Soon you will only need wood, straw or other biomass to generate electricity in your house or apartment. Today, the University Center for Energy Efficient Buildings of the Czech Technical University in Prague christened the first prototype of the WAVE micro power plant, which will offer households cheap electricity production from biomass. Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Bělobrádek also attended the christening of the device, which in 2015 won the prize for the best idea in the Ecological Oscar competition, and whose development has long been supported by the energy company E.ON.
The WAVE micro power plant will serve as an energy source for apartment buildings and smaller local boiler houses after being put on the market. The device is based on technology developed at the University Center for Energy Efficient Buildings of CTU and works on the principle of the so-called Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC). It uses biomass as fuel, namely wood chips. The first pilot installations are currently being prepared.
For UCEEB ČVUT, the WAVE micro power plant is another confirmation that its activity contributes to the expansion of innovation and increasing the transfer of technology and knowledge in the Czech Republic. The idea for the device already succeeded in 2015 in the Environmental Oscar competition, where thanks to the victory in the Idea category, it received a financial reward of 300,000 CZK. The organizer of the competition, the energy company E.ON, will also provide space to test the pilot unit. This will happen at one of the company's customers in the Thermal Management of Trhové Sviny.
The prototype, which is in the phase of testing and preparation for commercialization, will be improved during this year. The goal is to make the device more efficient so that it is not only affordable, but also easy to operate. The boiler house of the apartment building can use the electricity produced for its own consumption or sell it to the public distribution network. The device can also be technologically equipped for so-called island operation, i.e. for deployment in places without connection to the electricity system. This type of device can also become a very good technological basis for the expansion of Smart grids, which is a power electrical and communication network that allows for real-time regulation of energy consumption and production.