Price Model of the Stirling Engine

Abstract: The Stirling engine has very high potential, but there are still some challenges to overcome before it can be commercialised. The engines competitive advantages are that it runs on an external heat source that can be renewable, and it has high efficiency. One of the challenges to overcome is to identify parameters of why the Stirling engine technology presently is very expensive. This project, which was conducted at KTH, creates a new technology price model for the Stirling engine with the aim to identify these parameters. The new technology price model in this project consists of three different aspects: the cost, the market and the demand of the Stirling engine. The models that are used for analysing these aspects are a cost breakdown, supply and demand and price based pricing. The results show that the major cost component of the Stirling engine is the cost for the heat exchanger. This is because the heat exchanger requires special materials that can obtain a high temperature difference, which is required to achieve high efficiency. Furthermore, the study shows that climate changes increase the focus on social and ecological sustainability, which decreases the entry barriers for the Stirling engine since the demand of renewable and reliable technology increases.  A discussion about the commercialising of the Stirling engine shows that the cost parameters: economy of scale, effective supply chain, increased competition and technical advancements must be optimised for the production cost to decrease largely. A decreased production cost enables the Stirling engine to be commercialised.