Opra, green methanol expert Silent-Power announce distribution agreement

Opra Turbines B.V. has entered into a distribution agreement with Silent-Power AG, a Swiss company focused on green methanol as a fuel.

Silent-Power AG (with its business unit Econimo) specializes in zero carbon CHP solutions using green methanol as fuel. While offering turnkey CHP solutions, they also guarantee a long-term supply of methanol to their customers at agreed rates providing an alternative to fossil fuel and its increasing emission-related cost.

After successful combustion tests on methanol and studies on how to provide a methanol-powered OP16 gas turbine, Opra and Silent-Power have now signed a distribution agreement making OP16 the exclusive core technology for Econimo’s product in the range above 1 MW.

“We are proud to extend our ECONIMO product line together with Opra with the new ECONIMO 5000, offering 5 MW CHP performance. We are looking forward to the immediate market introduction to supply clean energy to commercial customers for hotels, business buildings, factories and island operations. What has begun in 2016 with experiments on a small 30 kW turbine, will now step by step be extended to become a family of commercial ECONIMO products for global carbon-neutral power supply,” said Marco Glattfelder, project manager ECONIMO Products, Silent-Power.

Opra is a leading developer and manufacturer of advanced gas turbine-based generator sets in the 1.8 MW power range. The OP16 gas turbine has an industrial, all-radial design that provides robustness, reliability, highest efficiency, and low emissions, the company said.

“As a carbon-neutral fuel, which is safe and easy to transport, handle and store, methanol will play an important role in the energy transition. We are looking forward to successful cooperation with Silent Power (Econimo) supporting our involvement in methanol-driven CHP projects,” said Matteo Bellemo, Opra Regional Sales Manager

Silent- Power has won the Swiss Innovation Award 2016 “Idee Suisse” and is focusing on the introduction of CO2 neutral energy economy based on emission free green or synthetic methanol. One important milestone is the joint development and market introduction of the ECONIMO product line, small and midsize CHP solutions based on proven gas turbine technology, that can supply electrical as well as heating energy, close to consumers, eco-friendly, and usable for grid stabilization as well as power independency.