District Energy Biographies Oliver Evans 1755-1819

Oliver Evans was born in Newport, Delaware on 13 September 1755. He was an inventor of great ability, and his high pressure steam engine is largely responsible for America's industrialization in the early nineteenth century.

He was also among the first Americans to recognize the advantages of combined heat and power, or cogeneration, which had been patented in 1784 by Sutton Thomas Wood. In his 1804 patent application he noted that

I apply a great part of the steam after it leaves the engine to heat the water to supply my boiler and by these means I mean to perform the boiling in Breweries, Distilleries, Dye Factories, Paper Mills, etc. And I mean to apply the steam to form vacuum in vessels to raise water to supply my engines and for other purposes.

The waste heat from several of Evans' engines was used for useful purposes, but it was not until 1813 that he realized the economy of the arrangement in a letter to his son, George Evans:

At Patapsco near Baltimore they have a copper pipe run though all their appartments enough to condense for 100 horse power and their boiler to make the steam sufficient for a 20 to 30 horse engine the same fuel that they use would drive the Engine to work their Machinery is not this astonishing that this was not sooner seen in all the 7 years since I first calculated the above table and explained it in a book.

Evans apparently planned to apply for a patent on the idea, but is not known to have done so. He promoted the idea of using the exhaust steam and several of his customers are known to have employed it.

Evans died on 15 April 1819 at age 64.

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