Tuesday
Jan042011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Planning for power cuts
Jan 4, 2011 Energy Commenter Lord Beaverbrook has asked if we can have a thread to discuss solutions to the power cuts that so many are predicting now that successive governments appear to have saddled us with a power generation system that will not provide sufficient power.
I think we should consider two issues - firstly whether there is a genuine need for households to get back up power supplies and secondly, if backup power is required, what form it should take.
Reader Comments (118)
@Perry
One of the early comments refers to electrical setup on motor cruiser. SWMBO and I have lived full-time on a 36 foot trawler which we anchor or moor away from the utility mains about 300 days per year. We follow the weather going to Maine in summer and Florida in winter. We run both 12 volt/dc and 120 volt/ac. We have a 4.2kw diesel fueled genset, a 2.5 kw sine-wave inverter, and eight deep-cycle 6 volt batteries wired in series/parallel to get 12 volts. We have air-conditioning with reverse cycle for heating, an ac refrigerator, electrical hot water heater, TV, radios, usual kitchen appliances, lights, water tanks, pumps etc.
All of this can be kept running with 3-4 hours of generator operation per day. ( I should point out that the generator is cooled by seawater so would not be suitable in a dry land installation). Although it's possible to run the air conditioning on the inverter, it's really not practical since it would rapidly deplete even this battery array.
The application that a system such as ours might have on land would be very limited. You would need all this equipment, you would need a fuel tank for the diesel, likely some sort of permit with the usual non-constructive restrictions form the local authorities. You would need either separate circuits to limit the load while using standby power, and you would need a fall-over switch to isolate your system from the utility connection lest you supply power to their other customers or are online when they again fire-up with the great likelihood that you will be out of phase with what they are doing and suffer catastrophic failure at your end.
You would also need to exercise it regularly and keep the fuel clean and free of moisture and bacteria.
Finally, we live in a very small space with few electrical demands. It's not camping out, but it isn't lavish either.
FWIW I also can relate how we dealt with 3 weeks without electricity in a house in Miami following Hurricane Andrew. Finally, I can describe my brother's residential standby system in his home on the Minnesota-Canadian border where it may get even colder than Scotland this winter.
If anyone is interested in more detail on these last two items, leave a comment.
Spen,
Our politicians are on a mission. The reality of what China does or does not do will not be allowed to impinge, as the essence of what they are doing is keeping reality at bay.
In their world, tax payer dollars (and the dollars of future tax payers) are a bottomless well which it would be criminal not to dip into to the full, especially when there's a planet to save. Unfortunately, the planet they're trying to save is another, and very strange one, which they collectively inhabit.
I should add to the above that this is the 8th year living aboard.
The carbon market is all set up to base the new global money supply on, when the current system folds in the near future, AGW the perfect political cover for Peak Oil and peak money!. /tinfoil :^)
We had blackouts in mind when we bought this place 6 yrs ago, then planted 2 acres of coppice for fuel, we're planting more this winter.
We have installed a 27kw woodburner in the "granny flat", this runs 4 decent sized radiators and does DHW, it would cover your average 2 up 2 down terrace, the wood required for a year, neatly stacked, is the size of a double garage. Wood is not cheap unless you cut your own (ave £70 ton), and if you cut a pile that big yourself, you will not call it "free" either :)
Cooking, we have a propane range for summer, and a 11kw woodfired stove, which is also used as a space heater in winter as the only form of heating in the kitchen.
We have two generators, 2.5kw and 3.5kw, one is portable for disabled equipment (wash-toilet is electric)
and one wired to a crossover switch in the main house. When the electricity fails we switch over and run up the genny, after switching stuff off to get any load to min, but we don't actually "need" it. I rotate the stored petrol I use in garden equipment, I've not needed to add fuel stabiliser as I can rotate it. I've used the gennys twice last year for 14hrs and 10 hrs (rural spur) I winterize them after use.
I intend to super insulate a chest freezer I have, it should be possible to keep stuff frozen for weeks with the right insulation.
Water we have an old well, pumps and filters with spares stored in case the mains fail. I have yet to pipe it up the cold water tank, but the job is in the pipeline.
Although we have a septic tank, I am building a compost toilet on our land, more to save walking back to the house than anything, but a useful alternative should the water become scarce. We collect water for the garden in two 1000ltr IBC containers, and various barrels catching shed runoff etc.
We have a stock of candles (white card is more reflective than glass mirrors) and camping gaz lanterns for the kitchen (no-one likes cooking in the dark) plus torches with spare batteries and bulbs.
