Converting Waste Heat to Clean Electricity
Industrial waste heat is one of the world's largest under-exploited energy resources. MicroPower converts it into baseload electricity where host heat is already available.
How Power Generation Works
From heat source to clean electricity
The Setup
A MicroPower thermoelectric generator is positioned between a heat source and a heat sink. The hot side of the module makes direct contact with your thermal waste source – the exhaust pipe of a biogas engine, the flue of a furnace, or a hot process stream.
The cold side is coupled to ambient air, water cooling, or another heat sink that dissipates thermal energy away.
The Physics
This temperature difference drives electron flow through the semiconductor legs. Hot electrons at the heat source gain energy and move toward the cool side. The energy difference creates an electrical potential – direct current (DC) that can be conditioned and fed to an inverter for use or grid connection.
No moving parts. No bearings, no compressors, no vibration. Just solid-state electron flow converting heat directly into electricity.
Operating Temperature Range
Coverage across the full industrial thermal spectrum
PbTe/TAGS Modules
Engineered for high-temperature industrial applications where waste heat is most abundant and valuable.
Operating Range
300–1000°C+
Design envelope. Field-proven continuous operation to date 440–550°C (Gerdau).
Ideal for steel mills, cement plants, foundries, and industrial furnaces operating in the 400–600°C range.
BiTe Modules
Optimized for low-temperature and precision cooling applications where thermal control is critical.
Operating Range
Sub-250°C
Peltier-mode operation: solid-state precision cooling for bioreactors, data centres, and laboratory equipment. ~2× the COP of best-in-class commercial Peltier devices under ordinary conditions. BiTe is a different material system from the PbTe/TAGS used in high-temperature power-generation modules; the underlying thermoelectric architecture is reversible, but productised systems differ.
Power Density at Scale
MicroPower achieves 11 W/cm² demonstrated chip-level power density, targeting 20 W/cm² – at the leading edge of reported thermoelectric performance.
PowerBlock 100 Example
~200W Output
Roughly the size of a laptop, can deliver up to 200 watts of continuous power from a single hot surface. Perfect for retrofitting onto existing industrial equipment.
Why this matters: Higher power density means fewer modules needed for the same output, reducing installation footprint, weight, and cost. A single PowerBlock 100 on a biogas exhaust can recover enough power to offset parasitic loads.
Multiply this across industrial sites with millions of square metres of hot surfaces and the opportunity becomes clear.
Illustrative LCOE Potential
Where host waste heat is already available
MicroPower TEG (modelled)
~2¢
/kWh, indicative
Solar PV
3–5¢
/kWh
Natural Gas
5–7¢
/kWh
How to read these numbers
The ~2¢/kWh figure for MicroPower is an indicative model that assumes the host process is already generating the heat (so fuel cost is zero), and reflects module capex, installed integration cost, cold-side parasitic load, hot-side duty cycle, and an assumed avoided power price. Actual LCOE on a real site depends on installed cost, hot-side duty cycle, the avoided power price the host is paying, cooling design, and integration cost.
The Critical Difference: Baseload Power
Solar and wind are intermittent. Natural gas provides baseload but requires fuel and produces emissions.
MicroPower waste heat recovery runs whenever the host industrial process runs. A steel mill, biogas plant, or data centre running around the clock generates that waste heat continuously, giving recovered output a baseload profile that is uncommon in zero-carbon power options.
Real-World Validation
Proven performance in industrial settings
Gerdau Steel Plant Pilot
Operating Hours
2,500+
MicroPower modules deployed at a major steel plant operated continuously for 2,500+ hours at steady-state temperatures of 420–460°C.
Result: Units remained fully functional throughout the operational window with no measurable degradation in output power.
This is a real-world validation of MicroPower's PbTe/TAGS chip platform and the high-temperature contact and thermal-interface structures – informed by MicroPower's early collaboration with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and evolved internally since – the foundation that supports commercial deployment in heavy industrial environments.
CMC Steel Texas Analysis
Recoverable Waste Heat
112.5 GWh
/year at single facility
Engineering analysis identified 112.5 gigawatt-hours per year of recoverable waste heat at a single steel facility.
At MicroPower's 11 W/cm² power density and 14% conversion efficiency, this represents enormous clean electricity potential – enough to power thousands of homes.
And this is just one facility. There are hundreds of steel plants, cement plants, and chemical refineries worldwide with similar or greater waste heat signatures.
Built for Reliability
Designed for 20+ year operational lifespan
No Moving Parts
No bearings, no compressors, no mechanical wear. Just solid-state thermoelectric conversion from start to finish.
Materially Lower Maintenance
No vibration in the conversion module, no working-fluid changes, no rotating-machine service. Installed systems still have mounts, thermal interfaces, electrical conditioning, and (depending on design) cooling loops or fans that follow standard industrial maintenance practice.
Predictable Output
Power output is directly proportional to the temperature difference across the module, giving response characteristics that are straightforward to model and verify.