WES™ Technology

WES™ is a small scale, downdraft gasifier that can leverage low cost solid fuels such as scrap tires, biomass and waste water treatment plant sludge. AEE has designed a robust system with state of the art sensor and control technology, while keeping the installation footprint at a size where industrial and commercial customers can seamlessly switch from natural gas to the WES™ synthetic gas for their thermal energy needs. The emissions from a WES™ powered system are clean and within EPA guidelines including the Boiler MACT regulations.

Size and Output

The WES™ gasifier can be sized to produce a high energy synthetic gas which can be combusted to produce between 10MM Btu/hr to over 60 MM Btu/hr of thermal energy. The synthetic gas can be fired into a boiler to make steam, electricity (or both) while other applications such as brick kilns make direct use of the heat.
The installation requirements for a WES™ solution are approximately 3,000 sq. ft. with adjacent storage for the solid fuel. WES™ is delivered skid-mounted, and can be housed indoors or outdoors with the appropriate equipment (i.e. PLC controls) located in an all-weather enclosure.
Because the WES™ system output is small (as compared to Utility sized energy plants) and clean a WES™ powered application typically falls within the EPA minor source emissions guidelines. Minor source permits are far quicker and less costly to process then the EPA major source permit equivalents.

The "Right Sized" Advantage

There are three core benefits to the WES™ system size range:

• Fast Deployment – faster permitting and deployment means you begin saving sooner.
• Lower Fuel Costs – Unlike larger systems a WES™ solution can be powered using fuel sources within a 100 mile radius. Net fuel costs remain low as related transportation costs are minimized.
• Reduced complexity – most operations can use 100% of the generated energy from a WES™ sized solution thus eliminating the complicated and confusing aspects of selling energy back to the grid.

AGDI™ - A self tuning and fully diagnostic system

By leveraging the recent wave of technology and computerization, AEE has developed a system that would have been cost prohibitive in prior decades. Like combustion, gasification requires a very precise and controlled conditions – WES™ has been designed to take the guesswork and manual effort out of operation. AGDI stands for Adaptive Gasification Digital Integration, which simply means that a host of sensors and computer controls ensures that the system is operating as designed and your fuel mix is being efficiently converted. The software based control system can be easily updated to improve efficiency and leverage new fuel sources. Similarly the diagnostic system is robust and provides the operator with early detection of problems leading to timely resolution .

WES™ requires a nominal amount of electricity and consumables, such as water, natural gas or propane for start up, and pollution control chemicals for its continuous operation.

The ash that remains after WES™ converts the solid fuel to high energy synthetic gas is non-toxic and can be used as inert filler in construction products (like bricks and cement blocks) or disposed of like any other non-toxic waste.