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tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,388

Linear Generator

For SpaceNut ... there is no topic in this Index level with the word Linear.

The article quoted below in it's entirety reports on a technology I'd not heard of before, but it seems to have quietly accumulated substantial backing, not to mention orders for working systems ...

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/next … 24105.html

David R Baker
Tue, March 9, 2021 5:00 AM
(Bloomberg) -- Startup Mainspring Energy Inc. has landed a $150 million deal with a unit of renewable giant NextEra Energy Inc. to deploy a little known power-generation technology that could help businesses avoid grid outages.

Called a linear generator, it uses a non-combustion reaction of air and fuel to move magnets back and forth through copper coils, generating an electric current. In a video illustration on Mainspring’s website, it looks something like a constantly moving pogo stick lying on its side.

Mainspring’s generators are the latest technology targeting businesses that want to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions and generate their own power at the same time, shielding themselves from the kind of blackouts that have recently struck Texas and California. Packed into box-like units the size of a parking space, they can ramp up to full power within seconds and run on natural gas, biogas or hydrogen, which offers the possibility of lower-carbon or carbon-free electricity produced on-site.

NextEra Energy Resources, a unit of the world’s largest investor-owned producer of wind and solar power, plans to install the generators at NextEra customer facilities. The chance to tap NextEra’s extensive customer network would boost any startup. But for Mainspring, the introduction could be doubly important, convincing potential customers to try a technology they’ve never heard of before.

“It is a really new type of generation,” said founder and Chief Executive Officer Shannon Miller in an interview. “We often get lumped into being an engine or being a fuel cell. The characteristics are different. The value proposition is different.”

Mainspring’s generators will likely appeal to the same customers currently buying fuel cells, but the technologies are quite different. Rather than the electrochemical reaction inside a fuel cell, the generator relies on a low-temperature reaction of pressurized fuel and air that drives linear shafts back and forth through copper coils. Two generators packaged together into a single 20 foot-long container can produce 250 kilowatts of electricity. They can power a building or be plugged directly into the grid.

“Mainspring is able to integrate clean, onsite generation with both renewables and the grid, and we’re pleased to support bringing this innovative product to market,” said NextEra Energy Resources Chief Executive Officer John Ketchum, in a press release.

The Silicon Valley company has raised more than $130 million from such investors as Bill Gates, Equinor Ventures, KCK, Khosla Ventures and utility company American Electric Power Co., Miller said. In addition to the NextEra deal, the company says a national supermarket chain has agreed to install the generators at as many as 30 stores. Miller estimates a typical grocery store could save 10% to 20% on electricity using the generator, when compared with the cost of relying solely on the grid.

Pilot deployments with multiple Fortune 500 companies began last June, according to Mainspring.

Mark McCullough, executive vice president for energy delivery at American Electric Power, said his company was impressed with the generator’s low costs, low emissions and “dispatchability,” the ability to supply power whenever needed. Solar and wind energy are famously dependent on the weather and time of day, while fuel cells, he said, take substantially longer than the generator to reach full power.

“It all rises up to a very usable machine, in many ways,” McCullough said. “This offers us some elegant solutions for a number of use cases.”

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

I'm hoping other forum members will add to this topic, to add to the summary given in the article.

A shipping container sized package could be installed at the level of a community, or a manufacturing plant, or in a sea going vessel.

I'm hoping forum members can find pros and cons, comparisons with other generator methods, and more ...

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Linear Generator

The single coil and magnets have been around for some time in the form of a shake light.
These fall under the permanent magnet realm for creating power as a result of the motion being along a line.

Linear meaning in a straight line so to get more power you need alternating poles and many more coils to bring the level of power created from the units motion. Of course this is an ac generator until a set of diodes are used to rectify the voltage so as to charge a battery or capacitor to allow it to become DC. This know as wild cycle creation as its cycles are not fixed unless the change of direct repetitions stay steady and for AC use you need the voltage and frequency to make it work for that purpose.
We got into linear motion inductive motors in another topic where the ac is stepped to allow for a lead lag of current and voltage to appear accross the coils to make motion happen. The rotor or slide would be the inductive part that is being replaced  with alternating magnets to allow it to become a generator if one is making the slide move back and forth.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,388

Re: Linear Generator

For SpaceNut re #2

Thanks for giving this new topic a boost!

For anyone ... what is a [non-combustion reaction of air and fuel ] ???

Those words don't make sense (to me) but obviously they make sense to whoever was being quoted.

(th)

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,793

Re: Linear Generator

For SpaceNut re #2

Thanks for giving this new topic a boost!

For anyone ... what is a [non-combustion reaction of air and fuel ] ???

Those words don't make sense (to me) but obviously they make sense to whoever was being quoted.

(th)

I wondered about that also.  I have no idea what that could mean.  But the technology as it is described sounds a lot like a free piston internal combustion engine.  The generator does not have to rely on permanent magnets, although this certainly does simplify the device.

---

"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,388

Re: Linear Generator

For Calliban re #4 ..

Thank you for taking up this interesting question.  Perhaps this is a garbled translation by a reporter.

I'll try to find more information, and invite others in the forum to do the same.

A ** reaction ** between a fuel and an oxidizer is commonly called "combustion", but perhaps the intention was to differentiate smooth burning (such as a jet engine) from compression-explosion cycles associated with internal combustion engines.

I liked the example SpaceNut provided of a mechanical system to generate electricity by shaking a tube.

Overnight, I imagined a water powered version of that ... If the tube is mounted on a shaft that is attached to a water wheel, and if gravity is sufficient to pull the weight inside the tube through the magnetic fields, then a simple electric generator could be constructed.

A distinct advantage of such a system is that (presumably) it does not depend upon a steady speed of a rotor through a magnetic field, which is characteristic of most water powered generators I have read about.

The power would be delivered in surges which (as SpaceNut described) would have to be stored in a direct current storage device of some kind.

In any case, I am ** definitely ** hoping other forum members can discover additional information to add to this topic.

Edit#1: Here's a Google snippet ...

Technology | Mainspring Energy
www.mainspringenergy.com › technology
Mainspring's linear generator uses a low-temperature, uniform reaction that maintains peak temperatures below the levels in which NOx forms (1500°C), resulting ...

This seems to confirm my guess that the design uses a non-IC "combustion" method.  The reporter probably garbled the presentation.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Linear Generator

A non combustion of fuels would be a fuel cell reaction but that would be counter productive in making power.

Linear motion makes power.... as the pistons have the magnets in the head and the coils are part of the cylinder walls of the engine.

video of engine function

other pages are using https://www.mainspringenergy.com/solutions/ which is natural gas generation for power...

So the technology is a variety of them which are being used independently to make power at less polluting methods.

from reading the technology document it uses 3 different filtering of exhaust catalyst to clean up the end product of fuel burning...