The Flex Powerstation was first successfully installed in 2010 at the Lamb Canyon landfill in Riverside, Ca.

Due to the rapid expansion of Irvine-based FlexEnergy Inc, the company recently moved its headquarters to a location four times larger, the Orange County Business Journal reports.

The additional space will accommodate new hires, corporate executives, and the company’s growing sales, marketing, research and development divisions. FlexEnergy Inc currently employs approximately 120 people and is expected to grow to 150 employees by the end of the year, Mike Levin, the company’s director of government affairs told the business journal.

FlexEnergy Inc, the developer of the world’s cleanest power platforms, recently acquired the energy systems division of Ingersoll Rand Co. in New Hampshire. The company also is expanding overseas, with pending deals in France and South Korea.

A rendering of FlexEnergy's Powerstation

Fort Benning, Ga., is the first military installation to acquire the FlexEnergy Powerstation. The power station will be tested at Fort Benning this summer to see if it can successfully generate cost-effective electricity.

The “Flex” was developed specifically to convert greenhouses gases to electricity. In cooperation with Fort Benning and the Department of Defense’s Environmental Security Program, this will be the first such power station on a military installation.

The Flex will be used to convert methane gas into heat and then into electricity.

According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, methane gas remains in the atmosphere nine to 15 years and affects the Earth’s temperature and climate. For that reason, methane is considered a greenhouse gas – a gas more harmful to the ozone layer than carbon dioxide.

“As a matter of fact it’s 30 percent greater as an ozone-depletion source,” said Peter Lukken, strategic sustainability planner.

Lukken said the Flex is a breakthrough in technology because of its ability to harvest very weak gasses as low as 1.5 percent methane.

Methane gas is often found in places such as coal mines, waste water treatment plants, areas with agricultural activity and landfills – the location where the technology at Fort Benning will be housed.

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The company creates continuous, clean and renewable energy by designing powerful and competitively-priced solutions for eliminating greenhouse gases. Their proprietary technology, the FlexEnergy Powerstation™, is the only complete clean energy solution that runs directly on weak methane at 1.5% the strength of natural gas – at landfills, digesters, coal mines, oil & gas operations, waste water treatment plants and industrial processing plants.

“This program will reduce the Army’s carbon footprint as well as its electric bill now that it will use its methane emissions to make electricity,” said Joseph Perry, CEO of FlexEnergy. “The U.S. military operates many other landfills that could use our solution to turn waste gas into clean energy.”

Currently, a successful Powerstation™ pilot program operates at the Lamb Canyon Landfill in Riverside County, Calif. The smaller, 10-ton test unit has the capability to produce enough electricity to power 30 homes in the community. Once installed at Fort Benning, the 250 kW Powerstation™ can potentially provide electricity for 250 homes. 

FlexEnergy will showcase its Powerstation™ February 28-March 2 at the second annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C. The Summit, co-hosted by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) and the Clean Technology and Sustainable Industries Organization (CTSI), features cutting-edge clean tech organizations that are helping to determine the future of energy. FlexEnergy’s plug-and-play system was selected for its ability to oxidize gases as low as 1.5 percent methane, a greenhouse gas with 20-25 times the environmental impact of carbon dioxide. 

“Exhibiting among the key players in the energy community at ARPA-E is a great opportunity to reach more potential customers who want to control pollution, generate clean electricity and help save the U.S. up to 60 million barrels of oil imports annually,” Perry said.

FlexEnergy will exhibit to nearly 2,000 researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and government officials at the Gaylord Convention Center just outside of Washington, D.C.  The ARPA-E Summit’s high-profile speakers include U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, ARPA-E Director Arun Majumdar, U.S. Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bank of America Chairman Charles Holliday.

About FlexEnergy

FlexEnergy is committed to providing platforms utilizing existing, unconventional energy sources to create new, sustainable solutions. FlexEnergy technology has taken one of the world’s largest sources of greenhouse gases and transformed it into an energy source for clean generation of electricity, offering energy recovery where it was previously impossible.

