Advantages of VAST technologies
Ultra Low Emissions
VAST has invented ultra-clean scalable combustors with unprecedented performance, applicable to a very wide range of gas turbines and other applications.
The VAST® VASThermogenerator™ or TriFluid Combustor™ burns extremely cleanly forming VASTgas™, an energetic working fluid with very, very low pollutant levels. VAST eliminates post-combustion hot gas cleanup by catalytic converter, SCR or other treatment protocol. VAST easily meets US EPA emission requirements. VAST even achieves the stringent air quality control standards of California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD). It bests the world’s strictest emission control regulations without catalysts.
Emission Profile Testing History
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations using Star CD by Combustion Science and Engineering, Inc. of Columbia, Maryland identified trends and achieved very encouraging results.
A US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified stack gas testing lab independently verified that VAST emissions were markedly lower than the EPA’s national requirements. VAST even achieved California’s stringent emission requirements without catalysts. i.e., reaching <1 ppmvd levels for both nitric oxides (NOX) and carbon monoxide (CO) in a bench-scale VAST Progressive Combustion apparatus burning propane, (dry & diluted to 15% Oxygen by volume).
The VASTeam™ directed extensive supercomputer CFD modeling runs over 4 years of joint efforts with researchers from two Department of Energy National Labs: Argonne in Chicago and Lawrence Livermore in California. This CFD modeling simultaneously achieved sub-1 ppmvd (parts per million dry) results for NOx, CO, and unburned hydrocarbons (UHC), over a wide range of gas turbine combustion conditions.
Better Economics (IRR)
VASThermogenerators™ achieve more controlled, uniform temperatures than conventional combustors. This increases efficiency, while markedly lowering fatigue, and Operating and Maintenance (O&M) costs, thus improving reliability and profitability.
VAST improves power generation and Combined Heat and Power (CHP). VAST has higher efficiencies during off-peak operations. VAST lowers both capital and operating costs per power generated (CapEx and OpEx) to remarkably improve paybacks. VAST achieves higher Internal Rate of Returns (IRR) than both Peakers and Combined Cycle power plants over the 10% to 50% annual capacity factor range essential to backing up solar and wind power.
Thermo-economic analyses by the Engineering Department’s Power and Transportation Division, University of Genova, Italy, showed VAST achieved Combined Heat and Power (CHP) efficiencies better than Steam Injected Gas (STIG) cycles, yet with 10% to 25% lower CapEx costs. VAST Cycles promise markedly better power generation Internal Rates of Return (IRR) than 5 leading competitive cycles, especially at part loads with < 4,000 hours/year annual capacity factors. Multi-fuel capabilities further enhance economic performance.
Multi-fuel: Natural Gas, Ammonia, Hydrogen, Methanol
VAST’s combustor efficiently and cleanly burns multiple fuels with few adjustments. We have burned a wide range of fuels: Propane, #2 Diesel, heavy fuel oils, and bunker crude. We have extensively modeled methane (natural gas). Initial ammonia CFD analysis indicates very promising breakthrough NOx control. Just as we have achieved with methane, we expect ultra-clean combustion of hydrogen and methanol.
VAST controls combustion much more effectively than conventional combustors. VAST provides very precise control of temperature, mixing, pressure, and power, to meet power and/or process requirements. This improves uniformity, reduces hot and cold spots, and reduces NOx, CO, and unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions.
We successfully built and tested a bench scale Thermogenerator (570 kW) which cleanly burned diesel #2. Gas testing specialists measured NOx emissions at less than 2 ppm and heavy crude was burned with no visible plume.
Inventor, Lyle Ginter, breathed only the exhaust from a diesel fueled Wet Combustion gas turbine for an hour. He demonstrated “exhaust so clean you can breathe it.”
These test runs achieved remarkable combustion temperature control of +/- 1 ℉. This markedly improves equipment reliability and reduces operating and maintenance costs.
We are assembling a third-generation VAST® TriFluid™ Combustor test system.
Enabling Renewable Power
Rapid Renewable Backup
VAST® FastRamp™ Turbines with fuel storage will provide faster, more robust, and more cost-effective long duration backup than batteries, peakers, or combined cycle plants. This is essential for ensuring grid reliability with rapidly rising solar and wind power.
VAST power promises to be more cost effective with higher returns over simple gas turbines and combined cycle power plants operating between 10% to 50% annual capacity factor (the portion of potential annual power generation used).
Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES)
VAST power with fuel storage provides the Long Duration Energy Storage essential to back up intermittent solar and wind power. Natural climate variations require ~4 months of storage for 100% backup of solar and wind. VAST® FastRamp™ Turbines ensure sufficient rapid power backup to avoid rolling blackouts and grid collapse.
Distributed Generation (DG)
Sargent & Lundy’s marketing study recommended that VAST initially focus on the Distributed Generation (DG) market. VAST DG Advantages include better efficiency in small gas turbines. VAST maintains efficiency at part-loads better than other power cycles. VAST’s ultra-clean combustion can be cost-effectively utilized in small gas turbines because it eliminates catalysts and SCR, thereby improving profitability.
VAST’s Wet Combustion Power Cycle is much more profitable than both peakers and combined cycles over the 10%-60% annual capacity factor range for the 10-100 MW power range.
Intellectual Property
Our underlying technology creating these advantages is protected by 28 US and international issued patents in our IP portfolio. These patents have been cited over 1,829 times, especially to our combustor-related patents. Ocean Tomo (one of the world’s leading IP valuation firms) ranked six of our patents as A+, A+, A, B+, B and B-. Both by citation analysis as well as by expert opinion, our patents contain high quality innovation of current commercial relevance to leading industrial firms.
VAST recently filed the first of three provisional patents covering numerous innovations in our next generation combustor. These provisionals may justify a dozen additional patents protecting new innovations derived from our recent research.
