The most common version uses propane or natural gas. Someday, Colenbrander hopes to sell a generator that will work on rice hulls, compost and junk mail. The grant provides the next step. The generator will be used to charge batteries to power 30 homes in a remote village in Indonesia. Conduct identical field trials in a remote area of Alaska using wood chips.
Work starts right away.
The engineering team is fully staffed, and he's now looking for marketing people. Besides being portable, using various fuels, having silent operation and low emissions, the generator can run 15 years without needing maintenance, company officials boast. The consistent electricity has caught the interest of NASA and other government agencies. Stirling generators already have a growing international market. Sales in Europe, where people pay more for power, are on the rise as a licensee starts to make generator units that provide household electricity and use the exhaust to heat water.