More than 300 million tons of methane seep into the atmosphere annually, most too dilute for current technology to destroy much less utilize to produce electricity. The Powerstation™ runs effectively on many of these diluted waste streams, in concentrations too low for other conventional systems, and converts those waste streams (such as Methane) into renewable energy. Unlike other technologies, the Powerstation™ creates electricity with near zero NOx or CO emissions, providing breakthrough solutions for landfills, coal mines and manufacturers needing to stay ahead of emissions regulations. For more information, visit www.flexenergy.com.

About ARPA-E

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is a new agency within the U.S. Department of Energy – and the first to focus exclusively on breakthrough energy technologies that could radically change the way we use energy. Rather than performing research directly, ARPA-E invests in high-risk, high-reward energy technologies being developed by universities, startups, small businesses, and corporations. Our staff combines industry-leading scientists, engineers, and investment executives to identify promising solutions to the nation’s most critical energy problems and to fast-track top technologies towards the marketplace – which is critical to securing the nation’s global technology leadership and creating new American industries and jobs. www.arpa-e.energy.gov

About CTSI

The Clean Technology & Sustainable Industries Organization (CTSI), a 501c6 non-profit industry association, represents the organizations developing, commercializing, and implementing energy, water, and environmental technologies. Clean technologies offer much needed solutions to growing resource security and sustainability concerns and are critical to maintaining economic competitiveness. CTSI brings together global leaders for advocacy, community development, networking, and information sharing to help bring these needed technologies to market more rapidly. Visit www.ct-si.org for more information.

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The U.S. Department of Defense has announced that it will convert landfill gas into renewable energy at its Fort Benning, Ga. base.

The technology comes courtesy of Irvine, Calif.-based FlexEnergy, a cleantech firm that seeks to create clean energy from greenhouse gases.

More than 300 million tons of methane seep into the atmosphere each year, but most is too diluted for current technology to produce electricity from it. For FlexEnergy, that spells business opportunity, and its ”plug-and-play” technology can oxidize gases as low as 1.5 percent methane.

The company already has a pilot program underway at the Lamb Canyon Landfill in Riverside County, Calif.

The Pentagon project involves two powerstations, rated at 250 kilowatts and with enough power to provide electricity for 250 homes. For the DoD, the benefits are clear: meet federal mandates and takes steps toward energy independence and security.

America has found an unlikely leader into a sustainable new future, and that’s the U.S. military. From solar power to wind turbines, high efficiency LED lighting and even geothermal installations, the Department of Defense has been pulling out of fossil fuels and getting into clean energy and conservation. The latest foray is being lead by Fort Benning, Georgia, which is about to install two new power stations that will convert the facility’s landfill gas to electricity… come to think of it, perhaps this kind of leadership makes perfect sense, after all.

FlexEnergy and Landfill Gas

Fort Benning will be working with a company called FlexEnergy, which has developed a technology it calls Powerstation. While landfill gas-to-renewables installations are becoming quite common, FlexEnergy’s system has apparently unique capabilities for harvesting even very weak, previously unusable gases. The Powerstation is also a plug-and-play modular system that has the potential for being delivered to far-flung locations at a cost effective price within a relatively short time. As with the military’s development of geothermal energy and other renewables, the idea is to get our defense facilities into a more flexible, off-grid energy independent status (modular, shippable solar arrays for military bases are another example).

ARPA-E and Transformative Energy

The Powerstation is going to be showcased at this week’s ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit. ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy) is the federal agency charged with developing transformative energy projects that will help the U.S. shed itself of fossil fuel harvesting. And not a moment too soon! In the latest fossil fuel disaster to emerge, the devastating and costly consequences of unregulated natural gas drilling are just about to hit the fan (though to be fair, EPA under President Obama has been trying to clean up the mess left behind by the previous administration). That’s on top of a string of recent high profile fossil fuel disasters including the Tennessee coal ash spill, the Massey coal mine disaster, the Gulf oil spill, and of course mountaintop coal mining.

2011 could be a big year for Irvine’s FlexEnergy LLC, a startup that’s hoping to reach viability on a system that turns methane gas from landfills into electrical power.

The company has test projects in place, its first commercial deal in the works, a recent $8 million round of funding and expansion plans for its headquarters.

FlexEnergy’s near-term goal is to produce its Flex Powerstation, a turbine and other equipment that breaks down methane gases and converts them to electricity with nearly no emissions.

