MicrORC is a residential micro organic Rankine cycle system designed to work alongside a natural gas or heating oil boiler. When the heating season starts, it turns part of the fuel's heat into electricity, stores it in a battery bank, and lets the rest of the heat keep warming your home. In any season, it is also designed to work as an emergency backup generator for your essential loads.
In cold climates, a gas furnace or oil boiler runs for months every year, and every BTU it burns has already been paid for. Today that heat drops straight from a hot flame to warm radiators, and the chance to make electricity along the way is simply wasted. MicrORC is designed to capture that otherwise wasted potential: it sits in the heat stream, converts a portion of it to electricity with an organic Rankine cycle, and passes the remaining heat on to the house as usual.
The battery bank can also charge from the grid when electricity is cheap. See Controls below.
The fuel is purchased, the boiler fires, the house is warm. When the heating season ends, all that the fuel paid for is heat. When the grid goes down, the boiler stops too.
The same purchased fuel also charges a battery bank. The house stays warm, the electric bill comes down, and when the grid goes down the boiler, the pumps and the essentials keep running.
Two homes with the same heating system and the same fuel purchases. Only one of them is generating electricity from it. Because a small share of the heat becomes electricity, the boiler may run slightly longer to deliver the same comfort; we will publish measured figures from field testing.
MicrORC runs when your boiler runs, so in the heating season it generates exactly when the house needs heat anyway. Outside the heating season it stays on standby as a backup generator.
Only a modest share of the heat becomes electricity. The rest is designed to keep serving your radiators or air handler, so comfort comes first.
Wood has been proven in prototype runs. Integration with gas and oil boilers is in design. The system responds to heat, not to a particular fuel.
When the grid goes down, MicrORC is designed to fire the boiler on demand and generate electricity whether or not the house needs heat. In winter, the heat keeps the house warm. In summer, the space-heating zones stay off: the boiler fires only because the MicrORC zone calls for heat, and its hot water serves just two jobs, your domestic hot water and the MicrORC. Together with the battery bank, the system is designed to keep essential loads running for as long as fuel is available.
Heat and power come from the same fuel. The boiler keeps the house warm while MicrORC keeps its controls, circulator pumps and essentials powered.
Design intentOnly the MicrORC zone and domestic hot water call for heat; the heating zones stay off. Refrigeration, lights, communications, a well or sump pump and medical devices can stay on.
Design intentA standby generator powers the whole house, but only during outages, and sits idle the rest of the year. MicrORC is designed to power the essential loads during an outage, and to generate electricity from heat you have already paid for every heating season. No extra engine, no gasoline cans.
Design intentSummer output is expected to be lower than winter output, because the cycle condenses against warmer summer conditions. We will publish standby-mode figures once they are measured. Backup operation requires properly installed transfer equipment and compliance with local electrical and fuel-appliance codes.
A buffer tank stores heat so the burner can run in longer, steadier cycles instead of short on-off bursts. Steadier firing is easier on equipment, and it gives the organic Rankine cycle a more stable heat input, which is where it operates best.
Thermal stabilityElectricity from MicrORC charges a battery bank. The battery can run the boiler's controls and circulator pumps plus a small set of essential loads, so heating can keep going when the grid does not. It can also shift when you purchase grid power, which is covered below.
Stored electricitySavings depend on your fuel prices, electricity tariff, climate and usage. We are not publishing savings figures until we have measured field results to stand behind.
MicrORC is controlled by IceLeaf IQ, our control architecture. It combines live sensing with an AI layer that optimizes performance, while independent protection keeps the machine inside safe limits.
Temperature, pressure, flow, rotational speed and acoustic sensors give the controller a live picture of the machine.
The AI layer tunes the working-fluid flow rate to the heat available, aiming to keep the machine in its efficient range as conditions change.
Rotating parts have characteristic sound and vibration signatures. MicrORC compares what it hears now with the expected signature of its own bearings, to flag wear early, before it becomes a failure.
Safety limits are enforced by independent hardwired protection. The AI is advisory: it can optimize within the limits, but it cannot override them.
MicrORC is designed to read the current electricity price and charge the battery from the grid when power is cheap, then draw on stored energy when it is expensive. This applies where time-of-use or dynamic tariffs are available.
Design intentWhen severe weather is forecast, the system is designed to pre-charge the battery and top up the buffer tank. During an outage it can keep supplying essential power for as long as the fuel keeps coming, whether that is oil in the tank or gas service from the utility. This works year-round, whether the threat is a winter ice storm or a summer hurricane.
Design intentOutage operation requires properly installed transfer equipment and compliance with local electrical and fuel-appliance codes.
An organic Rankine cycle uses a low-boiling-point working fluid to make power from heat that is too low-grade for a steam turbine to use economically. That makes it a natural fit wherever heat is currently thrown away. IceLeaf's product today is the residential MicrORC. The sectors below are where ORC technology is applied, or being evaluated, across the industry.
Mills already burn bagasse in steam turbines. An ORC can act as a bottoming cycle, making extra electricity from exhaust and low-pressure heat.
Bottoming cycleProcess heat is often rejected through cooling towers. An ORC can turn part of that rejected heat into power.
Recovered heatOvens run hot for hours at a stretch, and the flue gas carries a lot of heat. An ORC can put it to work.
Flue-gas heatWood-residue boilers produce steady heat. Combined heat and power with an ORC is a well-established fit.
Biomass CHPEngine exhaust and jacket-water heat can feed an ORC for additional output from the same fuel.
Engine heatKiln and furnace exhaust are high-volume, continuous heat sources, among the most common ORC opportunities.
Heavy industryTurbine exhaust at remote pipeline sites can be converted to power where the grid is far away.
Exhaust heatWhere the water is hot enough, an ORC can generate power first, and the warm water that remains can still serve pools and spas.
GeothermalLiquid-cooled computing returns warm water. Heat reuse, including ORC where the temperature allows, can put some of it to work.
Low-grade heatThese are early-stage concepts, studied site by site. They are not products or commitments.
Some mature oil fields bring up large volumes of hot water along with the oil, and pilot projects have explored making power from it. A well that has stopped producing is a different case: with no flow there is no heat to harvest, unless the well is repurposed as a closed-loop heat exchanger. Either way, viability depends on temperature, flow, well condition, and questions of ownership and liability.
Under evaluationA high-efficiency two-pass wood boiler or stove, fed with wood from a managed energy forest of fast-growing trees such as Paulownia, could let MicrORC run on a renewable, locally grown fuel. Planned well, the plantation can also support reforestation and land restoration. Species choice matters: some Paulownia are regulated as invasive in parts of the world, so any project would use locally approved species and local forestry guidance.
Under evaluationDISCLOSURE — MicrORC is in development. Descriptions of features are design intent, not performance guarantees. Output, savings and backup capability will depend on the installation, fuel, tariffs and local codes. Combustion and generation equipment must only be installed and operated by licensed professionals under applicable codes.
Homeowners, installers, industrial heat users, researchers and investors are all welcome. Tell us about your heating system or waste-heat source, and we will keep you posted as testing progresses.
You can also write to info@iceleaf.energy.