Generator Using its Heat to Heat a House?

Yes, This is called Co-Generation.

The Generator if new should be able to handle Bio-Diesel quite readily without modification.

The trick will be sourcing fuel that wont void the warrantee on your generator.

Soy & waste oils converted to retail grade bio-diesel will be OK.

Using Pre-heaters & filters on staight soy & waste will probably void any & all warrantees.

The Concept is a good one although not new...Search Google or Yahoo for "Biodiesel" and "Co-Generation" you will get heaps...might also want to search for "Micro-turbine"

Regards,
Sapper.

What about the central heat unit that is installed under ground where the earths temp is a steady 55 degrees and running the refridgrant gas thru lines down there heats up the gas which then transfers the heat by fan from those lines to the home.

Running this takes 220 volts. 110 for the fan and 110 for the compressor.

Not fuel exhaust, engine oil, engine repairs, exhaust to deal with.

Are you going to produce electric power off of the generator? Using something like a large welder that has a generator on it?

The fuel and maintance cost would concern me.

I agree....which ever way this goes...it Will be expensive...

But for research and learning in order to scope it out...I chase these types of initiatives all the time..."Which is better?"...& "What would happen if?" are the two best questions.

I like your idea for the Geothermal heating\cooling too...

Regards,
Sapper

It may be a good idea to tap into the fire below us. 200,000,000 units may consume enough heat to stop this globe warming.

Great idea!

Just not exactly a DIY sort of thing.

Will this extraction of energy speed the magnetic pole shift?

Some quick thoughts:

BioFuels will no longer be cheaper then petrofuels; demand has caught up w/ supply.

A less efficient prime mover to get more waste heat/ shaft watt is probably a loser.

Electric resistance heating is 100% efficient.

Heat Pumps can recover more energy than they take to run.

You might be able to recover better $$ if you sell a surplus to grid.

Another source of loss: Home itself; insulation, leakage, &c.

It's a puzzle that can be assembled several ways; what's best will depend on many factors, will change as the world does.

The price comparison you make is not valid: the main idea is to use the waste energy from a generator/electricity production system to heat domestic water.

From where your fuel is supplied is of no importance: the big picture is to be able to use 80% of energy which is now wasted and flushed away in rivers, causing other problems.

The big picture is already on big scale city heating projects but in rural areas and for many new build electricity production units the distance is way to big to be of any interest.

The new idea is to install highly efficient micro electricity production units in private dwellings and sell the heat to the inhabitants, the electricity is injected directly in the grid. The system is working as a wide area distributed production plant: a central point decides which one produces electricity and which one not. Depending on the heat needs from the inhabitants decisions are taken. Heat storage will be of high importance to be able to react on fluctuation in electricity and heat consumption. (In the evening I do my cooking at a different moment than taking a shower)

Your remark on electrical heating as being 100% efficient: forget it.

Just imagine that you produce the electricity with Natural Gas: immediate efficacy is approx 35%, distribution losses go up to 50% an higher.

But after all: electricity can be made green: Tidal, wind, PV and solar thermal production techniques result in "green" electricity. We only need to invest in these production facilities.

But the systems above have one big problem: they produce when they want and not when we want it. A certain amount of traditional energy production capacity will be needed after all. Here Biomethane is a nice way to do it: serious amounts of the daily domestic waste can be digested to methane, which can be stored and used in Stirling generators for micro CHP on demand. This especially for zones where the access to natural sources is low (apartment buildings)

Domestic electrical heating will be the ultimate goal, only the world to explain and convince.

Electric resistance heating is 100% efficient.

>>>>>>>>

An electric heating element may convert electricity into heat efficiently but I doubt it is anywhere near 100%. Heating anything - home air or domestic hot water is very expensive compared to natural gas. Given the choice I'd take natural gas every time.

Heat Pumps can recover more energy than they take to run.

Say it ain't so. So we spend 100 kW and get out 120 kW or it's equivelent in terms of BTU's? That would suggest a geo thermal heat pump is prepetual or so called "over unity". I think it depends on where you draw the system boundary. If you consider the system to be only the heat pump then the extra energy magically appears. If you consider the earth as part of the system.

Some how I don't think a geo thermal system will run forever once it is started.

