Generate your own power
Posted on Nov 23, 2007 under Electricity, Heating, Lister engines | 17 Comments
I dug up some old electricity bills the other day to check how much juice we have been using over the past few years. I was shocked by the numbers I found, we use about 10500 kWh a year which equals a constant load of (10500 kWh / 365 days / 24 hours =) 1.2 kW or 1200 Watts. The power usage itself isn’t the shocking part, considering we use electricity to cook on, have a bunch of other appliances that are used regularly and a few tropical aquariums, one of which is a saltwater aquarium which has some quite powerful lights and pumps. What did shock me was to see the total money spend on electricity. With a kWh costing about 24 cents, the total yearly cost for our electricity usage ads up to 2.5 grand (that is Euros, which equals about 3,700 US$!!!)
There are better things to do with that kind of money but we still need the electricity. Sure, we can probably cut down on usage, but quite frankly there are not a lot of electric comforts I want to give up. I will use an average of 1000 Watts of power usage to figure out what kind of power plant we need to build. If I take into account the small fish farm we might want to start, that adds another 1000 Watts.
I’ve already ruled out solar power because the up front costs will be too high. I do want to tap into the power that the sun delivers for free, but I will use that for heating instead of electricity generation. Wind power is another free source, but since it depends on the weather conditions I’m not too keen on that either. I will probably experiment with wind power in the near future but for now I need a better, more constant, source.
I am having a closer look at Lister-engines and the more I read about them, the more I like them. A Lister CS (cold start) engine is a diesel engine that can deliver great power for very little cost. These engines are build to run for decades, I’ve read about some that have been running 24/7 for over 40 years! And the required maintenance is very low. These engines run at low speeds of 600 – 1000 RPM, making them less noisy than regular diesel generators.
Running an engines like this hooked up to a 10 kW power generator for about 5 hours a day would be able to cover my total power consumption. The heat generated by the engine can be fed back into the central heating system. Using the generated heat would be another big money saver considering the huge increase in oil prices, currently at $95 a barrel vs. $52 per barrel in January! The oil price does not affect the running cost of the generator as it can run on waste vegetable oil, which can be collected from local restaurants for free. The restaurant owners normally have to pay to get their used cooking oil disposed of.
Since the electricity generated by the generator would be somewhat constant while it is running and the usage has spikes as appliances get turned on and off, a buffer is needed to store the generated power, so it can be used at times when the generator is not running. One way to store your electricity is in batteries, but since most homes here are connected to the electric grid, we can just use that! Solar systems are often hooked up to the grid like this, by using a special electricity meter you can have the meter run backwards when you generate more power than you use. If we feed enough power back into the grid we can start sending bills to the power company, much better than receiving their bills!
November 27th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Awesome, I have to look into that. I have checked out lister engines before, but the cost of the batteries was too much. I will see if my local power supplier also buys back power from individuals.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Great idea. We are about to embark on a year journey on a boat and we are looking for alternatives to diesel fuel. I really want to put a bio diesel fuel engine in, but I guess we need to get a boat first.
Do you have any resources that have conversion kits, or simple engines like this that we can install instead of a generator on board?
Thanks for the info
Coach Kip
November 27th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Good luck getting money from your company power. Install solar panels if you have a lot of excess money with nothing to do with it. They get cheaper each year.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
See here is what I call the typical problem. Your chances of success (electrical independence) are more likely to succeed if you first tweak your electrical usage.
Not trying to ease back is like trying to bail out the titanic with a bucket.
Without knowing the details of your home, we couldnt pinpoint the best ways to do it. Lets face it, most people dont want to change, they think that they would have to suffer. Change every bulb in your home to the new CFL’s that are out and possibly cut usage down by 20% just by doing that. Replace CAC with new high seer equipment, and it pays itself off in just a few short years. Ditto with the fridge.
Next step, hire a home performance professional to tweak your house and have it pay it self back in 5 years.
Now, once all that is done you could make real headway….
