Electric Generators - Combined Heat and Power

I did a project with these people, excellent system. Clean, quiet and so far, reliable.

Capstone

I'll second that. Capstone units are quite, low maintenance and relatively compact.

Regards,
Sapper

I've seen a few off grid people that use small 15 KW propane powered gen sets to charge battery banks that drive inverters for their homes low power items. They run the gen sets every other day or so to charge up the batteries while also powering the heavy electrical load items like washing machines and other intermittent higher power use stuff. They collect the excess heat off the engine and exhaust and heat up large well insulated tanks of water for the domestic uses like showers and doing the wash.

Its super efficient use of fuel and probably one of the best ways to get both heat and electricity off of their fuel while wasting nothing.

My house is primarily heated by my shop boiler. I too have considered setting up a co-generation system to use a similar concept. But my thoughts are to use a modified diesel engine that burns used oil instead. I can get it for near free in large enough volumes to justify it. By co generating electricity (legal here) the engine has a load and will offset my electrical usage while the waste heat from the engine and exhaust will get captured and used for heating purposes.

I market systems for precisely this kind of application. The US makers have figured out (and patented) a way to make combined-cycle systems, as opposed to the single-cycle systems what everyone else has done to date.

The result: 20% efficiency (electric power out vs thermal power in), where single-cycle systems can only get 10-12% efficiency max on 60 F days.

Let me know if you need more info:

stratos@spp-consultants.com

Cheers!
DZ