192 - How Reciprocating Engines Drive the Energy Transition

In this episode of the Insiders Guide to Energy podcast, hosts Chris Sass and Jeff McAulay explore the role of reciprocating engines in the global energy transition. Jon Rodriguez, Energy Business Director at Wärtsilä North America, shares valuable insights into how these large-scale engines are being used to support the shift from traditional base-load power to renewable energy sources. As renewables like solar and wind continue to grow, the need for flexible, dispatchable technologies that can fill in the gaps becomes essential, and reciprocating engines are perfectly suited for this task. 

Jon explains how Wärtsilä’s engines are already widely used in places like the Caribbean and how they are now being increasingly adopted in developed countries like the United States and Europe. With the ability to burn a variety of fuels—from traditional heavy fuel oil and natural gas to future alternatives like hydrogen and ammonia—these engines offer a versatile and future-proof solution for balancing intermittent renewable energy. They allow power grids to maintain reliability even when renewable sources aren’t available, making them a key player in modern energy systems. 

The conversation also touches on the innovations in engine design, including advanced fuel-flexibility and emissions control. Jon discusses how these engines are being deployed in data centers, industrial applications, and even as a hedge against price volatility in energy markets. With a focus on scalability and rapid deployment, reciprocating engines are proving to be a critical component in the path toward a decarbonized and resilient energy grid. 

We were pleased to host: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrodriguez444/

Visit our website: https://insidersguidetoenergy.com/

Transcript

00:00:01 Jon Rodriguez 

The energy transition has been a topic for many years, and we're making great strides in the United States particularly. 

00:00:07 Jon Rodriguez 

But one missing piece that doesn't get a lot of attention is after you Add all these renewables and after the battery storage systems are online, what else do you need? And reciprocating engines as one technology that can fill that gap? 

00:00:26 Chris Sass 

Your trusted source for information on the energy transition. This is the insiders guide to Energy podcast. 

00:00:38 Chris Sass 

Hello, energy leader. This is Chris Sass, host of the Insiders guide to energy. And I asked for just a few moments of your time to make you aware of a brand new program that I think you'll be excited about. Program is called Podcast Power Media Training for energy leaders, and you're probably already aware the podcasts are a dominant force in the media today. As an executive in the energy space, you are often. 

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00:01:41 Chris Sass 

Welcome to another edition of the Insiders Guide to Energy. I'm your host Chris Sass, and with me is our co-host Jeff McCauley. Jeff, we're talking generation today. 

00:01:49 Jeff McAulay 

Yeah, really exciting and important backbone of the grid and lots of locations around the world. So we are excited to have John Rodriguez with us today, the energy business director for engine power. 

00:02:01 Jeff McAulay 

For wartsila North America, John, welcome to the show. 

00:02:06 Jon Rodriguez 

Thank you so much. Nice to be here, Jeff and Chris. 

00:02:09 Jeff McAulay 

So to start off, I know I'm probably not saying the name perfectly, but this is a very important brand in power generation, although not necessarily a household name. So tell us a little bit more about Partzilla and the applications around the world. 

00:02:26 Jon Rodriguez 

Yes, sure. Thank you, Jeff wartsila. That's the easy way to say it. I think that's the way I say it. Most times is a Finnish company. So in Finland is where the the company was started and it's actually 190 years old. We just had our 190 year anniversary in 2024. 

00:02:45 Jon Rodriguez 

Started as a sawmill, obviously back then there were no such thing as power generation and it's transformed into one of the world leader OEM's in the power generation space and also in the marine sector, providing engines to vessels around the world. 

00:03:02 Jeff McAulay 

That's great. And when we talk about engines, these are large piston reciprocating engine spark or compression ignition. What kind of fuels just paint us a picture because I don't think people have generally seen engines this big. 

00:03:17 Jon Rodriguez 

Agreed frankly, as an engine guy myself, I spent a lot of my career with what I thought were large engines, talking about 69 liter V-16 engines produced by, you know, more common names like Cummins or Caterpillar, those two kinds of companies. And I came to wartsila. 

00:03:37 Jon Rodriguez 

And the engines are 10 times bigger. 