November 27th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Good idea, though it won’t take that many people to copy it and BAM, your free source of vegetable oil is gone. You either then have to buy vege oil or buy diesel depleting the benefits.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
I’m fairly sure that the rules regarding selling electricity back to power company vary by region, but it’s difficult to find specific information. Does anyone know of any websites that list different rules for different places?
November 27th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Wow. That’s a great idea. Are you planning on doing the set up yourself, or having someone do it for you? If you’re doing it yourself could you direct me to where you learned? Or better yet put up a tutorial? I’d love to do something like this, but frankly I don’t have a clue as to where to begin. Thanks.
November 28th, 2007 at 2:09 am
Coach Kip, sounds like a nice adventure a year on a boat. I’m not sure I would use a lister engine on a boat though because of its typical heavy weight. Anything on the move should think about the weight and the extra power needed to haul all that weight around. Maybe solar panels would be better. On the other hand, Lister engines have been in use on boats as a means of propulsion, just put a few batteries in with it and they can be charged while you are on the move.
Glenn, sure, cutting down on usage is the first step and CF lighting can be a huge power (and money) saver. I just want to be sure my generator will be sufficiently sized to cover our usage, any additional savings will be more power to sell to the power company.
I don’t thing getting waste vegetable oil will be a big problem, even if more people use this technology (which has been around for ages already) Even if it means you would have to buy the oil, or grow your own crops to make oil, you will still be generating your electricity cheaper than the power company.
Installation of the electrical part will probably have to be done by a trained electrician. I don’t think the power company will just let you hook up your power generator to their grid without being sure that it is done correctly.
December 10th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I’ve worked with these engines quite a bit. They are very reliable but hardley economical. The farmers where i live used them until the arrival of mains electricity when they gave them all up. They are hardley quiet and quite difficult to start for women. They also stink. Get some solar panels/stationary batteries and a good quality inverter would be my advice.
December 11th, 2007 at 2:20 am
As far as my research goes, it seems they are more economical than buying electricity from the utility company, even if you have to buy the vegetable oil to run the engine.
The smell and noise shouldn’t be a problem if you have a suitable location to station the engine and if the fuel/air mixture has been correctly adjusted there should be hardly any smoke or smell.
I have ruled out solar panels as an option, for me they are just too expensive and they would take 10 to 20 years to pay for them selfs, while a lister generator would be earning back its cost in under 2 years.
Oh and about the starting: I have seen some equipped with an electric starter. I would probably add that as well.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Have you researched how much a kilowatt will increase in cost for the duration of the payback of solar install? Also the government prohabition on fuel generation once bio fuels come mainstream. And where is the concern over global warming and the co2 you will be generating? Solar is a no brainer even if it only saves a little.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:29 am
When running on vegetable oil the CO2 released equals the amount of CO2 that has been taken from the atmosphere by the growing plants, so there will be no added CO2 to our environment: green energy.
I think the global warming and CO2 problems are over rated. Have a look at this 4 part presentation on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI
Don’t get me wrong, I do think that we are messing up our planet and that we have to change the way we live, but the problem is pollution and not CO2 and global warming.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Nice post … can u please subscribe me to your newsletter if u have any.
Thanks
June 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
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July 10th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I am looking in to hooking up a generator to the grid but all the generators I’ve looked at warns no to because it will damage the generator. I was wondering if u know if there just talking about the damage being caused by hooking it to the meter thats all ready there. Is the only thing I have to do is put in a nother meter that runs backwards? will the grid pull to much wattage? do I have to have some type of regulator to control the pull so no damage is done to the generator cap.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Most generators will not be suitable to hook up to the grid. You will need some electronics to make the connection to the grid. You’ll have to contact your local utility company to find out what their specific requirements are for hooking up your generator.
November 16th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
We had better get use to the idea of free veggie oil from restaurants being a thing of the past. we are barely getting it’s use going and you can’t find it around here in the southwest. It is either promised or sold to someone already. May still be worth buying fresh though at Costco etc. from the looks of the power possibilities you are talking about.
Great post!