Algae Appliance™ harvester

OriginOil Ships First Harvester to Ennesys

July 17, 2012
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com

riginOil, Inc. has shipped the first production model of its Algae Appliance™ harvester to Paris-based Ennesys, its urban algae joint venture located in the iconic La Défense complex near Paris. The unit shipped July 10 is OriginOil’s entry-level Algae Appliance, the Model 4, designed to process up to four liters of dilute algae water per minute, intermittently or continuously, without the use of chemicals, into an algae concentrate.

“After building very large custom systems for our Australian project, we designed a standard, entry-level production harvester that complements our chemical-free, continuous flow, low-energy system,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil’s CEO. “This unit is compact and self-contained, perfect for running algae test scenarios.”

The Ennesys site is designed to test the suitability of algae production for helping large commercial buildings achieve a positive energy balance and natural water management, as envisioned by France’s RT 2020 sustainable energy framework. France has taken the ambitious step of mandating that by 2020, all new buildings must qualify as Positive Energy Buildings (BEPOS), requiring them to cleanly generate more energy than they consume, and to purify their wastewater. “These regulations represent a major market opportunity for algae,” said Eckelberry.