The Flex Powerstation, designed to be installed at landfills, goes for about $800,000. It stands some 17 feet high and weighs 12 tons.

Each Flex Powerstation can produce 250 kilowatts of power daily, enough to power about 250 homes.

“This is a new industry that’s using something that’s wasted every day,” said FlexEnergy Chief Executive Joe Perry, a physicist by training.

Market

There are about 515 U.S. landfills that have high enough methane concentrations to produce commercial energy, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Those landfills and other sites, such as former oil fields, are FlexEnergy’s starting market.

There’s big competition: Houston’s Waste Management Inc., the largest the trash hauler and landfill operator, dominates landfill energy. It has 110 projects that generate enough energy to power 400,000 homes a day.

FlexEnergy hopes to eventually provide power stations to Waste Management projects, according to Mike Levin, the company’s director of government affairs.

Other rivals include General Electric Co. and Capstone Turbine Corp., which make equipment for converting landfill waste into energy.

A business that buys one of FlexEnergy’s powerstations can use the energy itself and sell any extra power to a utility.

The powerstations also can extract energy from coal mines and old industrial plants. The company is concentrating on landfills because so many have been identified as ready for commercial power generation.

“It’s an environmental cleanup that has financial viability,” Perry said.

Late last year, Flex-Energy acquired the energy systems business of Ingersoll Rand Co. The division makes microturbines, microturbine systems and recuperators that go into power stations.

FlexEnergy’s first commercial system is set to be installed in April at the Army’s Fort Benning in Georgia.

The deal at Fort Benning follows a pilot plant set up last year at the Lamb Canyon Landfill in Riverside County, a project done with the County of Riverside Waste Management Department.

Testing is set to continue throughout this year on the system, which generates about 30 kilowatts a day.

Another pilot system is set to be installed in France later in the year, according to FlexEnergy.

The commercial deal and test projects come after 10 years of research and development, by FlexEnergy, one of several hopefuls in the county’s fledgling clean technology sector.

Clean technology is a broad sector, including alternative energy, pollution control, recycling, green vehicles, energy-efficient lighting and other products and services.

The county is home to nearly 300 clean tech companies that employ about 20,000 people according to the Orange County Business Council and trade group CleanTech OC.

The sector has been buoyed by tax breaks and other incentives for businesses that convert to clean energy technology.

The local clean tech sector is attracting venture capital, with more than $150 million invested in 2010.

FlexEnergy got a head start thanks to a research breakthrough on its process two years ago.

Since then, it is has secured $18 million in funding, including the recent $8 million round.

Major backers include Irvine-based Sail Venture Partners, which has invested some $50 million in local clean tech companies, and RNS Capital Partners, a Newport Beach private equity firm.

The latest round of $8 million is set to

help FlexEnergy roll out a commercial line this year and help fund a move to a larger headquarters.

The company is looking to relocate to a 35,000-square-foot space in Irvine from its current 8,000-square-foot headquarters by the end of the June “to support expansion in sales, marketing and engineering,” Perry said.

The added space also is set to house a distribution center for replacement parts for its systems.

FlexEnergy also plans to add more than 40 positions next year. A year ago, the company had eight employees. Today it has nearly 100.

Part of the company’s strategy has centered on improving its management and board.

In June, Stephen Johnson, former head of the EPA, joined FlexEnergy as a director.

Johnson also is an investor.

He made the decision after watching the pilot system in Riverside County.

“It’s truly a game-changing technology,” said Johnson, who served under President George W. Bush. “It really solved a number of the classic problems dealing with methane gas.”

The system can minimize air pollutants in congested cities and industrial sites, as well as provide energy in remote areas around the world, according to Johnson.

“Imagine putting up a system like this in a part of the developing world where there isn’t a power grid,” he said.

In late September, Levin, cofounder of CleanTech OC and until recently a partner in Bryan Cave LLP’s office in Irvine, joined FlexEnergy as director of government affairs.

Founder

The company was founded by Edan Prabhu, a former executive at Southern California Edison Co. who managed the design and construction of a 20-megawatt geothermal power plant and served as a project engineer for nuclear power, coal, oil and gas fired plants.

Prabhu, who was on President Clinton’s National Biomass Advisory Committee, now is a consultant at FlexEnergy.