Homebrewed Heating and Electricity Generator - Idea
Discussion
With rising electricity, fuel & heating costs at what point would it become economical to have your own power station?
A little modern diesel engine, powering an electric generator & battery backup with full heat recovery from both exhaust & cooling system. A little tiny 3 cylinder Sdi type engine uses barely 0.2L of fuel per hour on tickover so thats 5l of fuel a day that I'm sure would easily power & supply electric for most homes. Though I reckon it would'nt need to be running all day. Obviously noise sealed in it own little box etc.
I'd be facinated to work out at what point its cheaper to be off grid & supply it all by yourself as such?
Shall we try & work it out
Say an average 3 bed semi, there must some average figures out there??
A little modern diesel engine, powering an electric generator & battery backup with full heat recovery from both exhaust & cooling system. A little tiny 3 cylinder Sdi type engine uses barely 0.2L of fuel per hour on tickover so thats 5l of fuel a day that I'm sure would easily power & supply electric for most homes. Though I reckon it would'nt need to be running all day. Obviously noise sealed in it own little box etc.
I'd be facinated to work out at what point its cheaper to be off grid & supply it all by yourself as such?
Shall we try & work it out
Say an average 3 bed semi, there must some average figures out there??
cptsideways said:
A little tiny 3 cylinder Sdi type engine uses barely 0.2L of fuel per hour on tickover so thats 5l of fuel a day
What does it use at full chat when I'm cooking on 4 hobs at once, heating water for washing, running a microwave and lighting my kitchen? And thats just one room...
paolow said:
cptsideways said:
A little tiny 3 cylinder Sdi type engine uses barely 0.2L of fuel per hour on tickover so thats 5l of fuel a day
What does it use at full chat when I'm cooking on 4 hobs at once, heating water for washing, running a microwave and lighting my kitchen? And thats just one room...
Just based on rough calcs at the moment - hence I'm keen to find out if its a viable idea or at what point it might be.
cptsideways said:
Less than 3.5L per hour flat out by my my guesstimates. But with a battery backup system, it would'nt need that, plus running on tickover it'll have heated the water system whilst charging up the batteries.
Just based on rough calcs at the moment - hence I'm keen to find out if its a viable idea or at what point it might be.
I like the idea of the engine being used for heat as well as power - like a modern day aga if you will - though the big problem for me is that even red diesel is 70p a litre (stands to be corrected) and casa del Paolow (which is entirely electric) costs just £2 a day to heat, light and provide hot water. Thats what the engine is up against.Just based on rough calcs at the moment - hence I'm keen to find out if its a viable idea or at what point it might be.
cptsideways said:
With rising electricity, fuel & heating costs at what point would it become economical to have your own power station?
A little modern diesel engine, powering an electric generator & battery backup with full heat recovery from both exhaust & cooling system. A little tiny 3 cylinder Sdi type engine uses barely 0.2L of fuel per hour on tickover so thats 5l of fuel a day that I'm sure would easily power & supply electric for most homes. Though I reckon it would'nt need to be running all day. Obviously noise sealed in it own little box etc.
I'd be facinated to work out at what point its cheaper to be off grid & supply it all by yourself as such?
Shall we try & work it out
Say an average 3 bed semi, there must some average figures out there??
I think you will find that it is called combined heat and power or micro/mini CHP.A little modern diesel engine, powering an electric generator & battery backup with full heat recovery from both exhaust & cooling system. A little tiny 3 cylinder Sdi type engine uses barely 0.2L of fuel per hour on tickover so thats 5l of fuel a day that I'm sure would easily power & supply electric for most homes. Though I reckon it would'nt need to be running all day. Obviously noise sealed in it own little box etc.
I'd be facinated to work out at what point its cheaper to be off grid & supply it all by yourself as such?
Shall we try & work it out
Say an average 3 bed semi, there must some average figures out there??
t when you have no heat and power because of a simple component failing!JonnyVTEC said:
What we need to do is make all the coal power stations only burn enough fuel to overcome the friction of the generation systems and nothing else....
If you manage that you will have achieved a huge leap forward in engineering. The main inefficiency in power stations is thermal - a huge amount of the energy the produce from burning fuel is lost as waste heat. Despite this, they are still among the most efficient ways to produce power, at somewhere around 50%. Some huge ship engines can get close to this, but a small internal combustion engine is only around 30% efficient.i used have a mate who ran a dingey basement bar off a genny, used to do 7 gallons every 12 hours BUT a standard small genny will not power a house, a few fluro tubes and a TV but not a cooker or a tumble dryer, for those you'd need a larger genny that drinks fuel and battery back up means 2 lots of everything 12V and 240V, you could run an inverter but as with all power conversions you never get 100% convertion, power stations are the most energy efficirnt way of power production we have at the mo.
