GRID-FREE CRT TRIGENERATION
Investor Business Case | V0.1
Latrobe Valley Data Centre Demonstration | Victoria, Australia
| Investment proposition A 20 MW continuous Grid-Free energy platform integrating firm on-site electricity, useful heat, cooling and carbon recycling. The current screening case identifies approximately US$38.15 million per year of gross integrated system value before assigning any value to avoided grid infrastructure, speed-to-power or resilience premiums. |
Executive snapshot
| Metric | Current screening basis |
| Net continuous electrical output | 20.0 MWe |
| Installed generation | 22.5 MWe – 5 x 4.5 MWe |
| Annual operation | 8,500 h/y |
| Annual firm electricity | 170,000 MWh/y |
| Grid-Free firm-power tariff | US$150/MWh |
| Recoverable thermal efficiency | 44.8% |
| Total CHP efficiency | 91.0% |
| Identified gross integrated value | ~US$38.15m/y |
| Screening installed cost | US$158.255m – subject to FEED/vendor validation |
Core thesis. CEWT should not be evaluated as a 20 MW commodity power plant. The proposition is an integrated infrastructure platform designed to sustain the data centre’s primary energy duty independently of the electricity grid while converting otherwise-lost thermal and carbon streams into measurable value.
This document is a screening investment case, not a financing offer. Commercial terms, carbon-credit eligibility, vendor performance, CAPEX and project schedule require validation during FEED and commercial diligence.
1. The infrastructure problem
AI and high-density digital infrastructure require continuous electrical power, increasing cooling capacity and rapid deployment. Where grid connection, network augmentation or firm capacity cannot be delivered on the required schedule, the energy system can become the critical path for the data-centre project.
CEWT response: design the energy platform with the data centre
- Firm primary generation sized for continuous duty rather than relying on batteries for bulk energy.
- DRUPS/battery systems reserved for millisecond-to-second ride-through, power quality and transition support.
- Recoverable engine heat directed to cooling and other useful thermal duties.
- CO2 captured and recycled within CRT rather than treating atmospheric release as the normal endpoint of combustion.
- Grid connection can be retained where commercially useful, but the primary duty is designed to be independently sustainable.
| Grid-Free definition Grid-Free does not mean that a grid connection is prohibited. It means the platform is engineered so that the primary operating duty can be sustained without depending on continuous grid supply. |
2. CRT system architecture
Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT) treats carbon as a recyclable molecular carrier and renewable hydrogen as the replacement chemical-energy input. The public system boundary is:
Primary energy -> Firm power -> Compute -> Cooling -> Useful output
Within the energy island, combustion, heat recovery, cooling, CO2 recovery and fuel regeneration are integrated through mass balance, energy balance and heat integration. Detailed proprietary reaction ratios and process conditions are outside this investor screening document.
Design philosophy
| Principle | Application |
| Mass balance | Every material stream has a defined destination. |
| Energy balance | Electrical, thermal and chemical energy are accounted for together. |
| Heat integration | Recoverable heat is treated as a product opportunity, not merely a loss. |
| Reliability | Primary generation, ride-through and redundancy perform different duties. |
| Carbon ledger | Carbon circulation and losses are accounted for independently of energy. |
3. Frozen screening design basis
| Parameter | Basis | Status |
| Net electrical output | 20.0 MWe continuous | Frozen screening basis |
| Installed output | 22.5 MWe | Frozen screening basis |
| Generator configuration | 5 x 4.5 MWe Jenbacher JMS 624 | Vendor validation required |
| Electrical efficiency | 46.2% | Screening/vendor basis |
| Recoverable thermal efficiency | 44.8% | Screening/vendor basis |
| Total CHP efficiency | 91.0% | Screening/vendor basis |
| Fuel input | 43.29 MW LHV | Calculated screening basis |
| Methane circulation | 3.117 t/h | Process screening basis |
| Operating hours | 8,500 h/y | Commercial assumption |
| H2 demand – Case A | 431.7 kg/h | Linde basis / validation required |
| H2 demand – Case B | 566 kg/h | Conservative sensitivity |
| Electrolyser | 35 MW preferred / 40 MW conservative | To be finalised |
| Installed cost | US$158.255m | Screening estimate; FEED required |
Thermal utilisation basis
- 70% of recoverable heat allocated to cooling.
- Absorption-cooling COP: 0.70.
- 20% of recoverable heat allocated to direct useful heat / displaced fuel.
