Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT
ORC plants 20-120 kWel
Pilot applications: Electricity from waste heat at biogas piston engines
Energy Systems Engineering
A department in the field of energy
We develop and optimize energy systems engineering and its applications by means of static and dynamic simulation as well as using prototype/pilot plant construction and testing. As a service, we offer the conception, customer-specific calculation, design, planning and integration of energy systems engineering as well as the creation and evaluation of technical concepts. We are a first mover in application-oriented development in selected subject areas and a reliable companion for industry right through to practical application.
Turbomachinery and Pilot Plants
Based on many years of experience in the development and optimization of small, high-speed turbomachinery (e.g. ORC supersonic or micro steam turbines), we develop tailor-made turbomachinery solutions for a wide variety of applications. In addition to specially created design tools and classic CFD simulation, we also use automated optimization tools and always take the associated overall process into account.
In addition to building turbomachinery prototypes and testing them on our own test bench, we also realize complete pilot plants in our pilot plant station or in field trials directly on the user's site. We can thus offer the entire range from development and prototype construction, plant construction, commissioning and CE certification to trial operation with monitoring and maintenance from a single source.
Energy Process Engineering
Our work focuses on the development and continuous improvement of energy plants and processes. In addition to power generation plants, we have been intensively involved in energy storage – especially compressed air energy storage (CAES) – and the storage of compressed gases for years.
The use of dynamic process simulations and exergetic analyses gives us a detailed insight into the interaction of plant components and enables losses to be localized. Based on this expertise, we determine efficiency increase and optimization potential for complex energy plants – as part of new developments or in existing plants. The potential can often already be exploited by replacing or modifying a few plant components.
Where the use of conventional components of energy process engineering reaches its limits, we develop new components from the idea to prototypes in the pilot plant station to the pilot plant on site. Examples of such developments include isobaric storage systems to increase efficiency in industrial compressed air generation or – at the interface of energy process engineering and process engineering – gas cleaning with non-thermal plasma.