I do agree that a geo thermal heat pump is a good way to go and they are efficient but I don't think they are self sustaining or prepetual.

Travis

An electric heating element may convert electricity into heat efficiently but I doubt it is anywhere near 100%.

Every electric heater is 100% efficient, whether fan driven, oil filled, non-fan... etc. (provided the entire heater is in the space to he heated). Even an electric motor sitting in the middle of a room, with its shaft driving a propeller that stirs the air is 100% efficient: the input energy that does not go directly into the air, (heating it by stirring) is given off by the motor as "waste heat" -- but in this case, heat is what you want, so it is no longer waste heat. The assumption is that the room is perfectly insulated. So, a high efficiency furnace is about 95% efficient, with the waste heat going out of the room, thru the flue. With an electric heater, all the energy "waste" and all ends up in the room. (A gas heater with no external venting would be 100% efficient too, although CO buildup could make for unhappy people.)

But then there is the issue of what happens outside the room, such as at the power plant. If you take 10 cu ft of gas, and run it through a power plant, you'd be lucky to see 45% of that energy equivalent at your wall plug. The same 10 cubic feet of gas run into your high-efficiency furnace will give you 95% efficiency.

Say it ain't so. So we spend 100 kW and get out 120 kW or it's equivalent in terms of BTU's?

In a water source (geothermal) heat pump, a COP of 3.5 - 4 is typical. So you put in 100 watts, and get 350-400 watts out. Your electric bill will be roughly 1/4 what it would be if you heated with resistance heaters. Sounds like perpetual motion so far. (And there are over-unity scamsters who use heat pumps as evidence that their idea will work.) However, a heat pump simply transports heat from outside to inside. It's a little like having a pile of hot rocks outside, and having a simple conveyor to bring them into the house automatically. The amount of energy required to run the conveyor could be a small part of the energy contained in the hot rocks. The area around the pipes running into the ground for a geothermal heat pump gets colder in the winter and warmer in the summer. Because the ground is not all that great as a conductor, it takes a lot of pipe length to prevent freeze-ups in the winter and hot ground in the summer.

I had an open loop ground source system about 25 years ago, with one well supplying 53 degree water, and another well receiving the outflow (typically 10 degrees cooler in the winter.) In places with lots of ground water, and cheap well drillers, this can be cheaper than burying pipes all around your house. I suspect, but don't know, that the permits might be harder to get now*. (However, Cornell University pumps water in and out of Cayuga Lake, in a project started only about 10-15 years ago, and there, the case would be easier to make that they are changing the lake environment -- but the permitting went through.)

* I suppose, if houses were close together, and sharing the same aquifer, then your neighbor's water heating costs could go up a little in the winter.

refrigerant lines dont run thiugh the ground, Fluid lines do. the fluid lines are then piped to a water source heat pump.

That is called a geothermal heat pump. It works well. I have one at home to cut my energy bill in half.

Water cooled would be ideal. You will also need a fancy switch & regulator to be able to hook up to the grid

Here's a bunch of links for biodiesel. The problem is where are you going to get the vegetable oil to convert & what are you going to have to pay for it the going rate is over $2.50/gallon. You can buy a waste oil heater if you just want heat

National Biodiesel Board site

http://www.biodiesel.org/

The oldest BioDiesel forum [most info]

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x

The thumbnail explanation

http://www.biodiesel-fuel.co.uk/how-to-make-biodiesel/

US Department of Energy

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/biodiesel.html

US EPA

http://www.epa.gov/region09/waste/biodiesel/

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_biofuels.html

Methanol prices

http://www.methanex.com/products/methanolprice.html

yes you can the exhaust heat and heat from cooling system can be harnesed to generate hotwater 60degree C use the hot water where ever you want i had done it in a 5Star hotel and was generating 60KL of hot water for more than six months to feed 100Room hotel.

crm

Using hot water for building heat is an old established technology. You will find all kinds of system controls and adaptations to suit any application. Micro co-generation is also an established technology and application. The fly in the ointment is your fuel cost for the generator. Economies of scale means a relatively tiny 250kW or so genset isn't going to be as low cost to run as what the large utilities have. Therefore your cost per kilowatt is going to be much higher than what the utility pays. If if you are paid at par for any surplus power you generate, this payback is still going to be a lot less that what you pay to generate the power. That is usually called deficit spending.