00:03:41 Jon Rodriguez 

And the engines, even though they're they're bigger fundamentally they operate extremely similarly, but with that size, we're able to have very flexible fuel capabilities. And so diesel heavy fuel oil, which is a an engine, a fuel that you're probably not super familiar with in traditional. 

00:04:02 Jon Rodriguez 

Sense, but also natural gas, and then a lot of alternatives that are related to those types of fuels. 

00:04:09 Chris Sass 

Now I've know from past experience that a lot of the Caribbean islands use diesel generators or maybe even bunker bunker fuel type generation. 

00:04:19 Chris Sass 

Are these places where I'd find your solution? 

00:04:23 Jon Rodriguez 

That is one place where you'd be sure to find our solution. We have about an 80 to 90% market share in the power generation space throughout the Caribbean. So I'm talking about all those different countries, those little islands for the most part are are powered by. 

00:04:38 Jon Rodriguez 

Wartsila machines. 

00:04:41 Chris Sass 

All right. But if I I turn the clock forward. 

00:04:42 Jon Rodriguez 

And yes, you do earn bunker fuel. 

00:04:45 Chris Sass 

So you burn bunker fuel, you you, you power these small island nations. But the conversation we're going to have today is forward-looking and and talking about some inflection. Where are your generators coming into play in an energy transition world? 

00:05:01 Jon Rodriguez 

Well, thankfully for me, having a job here, we're a very big part of that transition. So we we are actually getting bigger and bigger in the energy space in developed countries like the United States and Europe and other places around the world that have. 

00:05:16 Jon Rodriguez 

Made a huge effort to decarbonize their grids to to retire very inefficient coal and and and inefficient from a a thermal perspective, but also from an emissions perspective. Lots and lots of carbon emissions from a coal plant. 

00:05:32 Jon Rodriguez 

And the wartsila engines burning natural gas can be ran as as clean as any other technology and and you know, can meet their the most strict requirements for air emissions in the in the United States. And So what these engines are doing. 

00:05:48 Jon Rodriguez 

Is creating a new future for the power generation space where we're going to flip flip the base load around from base load being large coal coal plants around the country to the renewables themselves. 

00:06:04 Jon Rodriguez 

And these wartsila engines can then balance those renewables when they're being intermittent in their generation and then allow those renewables to continue being the base load and the grid to be reliable, resilient and the grid that we're used to where you just flip a light and nobody knows where that electricity came from. 

00:06:23 Jeff McAulay 

So John, it sounds like there are two types of transitions you're talking about, one in terms of moving from a base load generation to more flexible balancing or peaking and two in the types of fuel from the dirtier heavy fuel oil or bunker fuel to a cleaner burning natural gas are there. 

00:06:43 Jeff McAulay 

Other fuels that are either being blended in or you can transition beyond natural gas. 

00:06:50 Jon Rodriguez 

Yes, the reciprocating engine as a concept has an innate ability, an inherent ability to burn lots of different things, and so we have, you know, extensive R&D efforts going to. 

00:07:06 Jon Rodriguez 

Maximize the engines capability to burn methanol, ethanol, ammonia fuels you. You frankly haven't heard of before. Hydrogen is another one and and the ability to burn both liquid state fuels and gaseous state so that flexibility allows utilities or people that have generation. 

00:07:28 Jon Rodriguez 

It's to have. 

00:07:30 Jon Rodriguez 

Security in the future that they're going to have an asset that can be performing for as long as it as long as you know it feasibly can run and and no matter what kind of fuel mix turns out to be the future. 

00:07:44 Jeff McAulay 

And those innovations will apply both for your stationary fleet but also for marine. You mentioned the same types of engines are used in large shipping applications, correct? 

00:07:55 Jon Rodriguez 

Yes, correct. In the marine sector, they certainly focus on liquid fuels just because of bunkering and the you know they need to have space on the vessel to hold the fuel during the transit. 

00:08:07 Jon Rodriguez 

So we're, but we're able to take all the advancements done in the marine sector and apply them to land based generation so that that fuel mix capability is just basically, you know, completely open at this point and whatever those future fuels happen to be for, for clients, for future clients, we'll be able to operate with those. 

