Nine students from different courses (Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management) of HAN Engineering and Automotive in Arnhem and the assisting engineers Franz Hullegie, Wilfred Hulleman and Martin Bresser from Bredenoord work on this project. Marcel Katerberg, Noël Steentjes and Christiaan Boudri are supervising the development of a sustainable generator.

This genset generates electricity by using methanol as fuel instead of diesel. This makes it possible to generate CO2-neutral electricity and this project contributes to a better world for the next generation and responds to the growing market demand for sustainable (emergency) power solutions.

Climate change

In recent years the market of fossil fuels has drastically changed. If you look around, you will see that there are more and more electric cars driving on the road, there is a lot more green energy generated and everyone is aware that the combustion engines and use of fossil fuels have a negative effect on the environment and thus creating climate change.

That being the case the market around the use of diesel generators is also changing. More and more companies are asking for power solutions that emit no (read: neutral) CO2 and hereby not contributing to global warming. That is why Bredenoord is currently working on the development of an alternative solution.

How was the process during the project?

Bredenoord has already built a prototype to test the theory. After a successful test phase the prototype needed to be developed further. The prototype was built in a large sea container and could supply 5 kVA power. The final product will be three times smaller in size and will be able to deliver 15 kVA power. The new concept meets these stated requirements.

The students from the Mechanical Engineering study worked out a complete concept in 3D, with all the necessary parts. In addition, the students of Electrical Engineering have designed all electrics. Furthermore, the students of the Industrial Engineering and Management study have started working on a business case for this genset. Together the students deliver a technical file and a detailed business case. In these documents all parts are processed and calculated so that the genset can be built safely and rented out at a profit by Bredenoord.

The project is thus concluded without the genset being built. The reason for this is that the delivery times of the parts did not fit within this project. Bredenoord therefore still needs to order these parts themselves in order to be able to build the sustainable generator. The goal is to eventually expand the Bredenoord fleet with at least 10 of these generators.

• Poster presentation of this project (pdf)

Students involved:

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

Marnick Schol
Bart Kloppenburg
Tjerk Hendriks

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Wouter Hendriks
Thom Derksen
Eren Öztürk

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT

Jorg Jolij
Martijn Bulthuis
David Bresser

Supervisors:

Marcel Katerberg – Project supervisor Bredenoord
Christiaan Boudri – Senior engineer HAN
Noël Steentjes, Franz Hullegie, Wilfred Hulleman, Martin Bresser – additional supervisors from Bredenoord

Source and photography: HAN, Bredenoord