You should think about the gas being off, electric and water (toilet?). You should also think about disruption to the system under various scenarios. We have a years food supply stored too, which might seem excessive, but I think you should have 3 weeks food in stock as a minimum. Imagine the civil unrest during blackouts, with say 20% unemployment, or a cash shortage due to depression.
Can you always get to a doctor? Medical stores are also essential IMO.
Chance favours the prepared mind and all that, I reckon with a crumbling system the more self reliant you can become the better your chances YMMV ;¬)
@Kevin
This is what I was thinking of: http://www.generatorsales.com/order/John-Deere-30kw-Diesel-Generator-Enclosed.asp?page=JDE1PH30
It can be delivered with either a 100 or 200 gallon fuel tank.
If it runs day and night @ about 50% load it will run for about 6 days on a full 200 gallon (thats US gallons) tank.
In reality, it would be off at night, and wouldn't average 50% load, so I am guessing easily 10 days, or maybe even 14.
If I can't get electricity back on or more diesel in two weeks, things are going to be pretty bad.
Dave Ward, Mike, j ferguson
This is exactly the type of information those of us that are preparing need to know. The more knowledge we gain the better the preparation.
The scariest part of this future vision is the potential mexican standoff between the power companies and the government. It is going to cost a huge amount of money to achieve the position that the government wants and that is not going to happen without a carbon price of at least £50/T.
Again from the report:
However, our analysis suggests that the effectiveness of Carbon Price Support in driving low-carbon investment is dependent on the confidence that investors have that this policy will not be subject to future change. It may also be less effective if investors are forecasting low future gas prices since low-carbon generation would be less competitive with gas-fired generation. A further consideration is that as the system decarbonises, the impact of the Carbon Price Support on the electricity price is likely to diminish, weakening it as an investment signal. As is the case under Premium Payments, investors are exposed to the risk of this price erosion.
Given our assumption of a constant increase in Carbon Price Support from 2013 to 2020, this is likely to increase costs to consumers in the near term by increasing the cost of electricity. High carbon emitting generators will lose, whereas existing low-carbon generators, such as nuclear and renewables, are likely to gain. There is also the possibility that it leads to the unintended consequence of greater imports from connected markets where the carbon price is lower (though the extent of interconnection is currently relatively small).
Are you going to invest in UK power in the next ten years?
I forgot this option. It might even solve numerous problems. If governments are willing to limit human freedom and it's citizens' pursuits of happiness for the sake of mother earth, then why not enlist the future to save the 2100 drop dead date of mother earth?
Can't you see? If things are this dire, then child labor laws should change to enlist the youth. They are the ones who should be worried. Round up the youth to pay it forward or Pedal it Forward. This will solve any and all obesity epidemics. And we might actually need to feed the kids sugar to keep them going. It's a win win for all. Kids get to eat sugar and watch as much tv as they wish as long as they are pedaling. Parents won't feel guilty when their kids eat sugar and watch tv, but will feel good as their kids exercise and save the world. Governments get to keep their power and the wealthy will continue to make money trading sugar and carbon futures.
We are the world...
Frosty: Very interesting. I have a lot of those things that you have. What sort of foods do you have in your year's supply?
Where I live there is a seemingly unlimited power supply courtesy of nuclear reactions.
However the distribution system leaves a lot to be desired.
Short outages mainly, say 1- 2 hours maximum.
So no real problem, my computer goes down but my wife's is a laptop, therefore no problem.
However, digital telephones are a problem.
I get round that by keeping a set of analogue phones, my wife calls them the steam phones, which just plug into the socket and work very well indeed.
So, ladies and gentlemen, acquire an old telephone and guard it well.
It could save your life!
@PJP
That is a pretty sweet generator. I would hope you could find diesel within a 10 day period. In my worst experience, we were out of power for 5 days and a co-worker was out for 8 days. The average is 3 days without power. And most roads have been cleared in 5 days. My place of employment uses truck size diesel generators so I know diesel is available....somewhere. I know it was out at the gas stations around me. I assume since my employment uses so much they have a truck bring it in and store it.
@PJP cont...
And obviously, the power should be back on within 10 days....or start preparing for the apocalypse. Never a bad time to begin reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Or watch the film...book was better and moves pretty quickly.
Another one.
I have a gas fire, and gas central heating, propane, with a 6-months supply in a tank buried in the garden.So that's OK.