Why do you feel you need to install a generator, instead of continuing to use utility power? If it is for back up when the utility power is out, you will not be able to do a grid tie and get paid when the utility grid is down. Are you contemplating going with a 3 phase generator but your utility only has a single phase feeder in your neck of the woods. (A common rural complaint)

Unless you can get the fuel for less than what the utility company pays for their fuel, you are not going to break even. Don't know about where you are but hereabouts all the waste veg oil from resaurants etc has already been bought up by a company.

Gone are the days where waste is given away for free. I bought some new type of sand blasting grit at a jobber supply house. Not too long afterwards I noticed a new company next to the city dump. Same name as what was on the bag of grit I bought.

They are recycling all the glass bottles, by crushing them and converting it into a different kind of silica grit.

Same thing with waste lube oil. SafetyKleen bought a couple of small refineries, then they go round with tanker trucks collecting waste oil and re-refine it.

Certainly it is well established technology I seem to remember a unit fitted to a bus years ago then ran on natural gas and generated electricity to run the bus.

However here's a point that just might have been overlooked! Lot's of ineffcient plants waste a lot of the left over heat from the conversion process. On a domestic scale in winter this could virtually all be used for space heating and hot water services. Thus your electrical load would be less thus reducing the size of the generator required. Combined with a heat pump system it should work out pretty well.

Just for clarification. I am already paying thousands for oil for heat. The idea is to pay the same thousands for fuel, and get a little residual electricity out of the deal. I am not looking for cheaper electricity, I am looking for cheaper heat.

You are a bad customer, the ideal situation is where electricity is in shortage and heat can be sold for reasonable prices.

But this shifts when oil goes up in price.

Do you have any engineering experience?

If you do, you could make up a system as you have described it. With a little help from your friends. (Damn. It's a curse being a muso)

Sourcing the prime-mover and generator shouldn't be too expensive. No need to buy new.

You could probably get away with a 10kva set,( 'assuming', hate that, that you have a modest dwelling), because ,as said previously, your almost entire heat load won't have to be supplied from an electrical source. I bought a genset recently of 45kva for AUD$8,000. Pre-loved, of course. I'd think you could get one a more sensible size for you for half of that, in your dollars.

Route the exhaust gases through a simple heat exchanger, as well as recovering the cooling system heat loss, and you'll have lots of hot fluid to plumb into the dwelling heating system, both hot water and room heat. ( My brother-in-law has three thousand gallons of hot water stored under his house for the very same purpose and his system has been running successfully for 30yrs).

It's even feasible to make use of some of the heat generated to supply your refrigeration needs if you go with a heat absorbtion system. I don't know of product of this scale available on the market, but I'd think it's a worthwhile development project.

And, I know we're talking diesel for the fuel, but think about, and do the math, of using gaseous fuels in the engine. Convert the diesel to LNG (Town gas?) or use a SI motor on LPG or natural gas. LPG here is half the price of gas, and less than, of diesel. True there is not quite as much energy in either of them per unit but pollutants are reduced as well.

An SI unit on LPG will be much quieter too

Food for thought?

Cheers

Stu

What kind of system is your brother using.

I was thinking about getting a 10kw diesel. What did you mean by "Convert the diesel to LNG (Town gas?) or use a SI motor on LPG or natural gas."

Thanks

He's using a system he designed which gives all of the heating for his house, two storeys about 30 squares in Tasmania, Australia. Cold winters, frost but no snow. Collects solar heat in two huge custom made copper sheet arrays.

Town Gas is produced from coking coal and reticulated around a town or city.

LNG= Liquefied Natural Gas. That stuff they flare off at refineries and rigs.

SI=Spark Ignition

LPG= Liquefied Petroleum Gas. Propane, Butane, or a mix of the two, depends on the climate where it's to be used. Butane is useless as a fuel in COLD climates. If it's snowing you could carry it around in a bucket.

Lots of urban transport buses are fuelled by LNG converted diesels. No, or very little pollution.

