Waste heat plant to come up in forest products company

KGRA Energy LP, a U.S.-based waste heat recovery developer, has announced that civil engineering has begun and equipment delivery continues on an innovative clean energy system being installed at a Greenville, NC area mill owned by Weyerhaeuser Company, a forest product company. The project, developed by KGRA Energy, in partnership with Turbine Air Systems Inc., will capture waste heat from the mill and covert the captured thermal energy into clean electricity.

When completed, the project will provide Weyerhaeuser's mill approximately 4.5 million kilowatt hours. KGRA Energy's system employs an organic Rankine cycle based power generation skid packaged by Turbine Air Systems at their Houston, TX factory. This skid, scheduled to arrive the first week of August will convert the mill's waste heat to useable energy. At the Weyerhaeuser lumber mill, heat will be recovered from a kiln where cut lumber enters the drying process.  

Organic Rankine cycle technology recovers waste heat from viable sources, such as combustion engine exhausts, furnaces, boilers, and kilns, and converts it into usable CO2-free electricity, which lowers energy costs as well as heat pollution.  Organic Rankine cycle has been tested and deployed since the 1960s.  It is the primary power generation tool used in the low-temperature heat recovery industry and has been deployed at more than 1,500 sites throughout the US and around the world.

KGRA's systems are modular and scalable, providing the ability to produce power from smaller and lower-temperature heat sources previously deemed unsuitable for standard cogeneration.  KGRA projects are customized for the direct needs and specifications of each customer.