June 29th, 5-7PM, Berkeley California
We look forward to seeing many of you at our new product Launch Party later this week. We have 60 people RSVPed so far, which is approaching the attendenance levels for our full workshop weekends of years ago– which is great. We also have some surprisingly dedicated international travellers coming for the event. We’re of course very happy to see this much interest in our new product. We have space for ~100 people, so if you want to be there, please do RSVP to the event page soon.
The event will be a formal presentation by APL Founder/CEO Jim Mason on the new concepts and features of the PP30 Cogen-CS, as well as run demonstrations with several machines on site. We will have walk around demonstration stations for the PP30 Cogen-CS, previous PP20 for comparison, Local Carbon Network biochar information/char, and–maybe most importantly–a walk in “beer cave” shipping container, cooled with our new absorption chiller. A CHP hot tub post party is also rumored.
Technical Specifications
Many of you have requested a full technical specification sheet for the new machine. We’re happy to provide one, as we’re rather happy with the details of what we’ve been able to accomplish through this major generation change of the Power Pallet.
Below is copied the full technical spec sheet, divided into typical topic blocks, and with all the details that the obsessives want to know. We have crafted the spec sheet as a comparison between the PP20 and PP30 to help highlight the changes, and where possible clarify how we achieved the numbers. Close inspection will be rewarded. You can also find the same spec sheet as a downloadable file here.
Old PP20 vs New PP30 Cogen-CS
Technical Specifications & Comparisons
Points of particular interest:
- Higher power output through larger displacement and higher compression Ashok Leyland / Hino engine, with high efficiency Marathon genhead.
- Major efficiency increase in biomass-to-power from 1.2kg/kWh to 1.0kg/kWh– a 20% reduction in biomass consumption. We actually see it a bit below 1:1, but for now we’re happy to represent a scale scale gasifier engine system that can operate at the 1:1 threshold. This is unheard of for small scale machines previously in the industry.
- High efficiency three stage CHP system utilizing engine cooling water, engine exhaust and gasifier waste heat. Each 1 kW electricity produces 2 kWt heat. This 1:2 ratio similarly exceeds the prior art in biomass gasifier based CHP systems.
- Major emissions improvements with an upgraded catalytic system and engine tuning. We are now able to meet California regulatory standards–even the Bay Area Air Quality Management District ones–for both for criteria pollutants and air toxics. These California standards are much more aggressive than we’ve previously encountered in Europe. Both the Berkeley engineering group and the APL Italia Modena engineering group have put a great deal of test work into characterizing our emissions across load, timing and mixture ranges; and then using these sweeps to find system configurations which optimize for the minimum intersections. The result is exceedingly low numbers and ability to meet even CA standards–which at times seem like you have to make stationary engine emissions approach indoor air quality levels. Well, not quite, but the thresholds are brutal. See numbers below.
- Operations and maintenance refinements across all systems; with particular emphasis on a new engine with in-frame rebuild kit capability, and a temperature controlled filter/cooler system that prevents final condensate, and allows for real time soot cleaning of heat exchanger while running.
- And with that quick cheat sheet, here finally is the full comparative spec sheet for your consideration . . .