00:08:29 Chris Sass 

I I I heard a lot of future fuels. We talked about ammonia and hydrogen. There's a lot of bet for some on that. There's a lot of people that don't believe in green, green, ammonia and green hydrogen. 

00:08:41 Chris Sass 

But our audience generally is energy transition and you said business is going gangbusters. Folks want your generation. Help me understand exactly how this is. 

00:08:52 Chris Sass 

Leading towards a greener future, right? So we're we're putting some sort of base load in. Is it because of the variability of renewables that, that, that we're just not having enough storage and we're thinking generations the? 

00:09:03 Chris Sass 

Way to go. 

00:09:04 Chris Sass 

Or is it something else? Maybe from your perspective? 

00:09:07 Jon Rodriguez 

Well, it's a combination of those things and battery storage as a technology certainly has a role in especially places with significant solar generation resources because obviously solar is extremely predictable through through the the movement of the sun. You know exactly when it's going to set, you know exactly when it's going to rise. 

00:09:27 Jon Rodriguez 

When you're talking about wind generation. 

00:09:30 Jon Rodriguez 

It's it's very much more unpredictable and intermittent and that's where you really have to have firm, flexible, dispatchable technologies that can turn on when you need them, because you can't just tell the wind to blow and you don't know when you know and. And so from a battery deployment perspective, it's very difficult to apply a battery into a wind heavy. 

00:09:51 Jon Rodriguez 

Actor. 

00:09:52 Jon Rodriguez 

So these this technology and being able to run for more than a few hours basically indefinitely if needed, is a need for the for the grid and and we're talking about large grids in the United States in general for instance. 

00:10:11 Jon Rodriguez 

Ercot in Texas just had their their new peak established around 85 gigawatts. 

00:10:17 Jon Rodriguez 

And about 27 gigawatts of that is wind. 

00:10:21 Jon Rodriguez 

And so they've got tremendous variability in their in their generation fleet and they need assets that can that can turn on when needed to to take care of the people of Texas, they have to have power. 

00:10:33 Jon Rodriguez 

It's become a need in our society to have electricity and these kinds of technologies like these large reciprocating engines are a very, you know, present capability to take care of these requirements today. And then they're flexible in the future. So that whatever the fuel mix turns out to be. 

00:10:54 Jon Rodriguez 

We can adapt to that. 

00:10:56 Jon Rodriguez 

So you asked how do these technologies actually help reduce carbon emittance? And that's really the the allowing the renewables to generate to their maximum potential. That's the that's the beauty today in California for instance, they have so much solar that they could actually power their whole grid with solar. 

00:11:17 Jon Rodriguez 

But. 

00:11:18 Jon Rodriguez 

The grid would fall apart. It can't sustain itself with only solar. You have to have these generation assets spinning, burning natural gas or fuel oil or whatever. You know, they also have nuclear, of course, but you can't just rely on the solar. And so what's going on is California as an ISO is actually relying on its neighbors. 

00:11:39 Jon Rodriguez 

To stay viable. 

00:11:42 Jon Rodriguez 

So when they have too much solar, they push it to their neighbor, they they their neighbor actually sometimes is receiving money to receive energy because California has to get rid of it. 

00:11:55 Jon Rodriguez 

So what you need to be able to do is. 

00:11:57 Jon Rodriguez 

Use the renewable energy when it's available, when it's being generated, and then have resources that can respond when it's not available, and that could be a a blend of battery storage technologies, long duration storage. 

00:12:12 Jon Rodriguez 

But also, you're going to have to have firm dispatchable generation to make up the gap when those other resources are are. 

00:12:18 Jon Rodriguez 

Related. 

00:12:19 Jeff McAulay 

John, tell us about speed, scale and sighting. So when you talk about power plants, these are not your 500 MW GW coal plants. This is a a more byte size scale which I'm guessing enables you to have faster deployment and more precise. 

00:12:38 Jeff McAulay 

Exciting. Tell us about that. 

00:12:40 Jon Rodriguez 

Yeah, it's another inherent advantage of reciprocating engines is their size scale. So roughly, let's just say 20 megawatts each engine. Now that's not tiny. And like we said, these things weigh close to over 400 tons actually each one. So they're they're a, they're a significant utility. 

