New PUC waste heat power generation units will produce clean zero carbon energy for Pohnpei

By Bill Jaynes The Kaselehlie Press

March 24, 2023

Pohnpei—Pohnpei’s Governor Reed Oliver, Pohnpei Utilities Corporation (PUC) officials and employees, and a representative of the United States Embassy to FSM gathered for the handover of a new 200kW ORC (Organic Racine Cycle) Waste Heat Power Generation Unit. The $2,942,790 project was primarily funded by a United States Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service High Energy Cost grant in the amount of $2,929,600. PUC contributed $30,000 to the project.

PUC awarded the contract for three of the generators to B:Power, an engineering company founded in 2009 in the Czech Republic. B:Power cooperates with the leading manufacturers of ORC units from the USA, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the case of the PUC project, that manufacturer was ElectraTherm, Inc., which is based in Germany.

Essentially, an ORC Waste Heat Power Generation Unit uses heat such as that produced by PUC’s generators to produce power. The new systems will completely replace the radiators that PUC currently uses to cool its generators that are currently at the end of their life cycle and produce no energy of their own. The new ORC systems will not only cool the new powerful and more efficient generators that are currently on their way to Pohnpei, but the energy from the heat will be used to provide electricity with zero carbon dioxide power and requiring no fuel. PUC says that approximately 1500 tons of CO2 will not be added to the atmosphere each year through the use of the additional systems. The technology will also improve the cooling of the diesel engines resulting in improved efficiency.

The units are compact in design and have been specially containerized according to the PUC’s need. The design means that the generators have a footprint of only 100 square meters. PUC says, additionally, at a cost of only 25 cents per kilowatt hour, the average savings per year will be approximately $550,000.

“It has taken almost four years since the first meeting with representatives of Pohnpei Utilities Corporation, where the concept of ORC-based waste heat to power generation was presented until the award of the contract,” the information sheet on the project said. “The project was originally scheduled to be completed by June 30, 2021, but unfortunately, the advent of COVID-19 made the planned date impossible to achieve. Currently, all equipment has been delivered to the installation site with the B:POWER technicians awaiting the issue of a permit to enter the country to complete installation and commissioning of the ORCs.”