Project GREEN

Our contribution to preserving the planet.

 

Protecting the environment is a key issue of our times, and one that we have integrated in our strategy at Cenco.

In 2009, Cenco designed and commissioned the very first LEED GREEN aero engine test cell in the world, for Shanghai Pratt & Whitney in China. This was only a first step for us, as the LEED GREEN certificate only focuses on the building, and not on its function.

When an engine is sent to a test facility, whether it is to be tested in a new development phase, for validation following the completion of manufacture, or for validation of repairs carried out following maintenance, it is inevitable that a certain amount of fuel will be consumed.

The challenge of the “green facility” is, firstly, to develop ways of limiting this consumption as much as possible (for example, by automating the engine controls to make them follow the required test cycle as closely as possible) and, secondly, to recover some of the energy produced by the engine and make good use of it.
For example, the thermal energy from the exhaust gases can be recovered and used to heat a water circuit. Or, when turbine engines are being tested, the kinetic energy from the shaft line can be recovered by a dynamo and used to produce electricity.

It is clearly enormously difficult to transform these obvious opportunities into practical concepts, from both the technical and the economical points of view. Numerous constraints arising from possible problems during the actual test, the reliability of the equipment over time, the outcome of successive conversions and their cost, make this a formidable challenge.
But the Cenco International teams are determined to overcome these difficulties, so that we can help our clients to preserve the environment.