Mainspring Energy has secured a US Department of the Air Force (DAF) contract to pilot its fuel‑flexible linear generator at the Travis Air Force Base (AFB) in California, in a bid to strengthen mission energy resilience and reduce dependence on any single fuel source.
The prototype project, scheduled to run this year, will test the generator’s performance on a range of fuels, including natural gas, propane, biomethane, syngas, ammonia and hydrogen, measuring fuel efficiency, power output, consumption and emissions for each. The unit is designed to switch dynamically between fuels and deliver near‑zero NOx emissions across all of them, positioning it as a hedge against future changes in fuel standards, availability and price.
Air Force Office of Energy Assurance director Kirk Phillips said the service’s reliance on a single fuel type is a supply‑chain vulnerability that multi‑fuel generation can mitigate without repeated capital replacement. He added that the technology supports White House directives to boost US energy dominance and mission effectiveness by hardening critical infrastructure against disruption.
Travis AFB’s 60th Air Mobility Wing is hosting the demonstration as part of a wider push to increase flexibility and eliminate single points of failure in base power systems. For Mainspring, the award is a key reference in defence markets: the company was the first power generation provider classed as “awardable” on the Pentagon’s Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace, streamlining uptake by other branches seeking resilient, low‑emission, multi‑fuel power.
Mainspring, which began commercial shipments of its Linear Generators in 2020, already counts Fortune 500 companies, data centres, utilities and partners such as AEP, NextEra Energy Resources and Schneider Electric among its customer base.