As anothetr example the owner of the garage i rent has spent 3G on getting power to the workshop, in the past 3 months (first electicc bill) he's saved £200 over the old fuel cost of the genny we used to run (2.2 KVA).
To make it worth while you need wind and sun power but then it takes more outlay and longer to recoup and remember you only recoupe money from the FREE energy IE sun and wind.
As anothetr example the owner of the garage i rent has spent 3G on getting power to the workshop, in the past 3 months (first electicc bill) he's saved £200 over the old fuel cost of the genny we used to run (2.2 KVA).
To make it worth while you need wind and sun power but then it takes more outlay and longer to recoup and remember you only recoupe money from the FREE energy IE sun and wind.
dirkgently said:
I think you will find that it is called combined heat and power or micro/mini CHP.
I saw one years ago that used a FIAT petrol engine but IIRC it was gas powered. Even that produced enough electricity and heat for 14 houses.ETA: I just discovered there's a wikipedia page on the FIAT Totem system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_totem
Edited by Deva Link on Monday 19th September 18:59
It's very easy to work out:
for a typical small diesel engine, the Brake Specific Fuel Consumption can be as low as 200g/kWH (optimum operating point)
But that is mechanical output power, so if you need electricity, you need a generator, and a good one is about 90% efficiency (again, at peak), so you will be using 222g per kWh electricity you generate (assuming you don't store it, which obviously brings on another loss (both into and out of your storage system)
So, say you ran it on red diesel at 70p per litre, with a fuel density of 0.75kg/litre it will cost you 20.74p per kWh.
So, roughly double what electricity from the Grid costs now, and that's not including any costs like puttung the system together in the first place or maintaining it etc.........
for a typical small diesel engine, the Brake Specific Fuel Consumption can be as low as 200g/kWH (optimum operating point)
But that is mechanical output power, so if you need electricity, you need a generator, and a good one is about 90% efficiency (again, at peak), so you will be using 222g per kWh electricity you generate (assuming you don't store it, which obviously brings on another loss (both into and out of your storage system)
So, say you ran it on red diesel at 70p per litre, with a fuel density of 0.75kg/litre it will cost you 20.74p per kWh.
So, roughly double what electricity from the Grid costs now, and that's not including any costs like puttung the system together in the first place or maintaining it etc.........
Yes even a diesel engine is inefficient at producing crank power but what about total heat recovery, from exhaust & the cooling system. Reading up on that Fiat system it seemed to claim about 90% efficiency. So the electrical part is a small percentage of the total potential output.
Running a petrol engine on propane seems quite a good idea & plenty or generators already do.
Running a petrol engine on propane seems quite a good idea & plenty or generators already do.
.
Combined heat and power is great. Assumming you need both the electricity and the heat at the same time............ (otherwise you are into low grade heat storage (absolute 'mare from a round trip efficincy point) or electricity storage (even worse!!)
The are a lot of companies investigating combined domestic heat and power, and a lot use things like Stirling engines to maximise efficiency etc
Unfortunately for the diehard greenie, localised power gen schemes are even less green that the National Grid system because thermodynamic effiency is directly linked to the "scale" of the process (because of the fundamental laws of Volume to surface area ratio) (and why powerstations and large marine engines have the best thermal efficiency of any systems yet devised)
The are a lot of companies investigating combined domestic heat and power, and a lot use things like Stirling engines to maximise efficiency etc
Unfortunately for the diehard greenie, localised power gen schemes are even less green that the National Grid system because thermodynamic effiency is directly linked to the "scale" of the process (because of the fundamental laws of Volume to surface area ratio) (and why powerstations and large marine engines have the best thermal efficiency of any systems yet devised)
tank slapper said:
If you manage that you will have achieved a huge leap forward in engineering. The main inefficiency in power stations is thermal - a huge amount of the energy the produce from burning fuel is lost as waste heat. Despite this, they are still among the most efficient ways to produce power, at somewhere around 50%. Some huge ship engines can get close to this, but a small internal combustion engine is only around 30% efficient.
I know..... It was a joke. Because sure as hell that engine fuel use will soon ramp up when it has load other than friction.
tank slapper said:
If you manage that you will have achieved a huge leap forward in engineering. The main inefficiency in power stations is thermal - a huge amount of the energy the produce from burning fuel is lost as waste heat. Despite this, they are still among the most efficient ways to produce power, at somewhere around 50%. Some huge ship engines can get close to this, but a small internal combustion engine is only around 30% efficient.
I know..... It was a joke. Because sure as hell that engine fuel use will soon ramp up when it has load other than friction.Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff