Dresser-Rand Co. has agreed to buy a minority interest in Echogen Power Systems along with certain license and marketing rights to Echogen’s technologies and intellectual property, notably its waste-heat recovery systems that use Dresser-Rand turbo-expanders.
The terms of the companies’ definitive agreement call for Dresser-Rand to invest $10 million in exchange for a 20% ownership interest in Echogen. Dresser-Rand also will acquire license rights in certain industrial markets, and will pay Echogen a royalty based upon future equipment sales in these markets. Commercialization is expected to begin in 2012.
Echogen Power Systems is an Ohio company that develops heat-to-electricity power generation systems that use “supercritical working fluids to transform heat into power without creating new emissions,” according to a Dresser-Rand statement. For the operators of rotating power equipment, the Echogen technology reduces electrical power generation cost and increases the rate of energy recovery from the waste-heat stream. It’s also able to generate power from a wider range of heat sources than competing technologies, all with a compact footprint.
Dresser-Rand Group manufactures rotating equipment for oil, gas, and petrochemical companies, and other manufacturers in the process industries.
Echogen will uses the capital investment to advance its technological development, including design and construction of waste-heat recovery systems that use Dresser-Rand turbo-expanders.
CEO Phil Brennan said Echogen’s power-generation cycle “is ideally suited to the waste heat-recovery and power-generation applications in both oil-and-gas and industrial markets. The unique properties of this skid-based system, known as the Thermafficient® Waste Heat Engine, separates Echogen's technology from competitors in cost, footprint and performance."
"We believe this innovative process technology will expand Dresser-Rand's product portfolio, further strengthening our ability to compete in the largely un-tapped waste heat-recovery market for power generation. Estimates reflect that there are over 400 gigawatts of waste heat streams that are not currently being recovered. We plan to target projects in the 1 to 50 megawatt size range. Our high speed, high pressure power recovery expanders will benefit from the application of this technology," stated Bradford W. Dickson, Dresser-Rand's vice president and chief marketing officer.
Dickson called the investment a continuation of Dresser-Rand’s strategy of promoting its products across all energy infrastructure markets.