- 10% presently unallocated and unmonetised.
The model deliberately avoids assigning value to all recoverable energy. This leaves additional optimisation potential for FEED while reducing the risk of overstating the current case.
Key items requiring FEED/vendor confirmation
- Generator performance, availability, maintenance intervals and emissions/capture interface.
- Final electrolyser duty, hydrogen consumption, oxygen integration and electrical balance.
- CO2 recovery performance, recycle purity, compression duty and process losses.
- Cooling technology selection, achievable COP and data-centre cooling interface.
- Installed CAPEX, construction schedule, contingency, owner’s costs and commissioning requirements.
4. Commercial value stack
The base case separates each monetisable service to avoid double counting. The US$150/MWh tariff represents firm Grid-Free electricity only; cooling and useful heat remain additional value streams.
| Value stream | Annual basis | Annual value |
| Firm Grid-Free electricity | 170,000 MWh x US$150/MWh | US$25.50m |
| Cooling | Current trigeneration allocation | US$6.46m |
| Useful heat / displaced fuel | Current useful-heat basis | US$1.27m |
| Carbon value | Illustrative US$75/tCO2 basis | US$4.92m |
| TOTAL IDENTIFIED VALUE | US$38.15m/y |
| Equivalent integrated value US$38.15m divided by 170,000 MWh of firm electrical output is approximately US$224/MWh of firm electrical output. This is a system-value metric, not an electricity tariff. |
Strategic value deliberately excluded
| Potential value | Base case treatment |
| Avoided/reduced grid connection and network augmentation | Excluded |
| Speed-to-power / earlier data-centre revenue | Excluded |
| Resilience and availability premium | Excluded |
| Value of presently unallocated recoverable heat | Excluded |
Hydrogen sensitivity
Hydrogen consumption and delivered hydrogen price remain the dominant controllable economic variables. At the US$150/MWh firm-power tariff, the current screening model indicates the following approximate H2 price ceilings:
| H2 demand basis | Project NPV = 0 ceiling | Minimum DSCR = 1.30x ceiling |
| 431.7 kg/h Linde basis | ~US$4.16/kg | ~US$6.94/kg |
| 566 kg/h conservative basis | ~US$3.17/kg | ~US$5.30/kg |
The Project NPV threshold binds before the debt-service threshold in both cases. Engineering effort that reduces external hydrogen demand therefore has direct investment value.
5. Investment pathway and decision gates
Illustrative capital structure used for screening
| Source | Share |
| Government/demonstration support | 25% |
| Customer contribution | 10% |
| Institutional / strategic equity | 20% |
| CEWT sponsor equity | 5% |
| Debt | 40% |
This capital structure is an editable modelling assumption only and does not represent committed funding. Current screening debt assumptions are 5% interest and 15-year tenor; project discount rate is 8.4% and project life is 20 years.
What an investor is being asked to fund
- A demonstration-scale integrated energy platform with a defined 20 MW continuous duty.
- FEED and vendor validation that converts screening assumptions into bankable performance guarantees.
- Commercial development of the data-centre energy-service structure: firm power, cooling and associated system services.
- De-risking of hydrogen supply, carbon-recycling integration and construction cost before FID.
Proposed decision gates
| Gate | Required evidence |
| 1 – Technical validation | Vendor performance, mass/energy balance, H2 demand, heat/cooling integration |
| 2 – Commercial validation | Customer term sheet/PPA-equivalent, cooling offtake/service terms, H2 supply |
| 3 – Cost validation | FEED CAPEX/OPEX, schedule, contingency and owner costs |
| 4 – Financing validation | Grant/customer support, equity terms, debt sizing and covenant testing |
| 5 – FID | Contracted revenues + performance guarantees + financeable EPC/supply package |
| Investment case in one sentence CEWT is developing a 20 MW Grid-Free CRT Trigeneration Platform intended to convert a data centre’s energy constraint into an integrated infrastructure asset producing firm power, cooling, useful heat and carbon-management value from one engineered system. |
Current conclusion
The screening model indicates that the project can create materially more value when evaluated as an integrated Grid-Free trigeneration system than when evaluated as electricity generation alone. The immediate investment priority is not to add further speculative revenue streams, but to validate the present design basis, secure a firm-power/cooling customer structure, reduce hydrogen-demand uncertainty and replace screening CAPEX with vendor-supported FEED costs.
Prepared by: Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT)
Status: Investor screening document – V0.1, September 2026
