Cost of Gas Consumption by Generator

I can't tell what all of what you have written means.

The generator will consume 23 cubic meters of gas in 10 hours using those figures.

Call your gas company and ask them what they charge for gas by the cubic meter.

Understand that the generator gas consumption will be variable. The biggest factor in consumption is the load. Heavy load...uses more gas.

Incidentally, 28.32 cubic meter of gas = 1 MMBTU.

i am not engineer, i m an accountant. From some learning i got following answer. my budgeting will be based on this. please let me know if i m wrong in calculation. because utility is the major factor for costing and one mistake can change whole senario.

0.23CM x 10kw machine x 10Hrs = 23CM consumed in 10 hrs.

23CM/28.18385 = 0.81635985 MCF

0.81636MCF x 911.91GCV / 1000 = 0.7444 MMBTU

Rate is Rs. 100per MMBTU multiplied by 0.7444 MMBTU, then the cost of gas consumption will be Rs. 74.44 for 10 Hours running 10kw machine

That sounds too cheap, maybe a decimal place to the right....?

Looks correct to me.

A dollar a day..?

Well it equates to $72.00 a month for 24/7 electricity.

That sounds a little expensive for a country where per capita income is about $1,300.00.

My experience is a 10 kw generator at average load 50%, will use about 46 cu ft per hour....@ 10 hrs = 460 cu ft = ~ $8 per day.....that leaves quite a large price discrepancy...Natural gas would have to be priced at ~$2 per thousand cu ft or ~378 rs per 100 cubic meters....63 rs to the dollar

Oh I was thinking this was India....Pakistani rupees are around 107 to the dollar...Current prices Rs488/mmbtu, I think....or /1000 cu ft...so yes about Rs230 per day....give or take

Isn't the answer in the back of the book...? Don't forget to factor in cost of generator, any maintenance required, and est repairs....

Ask the supplier of the generator to quote the consumption in your units.

Here's the problem, gas is metered in a volume unit, in this case m³, but the utility charges based on the heating value of that volume of gas, which varies slightly from billing period to billing period. But manufacturers don't know where the generator is going to be used they simply state the consumption of gas in units of volume per kWh, and leave the conversion from the billed amount of heating value to units of volume as an exercise for the end user.

There's always a conversion factor, which is the billing period average as calculated by the utility, that relates the two. I suspect that the GCV (Gas Cost/Conversion/Content Variable?) is that magic number. Interestingly the utility uses MMBTU to further confuse the issue; however, all that needs to be done is to convert the volume metered into MMBTU billed to determine the cost per m³ and apply it to the generator consumption estimate. This should be an easy exercise for an accountant.

GCV is the "Gross Calorific Value" the term used here the same you would know HHV "Higher Heating Value" of natural gas (BTU/CF).

you are right,t the gas billing system applied here creates confusion. billing units are made in cubic Meters and rate is applied to MMBTU, therefore cubic meters are converted into MMBTU using GCV factor. then multiplied by the rate.

First you should ask the firm which has quoted fuel consumption of 0.23 Cu Meter/kwh, the LHV of fuel gas this consumption is based.

Next convert Cu Meter/kWH to BTU/kWH.

Next find out whether the gas company is billing you on LHV or HHV. If it is HHV either the Gas company shall provide you the composition of gas to Calculate LHV or give corresponding value. Calculate the cost of gas price per MMBTU at LHV and from there find out yourself the cost of generation.