We've never had any real outages, see my previous post, but obviously in the case of outage the central heating (condensing, really, really economical, with all internal pipes, so no freezing!) goes off, as does the fire.
Thinking on it, the central heating depends entirely on electricity but the gas fire is just direct gas from the tank, save for the safety circuit and the starting system, 24v dc.
I have been pondering fitting a 24vdc battery backup for the gas fire, just to cover outages, it should be quite simple.
However, as I said, outtages aren't really a problem here.
Re Kevin
People in Northern Ireland probably thought the same thing about their water. The old adage applies though, plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Re J Ferguson
I'd be interested. I've done a fair bit of DR or contingency planning as well as remotely responding to a few of disasters. Luckily never been in one myself but it's striking how many things we take for granted stop working. Need fuel? Go buy some. No card payment, cash only. No problem, go to the ATM.. which is offline. It's something I'd like to do more of, but for my line of work the French have most of it stitched up.
Lord Beaverbrook,
Hurricane Andrew in 1992 took out the electricity at our house and it was gone for 3 weeks. There was power elsewhere in the city the next day but not at our place. we had a small tv which could run on 12 volts so we would sit in the carport in the evening with the tv sitting in the open hatchback and watch the very interesting evolving reaction to the devastation. As an aside, one of the lessons we learned was that there was no way you could comprehend the extent of the devastation from television. Had they flown a helicopter from Coconut Grove (Miami) to the keys and just played the film, you could have gotten a hint, but no-one did it. I suspect that what's happening in Queensland is terrible beyond the comprehension of anyone who isn't there.
Most people in Miami without electricity at home seemed to go off the deep end to get ice - likely to preserve the contents of their freezers. Others bought small LOUD gensets and pumped the results into their houses and burned gasoline. No-one had built in standby so it was all jury rigged.
important note is that although we didn't have power, the office and most of the downtown areas were back online in a couple of days.
So we bought meals at drive-through places, went home while it was still light (late in August it stays light well into the evening), read by battery lantern for a bit and slept until awakened by the wind-up alarm clock. The Americanism "no sweat" didn't quite apply, but it was close. Cold showers.
There is great comraderie in mutual affliction. We met neighbors we'd never spoken with. Many of them were very interesting.
I could have rigged up a genset. but after seeing how the people who did were treated by the people who didn't decided it was a bad idea. One thing to be very clear about is that keeping a very low profile in great adversity can save you a lot of wear and tear. If it were me, and I had neighbors, I would try to entice them into doing something along the lines of what I was doing. I think this last thing is very important - a little like having the only nuclear shelter in the area.
Brother in the north woods has a 12 kw diesel powered genset with automatic start on power outage. It is automatically restricted to feeding "essential services" but can have other loads added manually. His place is heated by electricity via calrods in a large tank of glycol. This system is shed-able at the option of his utility and accordingly he gets very good rate. If the system is shed by the utility by plan it will be for no more than 12 hours out of 24. the tank is big enough to carry him over for 2 days before house temperature passes 50F on the way down. The cooling system on the diesel is connected to the glycol so that in the winter, there will never be a cold start.
All of this costs a lot of money.
If I were in the position that you seem to be in, I would heat using heating oil (assuming you can) which is similar to what diesels burn depending on the practice of the refiner -(can be fixed with additives if not suitable for diesel use). I would then have a few deep cycle batteries and a true sine wave inverter (comments above reflect my experience) and i would have maybe an 8kw genset which should be more than enough for non-lavish living.
The inverter would be set up to provide minimal power especially to the igniter on the domestic heater, everything else would run on the diesel which would have fall-over isolation from the utility and require manual shut-down of genset and reconnection to the utility when they come back to life. This can be done automatically but I wouldn't want the maintenance burden of keeping an automatic system safe.
You do need to think very carefully about the social impact of being the only one the area not to have suffered in the big outage. I don't have any idea how things work in your part of the world, but here people can be astonishingly petty.
Just thought of another (facetious) option. My wife read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. She told me he states that going vegan is the quickest way to reduce your carbon footprint. Not sure about his logic. Given his logic, if the Greens were really really serious about this issue, it seems they would encourage or require less meat consumption.
I know of a major company in the UK that is presently installing several large generators. The site is less than 5 miles from one of the country's largest coal-fired power stations so it is highly unlikely to have power failures as a result of connection problems. These generators are very substantial and look to be permanent/semi-permanent and installation has been going on for a few weeks now. It is a significant investment, not a whim without good cause/justification.
