Heat2power, a powertrain innovation company based in Paris, France, develops and commercializes waste heat regeneration technologies. It aims to make fuel savings and reduce CO2 emissions in tomorrow’s cars, trucks, ships and power generators.

With a background in the automotive industry, the company founders have analyzed the power flows in and around the combustion engine to find ways of improving its efficiency. This has led them to focus on the re-use of waste heat, and the heat from the exhaust in particular, because its high temperatures offer the highest regeneration potential.

They investigated over 40 technologies and found no single technology perfectly adapted for application to mass-produced vehicles. Heat2power has since then engineered a new variant of the old hot air engine concept that finally combines low cost, simplicity, ease of operation and maintenance, robustness, good controllability, high regeneration efficiency and high specific power without adding liquids to the vehicle.

Applied on a vehicle powertrain, this concept enables fuel economy but also extra power without extra fuel consumption. The combination of properties also makes it interesting for racing applications. In addition to power generation, endurance racing is the first niche aimed at.

Heat2power has selected two partners for its development: Solution F in southern France for its expertise in the designing, building and testing of engines; and ACTE in Belgium for its state-of-the-art heat exchangers. A joint development program began in 2008 and the first Heat2power-equipped engine is expected to run in January 2009.

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