Just capture the energy from ambient through a super heat pump. Also generates electricity at COP 24:1

Richard

rdthompsoniii@msn.com

Richard what specific equipment do you recommend for converting heat directly into electricity?

Elnav

As many already explained: this process is called CHP: Combined Heat and Power.

Check out www.cogen.org

It used to be normal: using the heat from one process in another. It was complex but feasible. Then fuel became so cheap that it was not worth it anymore.

Now we are 50-70 year later and no-one remembers those systems anymore.

i would recommend you contact your generator manufacturers application engineer or dealer for your region he will recommend heat recovery silencer designed for your generator engine which will solve your problem.

crm

You know, this doesn't directly fit into this blog but I have been wondering that in many places there are thermal waters readily available from the ground.

It may be as hot as 70+degrees Celsius yet, apart from being wasted after its heat is spent, no one cares to pump it back into ground, right where it came from, to let it naturally reheat and reuse again.

Initially, these wells have enough pressure to push the water to surface by themselves even.

The town I used to grow up in had this opportunity to exploit this thermal water for decades until the well gradually gave in (first loosing its pressure then they used pumps for another 20yrs b4 it all stopped).

It was such a waste because the disposed water was still hot enough to kill the weeds around it as it ran into the artificial river, not very smart I thought at the time and even since.

Those of you who know enough about these things, do you think this could have been a feasible idea? It just would have required a little energy to pump it back down to repeat the process. I know nothing about this but, as an idea I was always wondering if it would have worked?

Check out Lister or Listeroid cold start diesel gensets. Great longevity and reliability, and you can burn any fuel oil in them. People are heating their houses with them. They are also quiet because they are low rpm. Lindsey technical books also has information from Steve Chastain on building your own genset, and how to use the waste heat. He built his out of a gas engine, though. Geoheat (not geothermal, using hot springs) is viable for new construction, much harder for a retrofit. The loops can be put in either horizontally or vertically. Can be used for both heating and cooling cycles, and very inexpensive to run, expensive to install. Ground heat varies depending on your location (you may have to bury the loops pretty deep). Conservation is still the cheapest energy dollar, so insulate and go that route first. If you get good southern solar exposure, you may want to look into some solar heating to boost your system, either solar thermal or solar air (look at the cansolair website) heaters. Good luck!

"Maine buys back consumer electricity for the same price at which I pay for it."

Typically states with net-metering require utilities to buy back electricity at wholesale prices, not retail. I haven't checked Maine but you would definitely want to verify your assumption. That is why the best bang for the buck is to generate enough electricity to cover what you would normally pay for. The ROI (return on investment) gets harder to justify at wholesale rates.

I understand. The point of this idea is simple: I spend a lot of money on oil to heat my house, so why not have something that gives me heat, and the electricity is just a by product of the process. I am not trying to lower my electric bill as much as I am trying to lower my heating costs. I spent less than a thousand dollars on electricity last year, and over $3000 in oil to heat, and that number will now be significantly more for next year based on the current trend.

$ 3000 for heating, where do you live? North or south pole.

I admit that my heating needs are also high, with two kids who like to take a nice shower or play in the tub.

But the recommendation on insulation or a check up of your houses heat losses could reveal where you can gain most.

As second option I would install a solar heat collector, it even works fine in Sweden, even on those sunny ice cold winter day's they can collect heat.

If you have wood to burn even there you can gain a lot of money.

The CHP projects will become available in the next years, but they will not be remarkably cheaper, in many cases it will be more expensive, as the one who pays is willing to contribute his effort in the green wave.

Places in Maine might just as well be the North Pole.

Trouble with geothermal heat pumps in places like Maine is that the horizontal runs of tubing have to be buried deeper than in warmer climes. The soil (if you can call it that) can be very rocky, so you may have to go with the vertically drilled wells for your heat sink (A.C.) or heat source (heating). Water content of the soils also affect how well you transfer heat.

The over-unity heating value of the geothermal really doesn't violate the L. of C. of E. because the heat is being provided by earth in terms of it's ability to reject heat or accept lots of cooling, if you will.

If you decide to go with a diesel genset and use the waste heat for your baseboards and domestic hot water, check into the availability of off-road (dyed) diesel so you are not paying highway taxes to heat your house. BTW, some diesels run fine on the No.2 heating oil which won't have the road taxes either. Check with your genset dealer.

