Tecogen

This interview details Tecogen, a company based in the United States. The interview is with Dalton Allaben, Sales Engineer at Tecogen.

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What is the origin story of Tecogen?

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We’ve been around for 40 years manufacturing combined heat and power (CHP) systems and now have generations of products installed and maintained by our factory service team. Some customers have been using the same product for 30+ years.

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This should give a great breakdown of the history of Tecogen: https://www.tecogen.com/about/history.

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What are some of the biggest challenges facing Tecogen in the future?

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One future challenge that Tecogen faces is the electrification of many of the existing and new buildings. Because of this, many owners and engineers are not willing to consider using natural gas in an efficient way and instead opt for electric options. However, when looking at the big picture, converting from natural gas is doing more harm towards decarbonization than it is helping get there. Looking at the current US grid, you can see that over 60% of the energy produced is from fossil fuels and 40% of that being from natural gas.

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On face value, the power plants are producing electricity at 35% because they can’t realistically use the heat which makes up a lot of the energy produced when using a unit of natural gas. For comparison, by capturing the waste heat on our CHP systems we can reach efficiencies of 85%. Using the same fuel at a much higher efficiency equals emission savings. On a deeper level, the natural gas power plants are used as a marginal fuel source, meaning that as the demand for electricity changes, the natural gas power plant is the one ramping up and down to match the changes. It isn’t possible to turn the sun/wind up to match the changes in load, so we are offsetting these marginal power plants until the last one is retired for good.

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Tecogen is also adapting to this by having recently created a new hybrid chiller. Similar to a hybrid car, this chiller can use grid electricity, the natural gas engine, or a mix between both of them in order to produce the cooling needed. Our thought is that you can utilize the natural gas engine to fulfill multiple priorities set by the unique customer. If the customer desires utility savings, then they can utilize the natural gas engine to save on demand costs or if electric rates are high, they can run it constantly. If they desire a carbon savings, then they can use the engine to produce the heating load desired and use the grid to back fill the cooling needs.

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What is unique about Tecogen compared to competitors?

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What makes Tecogen unique is that we are the only company who manufactures CHP/cogeneration engine-driven chillers. The advantage of running our chillers on a natural gas engine is that engines are made to run efficiently at variable speeds, so our part load efficiency is very high. Plus, the use of the engine enables us to be able to capture the heat and use it in the customers facility. Often when we are retrofitting existing facilities with a Tecochill chiller, we are offsetting the natural gas boilers with our created thermal energy meaning that the natural gas going into the boilers is instead used in a Tecochill chiller to create the cooling for the facility AND the hot water simultaneously.

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Tecogen also offers a factory service program nationwide and are currently servicing around 90% of the products sold. Being in the sales team, I’m somewhat uninvolved with the service department, but the most common compliment we receive as a company is that our service teams are very reliable and quick.

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What are some other relevant metrics of the company (growing area size, production quantity, team size, etc.)?

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Not sure what relevant metrics we use as a company. I’ve only joined Tecogen a little over a year ago and it seems like a relatively slow-moving company where we are not hiring tons of people but the people who are here seem to stay for a long time. Of course, we strive to increase our production, but we recently came out with the new hybrid chiller and need to improve the manufacturing efficiency which takes time and trial and error.

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We also offer our products to anyone or anywhere that wants them, but of course it is easier to sell within North America as this is where we are established and shipping our products outside the continent is not cheap. I guess one metric of our growth is we are planning to hire and open additional service help in areas like the mid-Atlantic, Las Vegas, Chicago, and possibly additional help in Florida. We typically need multiple units running in a certain area before can consider opening new service centers, so as electric rates have gone up around the country, we are gaining more traction in new areas.

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What are some goals in 2024 and beyond for Tecogen?

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Our goals for 2024 and beyond are to grow the industries which we can utilize our equipment and establish partners within these industries who can implement our equipment. As great as Tecochill chillers fit in indoor cultivation, there are many more applications which can utilize CHP. For example, we have been historically used in hotels, hospitals, apartments, universities, primary schools, ice rinks, manufacturing, food&bev and many more, and we hoping to grow that list with many new industries.

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How can people connect with you or learn more about Tecogen?

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People can contact us at sales@tecogen.com or learn more at www.tecogen.com.

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