Bluebox Energy has been working with Dynamo Micropower since 2014 developing small gas turbine systems designed for the oil and gas industry. More recently, DMP selected Bluebox Energy to model a new Turbocore product and specify the required turbocharger hardware. The Turbocore is a turbocharger based heating system designed to run on multiple fuels with low emmissions.

We’re very pleased to have been selected for one of the 8 finalists in one of the two shell springboard regions.

Congratulations to the 3 winners for their bioplaatic, sea greenhouse and Lithium battery reforming technology.

After just 7 days of final installation and commissioning, one of our turbogenerator systems test beds is now operational at DSTG in Australia. This is a key step towards proving the technology to improve the efficiency of the Navy’s submarine engines, increasing their range.

During initial operations at Dudingen, a number of upgrade possibilities were discovered to improve the durability and performance of the system. These upgrades are now complete and our datasheet has now been revised to reflect the better performance:

The new performance was better than we hoped for and demonstrated 85kW of electricity equating to over 16% efficiency based on electricity out / calorific value of fuel consumed. Over the coming weeks we plan to gradually increase furnace temperatures to achieve 100kWe output.

DUO+ Datasheet

We were very happy to see that our Hot Air Turbine system fitted to Schmid Energy’s Biomass furnace and heat exchanger made it into the Swiss Cleantech Report 2017 published by teh Swiss Government.

A link to the page in the report

Link to the Schmid Energy page describing the project

A critical part of a hot air turbine system is how it is started and controlled during operation. Our present DUO+ system uses an external PLC based controller. Whilst this works fine, it is bulky, expensive and software upgrades are more difficult to implement.

In 2015, we started the development of a purpose built mini-turbine controller called the HATSC. This controller uses the open access Python programming language and has the following key features:

• Three dedicated controllers for the master controller, safety watchdog controller and intelligent IO
• 15 x 0-10V voltage inputs
• 2 x 4-20mA current inputs
• 10 x RTD PT100 temperature inputs
• 5 x K-Type thermocouple inputs
• 3 x Relay digital outputs
• 3 x 0-10VDC voltage outputs
• CAN interface

This system has been fitted into our MINI-XP system for DSTG and will be used for our MONO-HCR system that will convert heat from a concentrated solar tower and produce elevctricity in Spain.

During 2016, we developed a new MINI-XP system. This new equipment does not have a built in Turbocharger, but is designed to operate with a pressurised heat source instead.

This first system will utilise our new Hot Air Turbine System Controller (HATSC) and will be first tested by DSTG in Australia as part of a programme to improve the Austrialian Navy’s diesel engines.

Whilst our facility at Wingate Rd allowed us to grow our prototype build facility, we needed larger, purpose built premises to allow us to expand into pilot production build.

During 2016, these were built as part of the new Daedalus Enterprise park and after fitting the unit out to our specification, we moved in December.

Our new premises has room to expand the engineering team as well as doubling our prototype / pilot build cells.

In partnership with Schmid Energy, we have just completed commissioning the system at Dudingen in Switzerland. The system will generate 100kW coupled to a 650kWth waste-wood fired furnace producing heat for the local trading estate as well as exporting the 100kWe to the utility grid. The project is part of the Switzerland’s lighthouse programme investing in technologies that will move Switzerland’s energy portfolio over to Renewable sources.

The system has now been handed over to Groupe-E who will now run the plant on a commercial basis.