent around its key innovation and is progressing to National Phase in major markets. The company was founded off the back of research being conducted at the University of Auckland by Professor Richard Flay, an expert in aerodynamics and wind engineering, and Neil Hawkes, an experienced thermodynamics engineer.
Vortex Power Systems has recently completed a seed round having achieved its proof of concept and is now aiming to develop designs, secure a site and receive regulatory approval to trial a demonstration unit. VPS then intends to raise funds to build the demonstration unit and then trial a pilot plant with a partner.
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