Recovered heat is worth nothing if you can't hold onto it. CREN's storage stage banks low-grade waste heat as latent heat in a Novacab TESS thermal battery — charged when heat is abundant, discharged exactly when you need it.
The Novacab TESS is a rechargeable thermal battery. It captures heat from an available source — exhaust, hot water, steam, thermal oil, solar heat, or engine heat — and stores that energy in a precisely programmed Synthetic Phase Change Material (SPCM). As the SPCM reaches its programmed phase-change temperature, it melts and banks a large amount of latent heat in a solid form, within a narrow temperature band, until it's needed. Then it's vaporized and used to spin a turbine and generate electricity.
Available heat is drawn from an available source such as exhaust, hot water, steam, thermal oil, solar heat, or engine heat.
A heat-transfer fluid carries those BTUs through internal heat-exchange tubing embedded in the storage medium.
Novacab's engineered SPCM melts as it absorbs the heat, storing it as latent energy within a narrow, precisely programmed temperature band.
The stored heat comes back out as a stable thermal "hotplate" — a steady temperature, not a spike or a fade.
The hotplate vaporizes a closed-loop ORC liquid. The resulting vapor drives microturbines connected to electrical generators.
Inside the TESS unit, blocks of SPCM absorb recovered heat carried in by a thermal fluid loop. When the plant needs power, that stored heat is transferred to a pair of ORC modules, where it vaporizes a working fluid to drive a microturbine — the vapor is condensed afterward and the fluid recirculates rather than being consumed.
Two coordinated phase-change processes are involved. The storage SPCM inside TESS melts and freezes to store and release heat. A separate ORC liquid/vapor working medium circulates in its own closed loop, vaporizing to drive the turbine and condensing afterward. The two media exchange heat but do not mix.
Every TESS unit stores and releases heat on its own — that's the core function. The ORC modules shown above are what convert that stored heat into electricity, and they attach to the TESS as a separate module. A site that only needs thermal buffering or process-heat reuse can run TESS without ORC; a site that wants behind-the-meter power adds the ORC modules on top.
TESS thermal batteries are built, shipped, and craned onto rooftops and plant floors across North America. They arrive as complete units and integrate with the Sidel recovery chain upstream and the ORC conversion stage downstream — capturing heat at up to 800°F from the flue gas path and from vapour condensation and cooling-tower plume condensation, then holding it until the grid, the process, or the turbine calls for it.
The Novacab TESS platform can be configured to harvest useful thermal energy from approximately 122°F (50°C) up to above 800°F (427°C). The applicable range for a given project depends on the programmed storage material, heat-transfer fluid, heat exchangers, ORC working fluid, turbine design, and required electrical output — engineered as matched temperature bands rather than one fluid or component set serving every job.
| Thermal band | Typical source examples | TESS role | ORC design emphasis |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~122–250°F | Warm process streams, hot water, low-grade recovery | Accumulate and stabilize low-grade heat | Low-boiling working fluid and efficient condenser |
| ~250–500°F | Engine exhaust recovery, thermal oil, many industrial streams | Store heat at a programmed phase-change plateau | Matched evaporator pressure and turbine inlet |
| ~500°F to >800°F | High-temperature exhaust, furnaces, solar thermal, industrial heat | Capture higher-value heat with compatible materials | High-temperature fluid, metallurgy, pressure and safety design |
Rejected or process heat → heat-transfer fluid → programmed TESS storage SPCM → controlled thermal hotplate → ORC liquid vaporization → microturbine rotation → generator electricity → condenser → liquid returned to the ORC pump. Actual performance is site-specific and depends on heat-source conditions, the selected SPCM and ORC fluid, and equipment efficiency — final claims are confirmed by engineering review and metered data.
Close to 400 Novacab TESS thermal batteries are already installed across Canada — in high-rises, hospitals, colleges, government datacenters, and community centres. A sample of the record:
| Site | Application | TESS deployment | Measured result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montreal Stock Exchange Tower | 48-level high-rise: offices, 2 commercial levels, 2 large datacenters — 2,500 tons of installed cooling | 2nd-generation TESS: 13 units for efficiency, 5 units for back-up | +27% improvement on kW/ton; 6 MWh blackstart back-up battery |
| Louis Brier Hospital and Home | 265-bed hospital and long-term care facility | Novacab TESS thermal storage | 27% reduction in energy consumption |
| Édouard-Montpetit College | Institutional building, chilled-water cooling — 800 tons of installed heating and cooling | 2nd-generation TESS: 5 units for efficiency and back-up | 28% reduction in energy consumption |
| Environment Canada / CMHC | Governmental datacenters, critical 24/7 operation — 400 tons of installed cooling | 2nd-generation TESS: 4 units for back-up | +45% improvement in back-up capacity |
| Hearst Community Centre | Multi-functional low-rise building, heating and cooling — 50 tons of installed HVAC | 3rd-generation TESS: 4 units for efficiency | 29% reduction in energy consumption |
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