Albany, N.Y.  – National Grid today presented a $40,000 grant to Ener-G-Rotors, Inc., a Cleantech company located in Rotterdam, NY.

Ener-G-Rotors is moving towards commercial production of its state-of-the-art, waste-heat-to-electricity appliance, GEN4.  The GEN4 is a system that economically converts low temperature heat to carbon free electricity for as little as 1.5 cents per kWh.

“The GEN4 will help industrial businesses recover some of the quadrillions of BTUs of low grade waste heat that they now throw away,” said Ener-G-Rotors CEO Michael Newell. “National Grid has been important to our success so far and we expect their support to be important in the future as well.”

National Grid provided a grant to offset expenses related to building and testing the GEN4 system at the company’s facility.  National Grid’s support covered electrical upgrades and included establishing proper metering for introducing power onto the electrical grid.

“The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 20 to 50 percent of industrial energy is lost as waste heat and that 60 percent of that waste heat is defined as low-temperature heat,” said William Flaherty, National Grid Director of Customer and Community Management. “National Grid is proud to have partnered with Ener-G-Rotors on the interconnection of the GEN4 system to the grid. The system provides an economic solution to generating electricity at temperatures and sizes previously not possible. It opens up a whole new market and has far reaching implications on energy use and conservation and the entire global energy industry.”

The enabling technology is a thermodynamic heat engine called the Trochoidal Gear Engine (TGE). Designed as a simple gerotor expander, the TGE is nearly frictionless and has been proven to be more efficient and cost effective than existing technologies when used in an organic Rankine system. This displacement expander converts low-temperature heat (150°F to 400°F) to electricity at 1kW to 60kW.

Low-temperature waste heat sources can be found in industrial processes, commercial buildings, solar thermal collectors, geothermal sources, biomass boilers and combustion engines.

The GEN4 system, which is installed close to the waste heat source, generates power based on the expansion and contraction of fluid inside a sealed system. It creates no emissions and uses waste heat that otherwise would be exhausted into the atmosphere.

“National Grid has been a great partner to our economic development efforts in Schenectady County,” said Ray Gillen, Chair of the Schenectady County Metroplex Development Authority. “We appreciate National Grid’s support for Ener-G-Rotors, as this clean energy company continues to grow here in the Town of Rotterdam.”

About Energ-G-Rotors
Ener-G-Rotors is commercializing appliances that turns low- temperature heat into electricity, opening up new markets in industrial waste heat and changing the technology landscape for biogas, biomass, combined heat and power, solar thermal, and geothermal installations. The company is widely recognized as a pioneer in the conversion of low-temperature waste heat into electricity, and it has received awards at seven clean-energy forums around the country in the last three years. See www.ener-g-rotors.com.

About National Grid
National Grid (LSE: NG; NYSE:NGG) is an electricity and gas company that connects consumers to energy sources through its networks. The company is at the heart of one of the greatest challenges facing our society – to create new, sustainable energy solutions for the future and developing an energy system that underpins economic prosperity in the 21st century. National Grid holds a vital position at the center of the energy system and it ‘joins everything up’.

In the northeast US, we connect more than seven million gas and electric customers to vital energy sources, essential for our modern lifestyles. In Great Britain, we run the gas and electricity systems that our society is built on, delivering gas and electricity across the country.

National Grid delivers electricity to more than 3 million customers in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. It manages the electricity network on Long Island under an agreement with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), and owns over 4,000 megawatts of contracted electricity generation, providing power to over one million LIPA customers. It is the largest distributor of natural gas in northeastern U.S., serving more than 3 million customers in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

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