00:13:00 Jon Rodriguez 

Grade type of equipment, but they're very, very scalable and that 20 MW block, it makes a lot of sense from the 100 to 400 MW range and that is frankly where we're seeing the most amount of demand. 

00:13:16 Jon Rodriguez 

But what's great about that size is it is utility scale. It is front of the meter type, you know utility grade equipment, but it's also small enough where you can now distribute it along your transmission and distribution system. 

00:13:29 Jon Rodriguez 

And avoid, you know, the the issues we're having today with with that exact thing, you know as renewables are being added. 

00:13:38 Jon Rodriguez 

It's straining the transmission and distribution system because you have all this power being made somewhere where there's not a low a lot of load. 

00:13:46 Jon Rodriguez 

Reciprocating engine plants can be cited wherever you want them and they can go very close to load pockets and help you alleviate. 

00:13:58 Jon Rodriguez 

Constraints on your transmission system. 

00:14:01 Chris Sass 

So other than. 

00:14:02 Chris Sass 

Alleviating constraints are people using these for financial gain? Are they watching the energy market and saying bidding into the market and turning on these generators at certain price points? So if in 1/4 hour if there is a price point that makes sense, are they bidding in with your? 

00:14:14 

It's. 

00:14:15 Jon Rodriguez 

Yes, we do have customers that participate in the marketplace. You know, ERCOT, MISO, SPP and and so on. And yes, these these generation assets are bid into the market just like every other generation asset and they do allow customers not only to if they have a for profit model, they can certainly try to be a merchant. 

00:14:37 Jon Rodriguez 

There and make money and and we definitely have some customers doing that. But I would say for the most part we have utilities that are non profit. You know they're not motivated by profit, they're motivated by. 

00:14:49 Jon Rodriguez 

Cost constraint and and providing reliability to their customers and what these assets can provide is a physical hedge against risk. 

00:14:58 Jon Rodriguez 

So when you hear about ERCOT or some market having prices spiked to the roof for power. 

00:15:04 Jon Rodriguez 

You can have these assets in your fleet respond when that price is is unreasonable, and then you can protect your ratepayer, your member, your Members, from that price volatility. 

00:15:18 Jeff McAulay 

John, tell us about the differentiation to other types of generation, whether that's a gas turbine or or micro turbine or fuel cell. There's a whole variety of different generators. Where does the reciprocating engine fit in as in compared to those? 

00:15:36 Jon Rodriguez 

Yes, good question. 

00:15:37 Jon Rodriguez 

Thank you. So as far as gas turbines, there's a that's a pretty big top, you know, pretty big spectrum we have, you know, industrial grade turbines in the in the 10 to 20 MW range. But then I'd say where we really compete the most is with a a type of technology called aero derivatives, which is basically they they they get that name. 

00:15:57 Jon Rodriguez 

Because the gas engine prime mover is is the same relative design as what you see on an airplane. 

00:16:04 Jon Rodriguez 

And and those are about 50 megawatts each. 

00:16:10 Jon Rodriguez 

The larger gas turbines H frames or F frame turbines, 204 hundred megawatts plus those are very inflexible machines, meaning they take a long time to start. They take a long time to turn off. And in between those running periods, you have to be very careful because of thermal expansion. 

00:16:30 Jon Rodriguez 

Air derivative technology has some inherent flexibility characteristics where they can start rapidly ramp to load and then be turned off relatively quickly. But we're reciprocating engines create differentiation. 

00:16:44 Jon Rodriguez 

Is that we have significantly faster time and we have no penalty, if you will, on a maintenance schedule for how many times you start in a single, how many times you start. So basically. 

00:16:58 Jon Rodriguez 

If the market demands require you to start 10 times a day, that is OK with our technology and you will not see an income, you know, a significant increase in your maintenance expense. 

00:17:11 Chris Sass 

What are the lead times on on a big, heavy piece of equipment like this to to get one. So let's say someone's listening to this and saying, hey, that sounds great. Are we looking 12 months out, 24 months out? What how long does it take to? 

00:17:23 Chris Sass 

Get one of these built. 

