Focus

irithm invents and works on early development and intellectual property.

The current focus is heat storage technology that can be applied to industrial furnaces and electricity generation using solar thermal energy.

Outlook

Integrated Natural Gas & Solar Combined Cycle :
A business bonanza will happen delivering very high temperature stored heat for preheat to gas turbines in next generation integrated natural gas and solar combined cycle (ISCC) plants. This will happen when the local levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) powered by natural gas and the local LCOE powered by concentrated solar thermal energy become equal in these ISCC plants. This LCOE equality will happen due to: (i) the formation of a world market for natural gas (by expanded distribution through transcontinental pipelines and across oceans using liquefied natural gas); (ii) increasing world demand outstripping natural gas producers' ability to increase supply; and, (iii) the reduction of solar thermal LCOE by applying very high temperature heat to the high temperature Brayton cycle of very efficient combined cycle plants rather than lower temperature heat to the Rankine cycle of single cycle or combined cycle plants.

Next generation ISCC plants can be reconfigured from today's favored 90% natural gas & 10% solar power balance to a power balance using more solar. irithm's heat storage technology enables re-balances from natural gas to solar to be large using just 30% natural gas & 70% solar. This re-balancing capability can provide owners with power plants that can remain profitable when natural gas prices are low and when these prices become high.

Inquiries about development of this technology are welcome.