An innovative system that can create electricity worth over £100,000 from waste energy has been developed in the region.

DRD Power is now looking for a company that has a by-product of hot water or steam to trial the system.

The business, based at Wilton Centre, Teesside, has developed a system that uses organic rankine cycle (ORC) technology to generate electricity from waste heat, addressing the problem faced by operators of large-scale process plants and manufacturing facilities of how to make use of the vast quantities of waste heat their processes produce. And having recently completed 3,200 hours of a successful demonstration operation at Huntsman Pigments’ manufacturing plant in Greatham, Hartlepool, DRD is now offering the unit for trial by another company.

Clive Whitbourn, director of DRD, said: “It’s now ready to move to another site and we’re keen to hear from any companies with about 50 tph hot water above 90ºC, or about 2 tph LP steam, from which they’d like to generate electricity – the system is designed to operate with either.

“It also generates electricity with zero carbon dioxide emissions. The icing on the cake is that the electricity produced is worth over £100,000 per annum.”

DRD Power is an associate of Design Research & Development Company Ltd (known as DRD Consultants) which has been based at the Wilton Centre in Redcar since 2007.

From there it manages a network of industry specialists working in the chemical and process engineering sectors. Its areas of expertise range from research and technology to advising on safety and environmental management.