00:17:24 Jon Rodriguez 

Yeah, we're actually very proud right now that we have probably the best lead time in the industry. We're looking at roughly 9 to 12 months to get the engine to the site. 

00:17:35 Jon Rodriguez 

And then it takes, let's say another six months to finish the the power plant, the integration. And so within really an aggressive would be the most aggressive schedule anywhere from 12 to 18 months to actually have an operational plan. 

00:17:50 Chris Sass 

Do you need to know when you order the engine or the motor? What kind of fuel you intend to burn? Or is it something they can change in the field? 

00:17:58 Chris Sass 

Very quickly. So based on availability and what the cost of whatever fuel might be. 

00:18:03 Jon Rodriguez 

Now you need to know from the beginning. 

00:18:06 Jon Rodriguez 

Yeah. 

00:18:07 Chris Sass 

So when I wanna change to hydrogen or ammonia or something in the future, what kind of retrofit is that? 

00:18:14 Jon Rodriguez 

It's relatively minor, actually. We're able to actually burn hydrogen with blended with natural gas without any modifications to the engines. You would buy that would burn natural gas normally. 

00:18:26 Jon Rodriguez 

But if you wanted to burn 100% hydrogen, you would have to change certain components within the engine and the the front you know the the block, the generator, the radiators. Everything else would remain. You would just do some changes of pieces on the top end of the engine. We call it cylinder heads, piston crowns for instance. Maybe some of the. 

00:18:46 Jon Rodriguez 

Air intake system might need to be more. 

00:18:48 Jon Rodriguez 

Defined, but that would be about the extent of it. So we we would consider that an in situ if you will, in place modification that could be completed for any of those various fuels we've been we've been discussing. 

00:19:01 Jeff McAulay 

All right, John, I gotta ask some gearhead questions here. I was in an automotive lab in in grad school. There's a lot of cool stuff that you can do with with engines. There's been exhaust gas recycling. There's been in in cylinder reforming, and there are a lot of really neat attributes. 

00:19:21 Jeff McAulay 

Without blending hydrogen and. 

00:19:23 Jeff McAulay 

In terms of flame speed and lean gas mixture, what would you add in the sort of R&D side of things for some of our more nerdy engine gear heads out there? 

00:19:38 Jon Rodriguez 

I would say in advancement, as a fellow gearhead, an advancement. 

00:19:43 Jon Rodriguez 

Could I, as far as the capability that I was unaware? 

00:19:46 Jon Rodriguez 

Thereof, until I came towards Zilla and became familiar with our engine products, is the ability to control every single cylinder combustion event individually. 

00:19:57 Jon Rodriguez 

So on any, any, any automotive, automotive scale engine or or you know up to those 69 liter you know fairly large diesel engines, you're still monitoring and and and inserting natural gas fuel to the entire engine at once. 

00:20:14 Jon Rodriguez 

At Wartsila, every single cylinder has an individual injection control its own ECU, basically monitoring every aspect of that combustion event, and what this allows us to do is actually turn down or or have very low partial load down to 10%. 

00:20:34 Jon Rodriguez 

Of of. 

00:20:35 Jon Rodriguez 

Main plate and operate completely steady and in emissions compliance in that second part is very important because you need heat to keep your emissions compliance going and how we accomplish that is through skip firing and by inducing heat in the exhaust by just injecting extra fuel we don't need. 

00:20:56 Jon Rodriguez 

But from a gearhead perspective, it's spectacularly cool. 

00:21:00 Jeff McAulay 

Thank you for indulging that. That sounds really neat and the emissions using that technology to get better emissions, lower turn down, very exciting, which helps you in this sort of idle and then fast ramp capabilities. It sounds like a a really great partner fuel people talk about natural gas as a bridge. But really this sounds like a partnership where you have that fast. 

00:21:20 Jeff McAulay 

Ramping dynamic geographic kind of flexibility tell us about where you're seeing orders around the world. I imagine you've you've got a certainly a neat perch within North America, but zoom out a little bit. Where is that global demand happening? 

00:21:38 Jon Rodriguez 

So we're seeing very strong demand in the United States. So I'm very happy about that and we're supporting this energy transition that we're all a part of as the US citizens globally, I'd say that you know, we you still see a very big disparity between developing countries and developed countries. So in developing countries. 

