Using Digester Gas as a Clean Renewable Power Source for Local Communities

Ener-Core manufactures power generation products which enable communities and regions to cleanly generate power from gases that were previously difficult to use due to the gas not always maintaining a stable or minimal energy density required for combustion or energy production.

Ener-Core’s systems leverage an anticipated worldwide trend towards increasing the production of energy from biogas, derived from a variety of agricultural, waste and biomass sources.

Ener-Core Powerstations make feasible the production of energy from a much wider range of gas qualities (including low-quality gases that have historically been deemed useless), enabling operators to:

• Generating continuous clean renewable power without most of the fuel quality and clean up requirements that are typically associated with traditional forms of biogas-to-energy plants.
• Transforming a source of methane emissions and pollution for local electricity generation
• Opening the possibility of using simpler (and lower cost) biogas digesters as renewable gas resource
  

Technology

Gradual Oxidation works by replacing a combustion reaction with a chemically similar, but slower chemical oxidation reaction which occurs at lower temperatures than combustion.

Our technology extends a historical trend in engine technology seeking to improve emissions and expand the fuel operating range.

Our systems are designed to allow for the extraction of energy from previously unusable fuels, reduce harmful pollutants, and create useful energy products such as heat and electricity.

We have completed a number of development and deployment milestones in the last five years. In 2012, our technology successfully underwent testing and verification completed by an independent third party as part of U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”) demonstration program.

Low Quality Gas. Typically, this may be found in:

• Agricultural Digester Gas
  The organic matter from the agricultural feedstock determines the energy density or methane content in the digester gas. Depending on the location, the season and type of feedstock, the gas energy density may change or decrease.
• Reduced Process Gas
  The regulation of the gas methane content may be dependent on the precise control and complex operation of digestion system. Opening up the allowable gas quality envelope could simplify digester operation and may improve the gas production reliability.
• Tail Gas from Digester-Gas-to-Pipeline Processing Plants or Biogas Conditioning
  Tail gas is usually below 20% methane, often requiring supplemental fuel to be flared.
• Reciprocating Engine or Flare operates intermittently or needs supplemental fuel. Gas quality may change too frequently and sporadically for reliable reciprocating engine operation, hence requiring the addition of supplemental natural gas to stabilize and increase the energy density of the biogas, such that it is kept above minimal limits required by reciprocating engines. The Ener-Core Powerstations can generate power from fuel gas with as little as 5% methane and accepts changes in fuel quality while operating.
  

250 kW Product: The Ener-Core Powerstation FP250 combines Gradual Oxidization with a 250 kW gas turbine from FlexEnergy, Inc.

Ener-Core’s Gradual Oxidizer replaces the turbine’s standard combustor, resulting in a generation system with a wide fuel operating range and ultra-low emissions.