Converting Waste Heat into Energy

Posted on: 2016-06-01 3:47 PM

A Portland coffee roaster hopes to be the first in the industry to turn heat generated by the company's operations into energy.
 
Portland Roasting Coffee is investing $70,000 in technology to capture power that would otherwise be wasted to provide the 25 kilowatt-hours of energy to run its operations 10 hours daily, seven days a week.
 
The company has been carbon-neutral since 2007. When founder Mark Stell learned he could go even further and power his operations with energy he'd already produced, he saw it as a sound investment.
 
Energy Trust of Oregon has approved Portland roasting for a one-time incentive for $20,000. With that, the payback period for the waste heat-to-power generator will be seven years.
 
However, Stell, who sits on the national Specialty Coffee Association of America’s sustainability council, is working with the organization to push Congress to create a federal incentive for the waste heat-to-power conversion.
 
If that happens, it would likely add a 30 percent reduction in cost for the system. Stell is waiting until 2017 to install the generator to see if that incentive comes to pass.
 
"We’ll want to share it as much as we can with others in industry," said Stell, president of the Oregon Coffee Board.