What is it that they know that the general public is not being told?
re J Ferguson and LB:
I hear you on the generator noise pollution thing, but it could be cultural/geographical response. Given where I live and the frequency of blackouts, it seems that "everyone" has a generator. As well, our houses are not close together. But even if they were, everyone accepts the generator noise here. It's become a way of life.
Phillip this is the generic list I used...
Tier 1 - basics
80kg rice or spaghetti or whole wheat or instant mashed potato mylar packed = 5 x 5 gallon buckets = 1050 Kcals per day for 12 months
20kg of rolled oats - 40g per day - 150kcal
100kg beans or pulses packed =4-5 x gallon buckets = 1000 Kcals per day for 12 months
30kg sugar mylar packed = 1 x 5 gallon bucket - 100g per day = 300kcal. Jars of honey / tinned molasses provide a substiute and do not need mylar. More will be useful in the longer term
20l olive or veg oil in original packaging = 50ml per day = 400kcal per day
3kg of salt - sealed or mylar packed
1 year course of multi vitamins
Tier 2 - enhancing
20kg of TVP = 55g per day = 146kcal per day to boost protein and make meals more interesting
5kg of dried egg - mylar packed =72Kcal per day
2.5kg coffee - and or 2.5kg loose tea / 1000 tea bags mylar packed
20kg dried milk mylar packed - 50g per day
spices, herbs, gravies and sauces to taste
That is per person for 12 months, the tier 1 stuff (apart from the oil) can be sealed in mylar bags either with O2 absorbers, Co2 or Nitrogen, in foodsafe containers which will be good for 25 years. I use 60l clamp top barrels and Co2. one year of tier 1 costs about £400pp and fits into 3 x 60lts. I'm old enough to only have to do this once.
We also have a well stocked pantry of things which have to be rotated, and other essential items. We are also expanding the gardens to supply much of our fruit and veg needs.
===================================
This illustrates a point I tried to make previously..
The Decline of Available Energy to Society
So if you are going to have a backup supply what are you going to buy?
Solar, in the UK in the winter you may get enough power to tricle charge a battery set. Peter Melia has the right type of application for this. If you want to power your house forget it.
Wind, you have all seen the recent low pressure across the country, unless you fancy trying to spin the blades yourselves when the energy is required then it is not viable.
For home installation you can spend literally tens of thousands of pounds having a professionally installed auto start generation set, but is this what you need.
Watt do you need, the best way of finding out your power requirements is to buy, or be given from your power company, one of the new home energy meters.
http://www.letsautomate.com/12516.cfm?
Set this up and measure what power you are using. Remember the more power that you require the more expensive the generator will be so turn everything off that you will not require in an emergency. Don't forget to turn on most of the lights in your house.
Once you have measured the maximum power that you require, double it.
The reason I suggest this is that when you look at purchasing a generator one of the ratings will be running time of 50% load for x hours.
The load requirement that you have measured is what you require. The generator has to be rated to provide this amount of power over a sustained time so get a generator that is capable of double your maximum requirement.
Example if you have power requirements of 2,000 watts double this to 4,000 watts convert this to KVA by dividing by 1,000 so get a generator rated at 4KVA. This size of 'portable' generator you could expect to pay £500-£750 dependant upon fuel type and quality of output, sinewave against squarewave.
It's going to be noisy and dirty but it will keep you with lights and heat for emergency situations.
Don't forget to get a professional electrician to fit an isolated changeover switch, cost of switch around £200 plus electricians time. Cable to run into the back garden or shed, wherever you plan to run the generator.
Emergency backup from somewhere around £1000. Also depends on how comfortable you want to be when the grid goes down.
The point about noise of generators is well made. Virtually all petrol/gasoline generators use two pole generator heads and run at 3,000 rpm and are very noisy.
Diesel generators tend to use four pole generators and run at 1800 rpm, which makes them much less noisy, and much longer lasting.
As for dealing with envious neighbours, in the US we have an option not generally available any more in the UK, its called the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and it's physical embodiment, the AR15.
PJP - yes, but your neighbours (or in your case neighbors) have the same option, and may come for you first. I take your point about diesel though. But with a wood stove for heat/cooking, a solar panel or two, and a few gel batteries and a small sine wave inverter is all you need to run some LED lights. The silence won't attract the neighbours either.
(1) Cheap UPSs are fine for computers and a bit of low wattage lighting. But typically not for the pump in a gas- or oil-fired CH system. For that you would need a really serious UPS which would be expensive to buy and expensive to maintain (lead acid batteries only last a couple of years). The generator route makes more sense here, I think.
