Organic growth: Turboden brings clean heat and power to the world

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Turboden punches above its weight! With just 350 employees, we are a small part of our parent company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group, which employs almost 80,000 people. 

Yet we are world leader in the clean power systems we specialize in and an Italian engineering company that has become truly global. We have built (or are constructing) more than 450 plants in 52 countries and our rapidly growing order book demonstrates the confidence being placed in us by a growing list of industrial and utility customers.

The key to Turboden’s success is its unrivalled expertise in designing, installing, and maintaining Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) systems that can use pretty much any source of heat – from renewables like biomass, geothermal and solar energy to industrial waste heat or traditional fuels -- to generate both power and heat. ORC turbines are smaller than traditional power generation systems, typically between 1-40 Megawatts, and are therefore ideal for distributed generation close to the point of use. ORC is an efficient technology that can use low-mid temperature heat sources and typically has a dry air-cooled condenser. 

Because ORC is a closed-loop system that circulates a special organic fluid (rather than water, as traditional Rankine generation systems do), it is more flexible and simpler to maintain – there is no rusting, for instance. And, critically, if the heat source is renewable or waste heat, it generates no carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.

Going geothermal

Developed by Professor Mario Gaia, an energy specialist at Italy’s largest technical university in Milan who went on to found Turboden in 1980, our ORC systems now power (and heat) anything from cement factories and sawmills to biomass and waste-to-energy plants. Extensive customization – we offer more than 10 different organic fluids depending on the application – and after-sales support have helped Turboden win more than a third of this €250m-a-year market and establish a worldwide presence, having built plants on every continent.

The recent emergence of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), which employ fracking techniques from the oil & gas industry, is a potential game changer for ORC and could take this market to €400m annually. In April, we signed a groundbreaking collaboration with Fervo Energy, a pioneer in EGS and a company in which MHI has invested. Turboden will supply the power plant for Fervo’s Cape Station development in Utah, which plans to deliver 90MW initially (and 400MW ultimately) of around-the-clock clean energy. On the back of this, we are considering opening our first branch in the US.

Equally exciting is our work with Eavor, a Canadian startup, that has developed its own closed-loop geothermal system; validated it at test sites in Canada and New Mexico; and is now building its first commercial-scale project in Germany, for which it has ordered the power generation equipment from Turboden.

Pump it out

Nevertheless, ORC systems will remain somewhat of a niche, which is why we have recently begun expanding into Large Heat Pumps (LHPs), a €500m market today that is expected to grow to €2.5bn a year by 2030. LHPs are at the forefront of the strategy to electrify heat in an increasingly decarbonized power grid. They can help utilities clean up their district heating – a growing trend in northern Europe right now. 

Meanwhile, industrial customers can use them to replace thermal heat in their processes: we are constructing a LHP at a European paper mill to supply super-heated steam at 170℃. And more recently, LHPs are starting to be integrated into carbon capture systems (CCS) in order to reach higher CO₂ sequestration with greater efficiency by using waste heat to reheat the working fluid. This is a promising area where we are working with other parts of MHI, which is the world leader in CO₂ capture, to offer customers enhanced solutions. Separately, we are in the testing phase of our own patented  integrally geared compressor.

Apart from its potential, the LHP market is attractive because it is new: there is no established supply chain and we have the chance to build a strong position for customized, high-temperature solutions by leveraging our expertise in working with organic fluids. 

Italian heritage; global potential

Technological know-how is also the basis for our final product category: gas expanders are specialized devices that replace valves in gas pipeline networks and can take advantage of differences in pressure to generate electricity, making such infrastructure more efficient. 

Technical and technological strength has always been one of our hallmarks. After all, Turboden emerged from academia and Professor Gaia is still our honorary chairman. Equally, our northern Italian heritage is important. This is the center of Italian manufacturing and engineering and the heart of our supply chain.

On the other hand, there are significant synergies in being part of a multinational group. Not only are we working with MHI colleagues to design combined products; we are able to use our parent’s global networks to boost sales and support our own expansion, including establishing a US subsidiary. More generally, MHI’s mission to integrate cutting-edge technologies built up many years into its products resonates with our own approach.

Being part of MHI is therefore undoubtedly helping to fuel our progress and gives us the resources to keep investing and scaling the size and efficiency of our turbines and pumps. That will allow customers to use them for an ever-wider range of clean energy applications and further supercharge our growth. We are determined to keep right on punching.