You will want to site your genset away from the dwelling to prevent CO buildup issues. (We would like for you to be a return CR4 participant) I would recommend running your return loop through the exhaust heat exchanger first, then to the waterjacket inlet side. Keep the thermostat so you keep the engine at proper running temp. I figure the 180-190 F temp of most baseboard systems is compatible with diesel engine running temps. You will probably need to use the circulator pump in the house as I'm not sure the engine water pump will give you the flow you need. Check to see if the genset will work with propylene glycol (safe anti-freeze) otherwise you will need another fluid-to-fluid heat exchanger so you're not running ethylene glycol (poison) in your house.

Since you are not likely to bring up a synchronous generator on-line with the grid, you will need to rectify the AC output of the genset, then use a utility-approved grid-tie inverter to feed back into the grid. Otherwise, you would need a transfer switch that disconnects the dwelling from the grid when you need heat (generator). It will be a pain to reset every clock radio, microwave oven, and VCR clock every time you switch back and forth.

I have thought of similar things, but the ROI just isn't there for me in Maryland. We have natural gas heating which is reasonable by comparison. Good luck with your quest.

If you live in Maine, do you have access to wood directly from the forest or live close to a saw mill?

There is a class of wood burning boilers which burn wood ( or many other combustible items) to heat water and this hot water is circulated in the house and shop (s) as well. well established technology with dealers all over the place. Check out WoodMaster as an example.

My uncle lives off-grid but heats his large two story house for free. Being off grid he uses a genset to charge a battery bank which in turn drives a big inverter for domestic electricity.

The waste heat from th egenset heats his shop buildings.

I am currently working on a system to convert the wood heat into electricity. Stirling engines is a first choice. Steam boiler is a distant second. The uncle lives on the family's original homestead which had a saw mill powered by a steam engine and boiler. Whole place burned to the ground after a boiler accident. Once bitten twice shy! Family residence was rebuilt but not the saw mill.

I also heat my house totally free - except of course for the trouble of getting the free firewood. Guess I could pay someone to fech it for me if I was lazy. So now I am working on how to genreate my own electricity.

Climate Energy, a company not too far from Maine, sells a cogeneration system for home use based on a Honda cogenerator. It's only a kilowatt of electrical output, but runs at about 85% efficiency (heat and elec, combined). Their system runs on natural gas and propane (spark ignition) so it would not be the right system for you, but it may give you some ideas.

Whispergen makes a cogeneration unit that is 90% efficient, and which uses a Sterling engine, which can run on many fuels.

Where I live, power is sold back to the company at full retail, and I've been told that a local church is able to sell power back (from solar cells) at a higher-than-retail price. (This seems to make little sense, but I guess power produced during peak times is worth more than power produced off-peak.)

I think both the systems I just mentioned are expensive, but putting together your own system could be done at a reasonable cost. I'd think that, if you designed thing carefully, you'd get 85% efficiency, which is pretty remarkable, compared to the way petroleum is usually used (20-25% in most cars, 35% in diesel generators, etc.). However, you'd want to look at a new high efficiency oil boiler, too. I don't know off hand what the efficiency of a new one is, but gas furnaces can get up to around 95%. I'm not convinced that the Honda system would be worthwhile if you already had a gas furnace: better to get 95% in heating alone than 85% in heat and electricity... probably... unless your electricity rates are high.

If you didn't already have access to the grid, then home brewing your electricity with a cogenerator would be almost a no-brainer, although in the summer you may find you have more heat than you can use for domestic hot water, so it would probably have to go off as waste heat.

Solar heat is a pretty good deal, (more economical than solar electricity) if you have a place to mount the collectors.

Whispergen will no longer sell into North America. I checked.I was supposed to become dealer here.

Place the generator in a well insulated shed with an air intake. Install a water jacket and pump. Use well insulated piping to the house.

Study how outside wood boilers heat a house. You may be able to use their piping components, and heat distribution systems.

The biodiesel should run without problems as long as it is preheated. Keep the tank in the shed. You can learn how to make it, and any problems, on the web.

Buy a quiet generator.

My complements on using the system to your benefit.