COGENERATION

Isothermal cycling utilizes the environment as both a sink and source of thermal energy. The use of heat exchange also allows an isothermal system to exploit thermal gradients in its vicinity. For example, diurnal temperature variations (compressing at night when the air is cooler and expanding during the day when it is warmer) can increase the efficiency of the cycle by 5% simply by taking advantage of free thermal energy in the surrounding environment. Furthermore, low-grade waste heat from any industrial process can be used to continually heat the gas during expansion to substantially boost the effective efficiency. Using the SustainX ESS in this cogeneration mode is quite attractive wherever heat sources are present.