(2) E.M. Smith, whose name will be familiar to those who lurk at WUWT, has a useful post on (emergency) food storage here.
My missus keeps a stock of food and water rations in the garage. Batteries, candles too.
I thought she was being excessively cautious, and then we got hit by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
I don't know if Honda gasoline generators are available in the UK, but if they are and you are interested in a less formal standby arrangement, they are very quiet. Many boaters use them now - just sitting on the deck.
generator noise isn't a problem if everyone has them, but if it's only you, it's hot and your neighbors are sleeping with their windows open - no fans because no power remember AND you are fool enough to run it at night, you will hear from them.
@lapogus
My neighbors have implicit faith that the government will look after them. They do not have any significant arms (well, except for my immediate neighbor, who has a very impressive collection of hunting rifles, but he would be self-sufficient enough not to be a problem).
People who do not plan for out of the ordinary events are also the sort of people that would be more dangerous to themselves with a decent firearm than they would be to anyone else. Theoretically, they have the same advantages, practically they don't take make use of it.
But you do have a point. During a recent power cut, we fired up the generator, got the lights back on, and settled down to watch TV (Satellite service, so unlike the cable systems it didn't go off). A few days later someone asked about our generator. I asked how they knew we had one. He remarked that our house was the only one for miles around with lights on.
Now this didn't bring the ravenous hoards down on us, because it was just an "ordinary" outage.
However if you want to plan for when things get really bad, as I fear they might one day not too soon, it might not be a wonderful idea to advertise. That means blackout curtains, generators as quiet as possible, and quite possibly running from batteries/inverter after dark.
However, I don't know that this particular discussion was about SHTF scenarios so much as dealing with the inevitable power shortages caused by idiotic planning by governments. That would not mean a total loss of power, but short to medium duration power cuts as the available energy is "shared".
The AR15 reference was really tongue in cheek, but is an option for real SHTF situations, it would also keep meat on the table. A very useful tool.
"Find your demand and double it" is fine if you can afford a big enough generator to keep all your normal services running. But if you can't, or for more occasional outages I would suggest that it's rather over the top.
Most households have numerous TV's and computers running, many of these can easily be switched off. If the kids don't like it tough!! - give them a book to read.... If you need to wash some clothes either do it by hand or run the machine during the day when no lights are needed. Switch off the main room lights and use a wall light. The circulating pump on a UK sized gas CH boiler is normally no more than 100watts, the boiler itself a few watts. Neither of these will be operating continuously. Oil burners will obviously need more, but as I've found the house can be kept warm for a fair part of the day with a 300watt inverter and 40-50 amp hour battery.
The latest generation of portable "Inverter" generators don't run at a constant speed, and are very quiet when run at part load. These would be adequate to keep heating and a fridge running, with a small light or two.
If the sudden loss of power is a major inconvenience some of the marine/RV products could be put to use. I'm thinking of a 2Kw "combi" charger/inverter and a reasonable battery bank. With some rewiring of the house this could provide "no break" continuity for central heating, some lighting and computers etc. You could size the battery to give several hours back-up, if the usual cuts are fairly brief. Alternatively a smaller battery and generator which can be started and connected to the combi. This would then take over the essential loads, and recharge the battery. Some of the more advanced units can be configured to assist a generator for short term surges - these are often used on boats to allow a smaller generator to cope with things like aircon start up surges.
But I think there are two distinct paths being discussed here:
1) the likely hood of more frequent, relatively short, cuts during peak times, and
2) the doomsday scenario of major (planned) reductions in public supply. This would rapidly give rise to shortages of suitable fuels for the more substantial systems described above, and I think complete breakdown of law and order would rapidly follow.
The direction this thread is taking makes me feel uneasy.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
- George Orwell, Animal Farm
Generators fueled by coke and puppies.
Jan 4, 2011 at 2:43 PM | amabo
I think that generators fueled by coke and greenies might be more efficient!
Don't know if anyone has posted this yet but this is a link to the UK plans for power shortage.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/reliability/downstream/page30313.html
Re Peter S
To a degree, me to, but then look how quickly things got out of hand during the New Orleans floods. We do face a looming energy deficit. That may mean more protracted outage, or more likely rolling blackouts. More rural people would be sensible to make contingency plans for prolonged outages because in the event of any serious capacity loss, power would more likely be allocated to larger population areas and essential users. It may lead to resentment between the haves and have nots for power and the situation may get rather unpleasent. We're used to our modern conveniences and unused to having them taken away due to poor energy policy.
