Page 78 - Piston Engine-Based Power Plants
P. 78
70 Piston Engine-Based Power Plants
APPLICATIONS OF FREE PISTON ENGINES TO POWER
GENERATION
Free piston engines can be used to generate electric power either by
coupling with a linear generator or by using the engine as a gas genera-
tor for a gas turbine. However while many configurations have been
explored, there are no major commercial applications. The main inter-
est today is from the automotive industry where they have a potential
use as range extenders. If these are developed successfully the engines
might become both cheap and reliable enough for other uses such as
small distributed power generation or combined heat and power
applications.
