How ATS Energy, a Third Derivative Industrial Innovation cohort company, turns waste heat into power
ATS Energy develops generators that turn industrial waste heat into electricity for facilities such as cement plants and refineries. Selected for Third Derivative’s Industrial Innovation cohort in 2025, the company is moving from a measured pilot toward its first planned commercial installation.
A generator built around the temperature gap
The company’s Solid-State Generator uses semiconductor cartridges between hot and cold surfaces. The temperature difference produces direct-current electricity without a turbine or moving parts in the conversion core.
Heat reaches the cartridges through an exchanger and a controlled hot loop; a separate cold loop maintains the temperature gap. Pumps and often fans or other cooling equipment are still needed, and their power consumption reduces the electricity left for the facility.
Its commercial proposition depends on more than the generator: each site needs enough suitable heat, cooling and usable electricity after supporting equipment has run. ATS screens heat flow, operating hours and cooling conditions as well as temperature, because a hot stream alone does not determine how much useful power a project can deliver.
A cement-plant test
A U.S. Department of Energy-supported evaluation tested an ATS pilot at Holcim’s cement plant in Alpena, Michigan, over three days in March 2024. The researchers measured a peak of 10.0 kilowatts of gross power and calculated a peak of 7.7 kilowatts of net power after auxiliary loads.