00:21:58 Jon Rodriguez 

If if, such as in the Caribbean, if they're seeing load growth. 

00:22:02 Jon Rodriguez 

They're still buying heavy fuel oil. 

00:22:04 Jon Rodriguez 

Engines, unfortunately, that just doesn't. They don't have the economic capability to to move to more green fuels if you will or more carbon friendly fuels such as natural gas. 

00:22:17 Jon Rodriguez 

Where we're also seeing tremendous uptick in demand is in the data center realm and this is global. 

00:22:23 Jon Rodriguez 

Data centers and the transition to AI seems to be and you know, I'm a pretty technical person, but AI is mystical to me because I'm somehow they're building data centers that have tremendously larger power demands and those power demands are. 

00:22:43 Jon Rodriguez 

Are challenging from the power generation sector for two reasons. 

00:22:48 Jon Rodriguez 

One is the scale we're talking hundreds and hundreds of megawatts per site, and the second reason is apparently these things will cycle, meaning your power demand isn't steady. It can. It can go up and down with rapid, very rapid up and down. So. 

00:23:08 Jon Rodriguez 

From a power generation perspective, that's a big challenge. 

00:23:11 Jon Rodriguez 

Thankfully, Wartsila engines are are seen as a very good solution for the data center space to take care of all these challenges. 

00:23:21 Jon Rodriguez 

We traditionally have not been a player in the standby market in in data centers because. 

00:23:27 Jon Rodriguez 

The equipment is made to, you know, be utility scale and utility grade. 

00:23:32 Jon Rodriguez 

But the scale increase and the power demand requirements for these these. 

00:23:39 Jon Rodriguez 

New data center developments are beyond the local utilities ability to serve. 

00:23:45 Jon Rodriguez 

That is a very new scenario in the United States. 

00:23:50 Jon Rodriguez 

And you're seeing that same trend in Europe? 

00:23:53 Jeff McAulay 

John, so if I'm hearing you right, this is almost like a behind the meter peeker where you have such a large load, it might not fit within the the grid connection and so they need on site generation not for backup but actually for ramped higher loads. 

00:24:12 Jon Rodriguez 

Actually you're correct and and in a couple of ways. One, it is more than the grid might have the capability to serve in a particular location. In that case, they're still going ahead with developing these data centers. But instead of getting that utility interconnect, they're going to do base load power locally. 

00:24:32 Chris Sass 

Now it's it's one of the direct future competitors as we go through this energy transition, SMR's is is that who your main competitor will be over the next 10 years, let's say for this kind of a technology? 

00:24:46 Jon Rodriguez 

I don't think so. SMR's, in my estimation are are. 

00:24:53 Jon Rodriguez 

Several years away from being commercially competitive, of course they have. You know, the the great advantage of of no carbon emittance, but from a cost perspective and A and a a you let's say, technology maturation. It doesn't seem to be a relevant player in the next 5 to 10 years that I. 

00:25:13 Jon Rodriguez 

That I that I understand. 

00:25:14 Jon Rodriguez 

Where we do see direct competition is in the gas turbine world. They're very capable technology. We just feel we've got a few attributes and are a little bit better at certain things. So we're we're definitely competing with them on every deal. 

00:25:30 Jeff McAulay 

Awesome, John. Well, this has really been a very interesting journey. We talked about a technology that doesn't get a lot of play. It's it's under the hood of a lot of our cars, but great to see how a scaled up version can help enable the energy transition in remote islands in the US and and all around the world. So thanks for being a guide. 

00:25:50 Jeff McAulay 

For this journey, really appreciated the conversation. 

00:25:54 Jon Rodriguez 

You're welcome, guys. It was a pleasure. 

00:25:57 Chris Sass 

Our audience, we're completing another episode of the Insiders Guide to Energy. I know from past experience there's going to be comments in both our YouTube and on our LinkedIn that we're talking about these kind of engines that burn things, feel free to leave comments, leave your opinions there. We'll get back to you and we look forward to seeing you again next time on the insiders guide to energy. Bye for now.