mtu Onsite Energy brings gas power solutions to North America

• Reliable, highly efficient, low emission and cost effective power generation
• Suited for a variety of applications like farm operations, hospitals, universities and manufacturing
• Efficiency rates above 90 % with co- and tri-generation
• Gas engines Series 400 up to 360 kWel
• Gas engines Series 4000 up to 2,100 kWel
• Full fuel gas flexibility

Houston/Friedrichshafen, 20 June 2012. mtu Onsite Energy, the global Tognum Group brand of distributed energy systems, will now offer continuous power systems in North America. These systems generating electricity and heat (CHP) run on natural gas, biogas, sewage gas or landfill gas and have been successfully installed in Europe and Asia for over 35 years. The wide range of usable fuels opens the way to a large number of applications, such as farming operations, municipal buildings, hospitals, campuses and manufacturing facilities. “Due to the population and the parallel economic growth we will have a constantly rising demand for energy all over the world, and this technology means that electricity and heat can be generated onsite where they are needed – reliably, extremely efficiently and in an environmentally friendly way,” said Ulrich Kemnitz, executive vice president Onsite Energy within the Tognum Group. “This is an important contribution for the future world’s sustainable development.”

The CHP process, also known as combined heat and power, is one of the ways for businesses and other large facilities to control costs for heating, lighting and cooling, because it employs technology that extracts multiple forms of usable energy from a single fuel source: electrical power via a generator and thermal power thanks to the exhaust heat from the engine. “This means we can achieve efficiency rates above 90 % and are able to utilize virtually all of the energy present in the gas,” explained Kemnitz. Compared to the use of separate heat and power systems, CHP is beneficial for the environment, thanks to its utilization of alternative fuels, low emissions and reduced overall fuel usage. mtu Onsite Energy CHP systems can create any combination of heat and electricity for applications that have a simultaneous need for electrical and thermal power for more than 8,000 hours per year.

“Most packaged CHP systems are based on gas turbines or gaseous-fueled reciprocating engines,” said Stefan Kohler, senior manager, North American sales, mtu Onsite Energy. “Gas turbines have typically been favoured for very large applications, but natural gas or biogas reciprocating engines have the flexibility to power applications from 100 kW to 5 MW at a lower cost. Our proven CHP systems are designed to be complete solutions for our customers’ environmental and business needs.”

Two models of the mtu Onsite Energy CHP system are available in North America. The compact Series 400 model, which is fueled by natural gas, biogas, landfill gas or sewage gas, produces 128 to 358 kWel. The larger Series 4000 model produces 764 to 2,135 kWel, and is fueled by natural gas. The electric power can be used to power some or all of the electricity needed by a facility. An exhaust heat exchanger is used to capture the high-quality heat from the exhaust system. Additional heat can be captured from the engine’s cooling system. This heat can be used to make hot water or low-pressure steam for a wide variety of uses, such as space heating, food processing, wastewater treatment or swimming pool heating.

The CHP system is also able to produce a combination of power, heat and cooling, or trigeneration. The lower temperature heat from the reciprocating engine’s cooling system in the CHP system is especially suited for powering an absorption chiller – which uses heat energy to produce cooling.

mtu Onsite Energy is offering its CHP systems through a network of authorized distributors throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.