American Supercritical Launches sCO₂ Power Blocks for Gas Turbine Waste Heat

American Supercritical has emerged from stealth with $8 million in pre-seed funding to commercialize supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) power blocks, initially targeting waste-heat recovery from simple-cycle gas turbines.¹

The Denver-based company is developing factory-built systems that install at a gas turbine's exhaust and use the waste heat to generate additional electricity. American Supercritical says the technology can provide up to 50% more power without additional fuel or modifications to the gas turbine. The company also claims the system requires approximately one-tenth the footprint of a conventional steam system.¹

“Our first goal is to make wasteful simple cycle gas turbine installations obsolete,” said Simon Shuham, co-founder and CEO. “Our sCO2 power block converts any gas turbine into a combined cycle plant. We upgrade turbines running today instead of replacing them.”¹

Silent Ventures led the funding round, with participation from Riot Ventures, Harpoon, Reveille VC, Hillwood, Mana Ventures, Climate Capital, Alumni Ventures and angel investors. American Supercritical said it is beginning testing and low-volume production at a 25,000-square-foot facility in Denver.¹

Recovering Gas Turbine Exhaust Heat

In a conventional combined-cycle gas turbine plant, a heat recovery steam generator captures energy from the gas turbine exhaust to produce steam, which is then expanded through a steam turbine to generate additional electricity. American Supercritical's approach replaces the steam-based bottoming cycle with an sCO₂ power cycle.

The company is targeting simple-cycle installations where exhaust heat is otherwise discharged without being used for additional power generation. According to American Supercritical, approximately 140 GW of small gas turbine capacity is operating in the United States, representing tens of gigawatts of potentially recoverable power.¹

“Compressed timelines pushed operators toward simple cycle turbines. Wasting fuel was never the goal,” said Matt Carlson, co-founder and CTO.¹

American Supercritical says the same sCO₂ platform could eventually recover heat from other sources, including small modular reactors, geothermal plants, concentrated solar installations and industrial processes.¹

The company's development comes as other industry and government programs work to demonstrate sCO₂ power cycles at larger scales.

The 10-MWe Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant in San Antonio, Texas, for example, completed Phase 1 testing of an sCO₂ power cycle in a simple recuperating configuration. The facility achieved a turbine speed of 27,000 rpm at 500° C and generated 4 MWe of grid-synchronized power during testing.²

GTI Energy, which leads the STEP Demo project in collaboration with Southwest Research Institute, GE Vernova's Advanced Research and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, identifies compact turbomachinery as one of the potential advantages of sCO₂ technology. The project is intended to demonstrate the technology's performance and scalability for commercial power-generation applications.²

The STEP facility's simple-cycle configuration at a 500° C turbine inlet temperature was also specifically designed to provide information relevant to waste-heat applications. The project's objectives include evaluating sCO₂ turbomachinery, recuperators, compressors and other components under integrated operating conditions.³

Scaling sCO₂ Power Generation

For American Supercritical, the next step is translating the potential of sCO₂ power cycles into factory-built commercial equipment.

The company says converting the existing U.S. fleet of applicable gas turbines could avoid approximately 20 million tons of CO₂ emissions annually while providing additional generating capacity.¹ Those figures are company estimates, and American Supercritical has not yet publicly reported operating data from a commercial installation.

Beyond gas turbines, American Supercritical intends to position its power blocks as a heat-to-electricity platform for multiple energy and industrial applications. Its initial Denver facility will support testing and low-volume production as the company works toward commercialization.¹

References
1. American Supercritical Launches to Make the Simple Cycle Gas Turbine Obsolete. Press release. Sept. 23, 2026. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923702295/en/.
2. GTI Energy. “STEP Demo: High-Efficiency Power Generation Pilot Program.” https://www.gti.energy/step-demo/.
3. GTI Energy. “STEP Demo Project Objectives.” https://www.gti.energy/step-demo/step-demo-project/goals/.