Aurelia Ships First Turbine For Commercial Use

Aurelia Turbines, a Finnish designer and manufacturer of microturbines, said it has shipping its first turbine for commercial use.

The Aurelia A400 turbine was sent to a client from Aurelia’s factory in Lappeenranta. The Aurelia A400 turbine is designed for small-scale combined heat and power (CHP) generation in decentralized grids across the world. It has been designed to meet the needs of small- and medium-sized industrial processes. It is designed to use hydrogen, biogas and synthetic gas, as well as other renewable and non-standard fuels, providing clients with the flexibility needed to balance changes in renewable energy generation.

These 400 kWe turbines may be up to 20% more energy efficient than other microturbines of the same size currently on the market, the company said.

“The goal is to meet the demand for cleaner and more flexible power generation for the future. Producing electricity, heat and, in some cases, cooling locally to the user ensures reliability and minimizes losses during transmission and conversion,” said Matti Malkamäki,  CEO of Aurelia Turbines. “The turbines to be delivered in the very near future will be capable of using hydrogen as a fuel; driven the growing production of renewable energy, there is an increasing demand for novel hydrogen energy solutions around the world.”

Aurelia Turbines Oy was established 2013. The head office and manufacturing facilities of Aurelia are located in Lappeenranta, Finland. In collaboration with the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) Aurelia developed a new gas turbine utilizing the IRG2 (Intercooled and Recuperated, Generator on two spools) process. Even though multispool turbines and recuperated/intercooled turbines exist in other forms, the A400 turbine is the first of its kind to utilize all these features in the same unit, according to the company.

Aurelia attracted its first investors in 2014, allowing work to begin on developing Aurelia’s A400 turbine prototype. By early 2016 turbine testing had advanced to the stage that business development activities could commence. The team in Lappeenranta was expanded, a new subsidiary (Aurelia Turbines GmbH) was established in Berlin, Germany, and a commercial department was set up in the United Kingdom.

Malkamäki, Aurelia’s founder, worked extensively in the international market for decentralized energy production in the early 2000s. According to the company, he noticed that the need for combined heat and power production was constantly growing; especially in small and medium-sized industries.