Re Jonathan Drake
It may be an insurance requirement for business continuity, or just their own risk management deciding it's better to have it and not need it than vice-versa. One downside of some service and IT businesses, especially if they're run lean & mean is their time-to-die can be pretty quick if they can't trade.
Re Peter Melia
Problem with that is when the telco's go to all-IP networks and VoIP, those old phones won't work any more. You'll need power for the LTE (line terminating equipment) and the phone. And hope the exchange has power. I think for the US, the FCC mandated small UPS for VoIP-only wirelines, here in the UK Ofcom just asked for warning stickers on VoIP phones.
j ferguson wrote
I would heat using heating oil (assuming you can) which is similar to what diesels burn depending on the practice of the refiner -(can be fixed with additives if not suitable for diesel use). </I>
On a point of information, diesel and heating oil are indeed substantially the same thing, the differences being sulphur (usually lower for diesel), cetane (the diesel equivalent of octane) and flash point. The latter two are typically required to be higher for diesel. Diesel also usually has better cold properties, specifically cloud point (the temperature at which the stuff starts to go hazy as the wax crystallises) and Cold Filter Plugging Point, which is the temperature at which so much wax is depositing out that it blocks fuel filters. The second is more significant and road diesel is treated so that both are much lower than heating oil. The UK spec is -15 Centigrade, mainland Europe is anything down to -22. Heat, in contrast, is maybe -5 (which doesn't matter because in a heating application it still burns below -5).
You can always use diesel fuel in place of heating oil,because it exceeds all heating oil's specs. You can't do the reverse, because it's expensive to sell diesel quality at a heating oil price, so the stuff usually has the excess quality blended away and it is thus usually under-spec for use as diesel.
You could probably eke out a half a tank of diesel with half a tank of heating oil in most circumstances. The main risk is you drop the cetane too far, but even then all you get is a bit of pinking. If you do this in very cold weather, though, you risk raising the CFPP to a point above ambient, meaning your engine will stop.
You shouldn't add kerosene to your diesel, because although this stuff has excellent cold properties its cetane and flash are both rubbish, leading to pinking so bad that your car may not drive. If your diesel happens to be really over-specified for cetane and flash, you could get away with it, but the equipment to test these properties doesn't fall easily to hand, so you'd be hard put to know if it was OK to do it.
The different sulphur level has zero impact on performance except that it acts as a lubricant and your engine will last longer. Ecofascists got it effectively banned for supposedly causing acid rain, which it doesn't, but it is actually beneficial to engines and to crops.
Sorry, errant HTML there, only the first para was a quote.
Enough!
There is no energy crisis except that produced by our politicians and their fixation on CAGW caused by CO2. That is the paradigm which must be changed.
I admire the ingenuity of so many contributors to this humorous, but so important, thread.
So many names I recognise and admire for their obvious expertise ( Phil Bratby etc.) but we are chatting amongst ourselves.
Andrew you have to organise some sort of protest.
Peter S @11:22 PM
I daresay everybody has their favorite animal to substitute for the current crop of politicians and gub-mint experts (Which Orwellian animal were the public servants?).
People can see the utter folly that is being perpetrated in UK energy policy by Huhne (and his total berk of a predecessor) and the utterly clueless bunch of "public servants" who are working the fool's mouths.
The enormity of miscalculation (that's perhaps dignifying it too much) in energy policy is sinking in initially via price hikes - but, brownouts and cuts will follow - then there'll be trouble.
In the UK, the self serving blinkered establishment has made a series of monumental errors which are playing out like a slow speed train crash.
I am a glass half full sort, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. I do however think we need a nasty cold spell and some grid overloads to beat some sense into these people - who, to use one of my favorite sayings are so dense they could bend light.
LPG, great for standby gennies Honda gets my vote = GX5500 . Solid fuel stove.
For genuine backup power, no home should be without one of these:
http://www.1911r1.com/Products/Firearms/Model-1911r1.aspx
Do you still have enough light poles in Britain to hang all of your wacked out politicians?
Justice4Rinka
Your detailed description of the differences between heating oil and diesel is correct. My recommendation was based on 30 years operating diesel cars and boats in the US and may not have any application to the advanced diesel engines now found in Europe and the fuel oil distribution conditions.
In the US in regions where there is significant diesel consumption and relatively little heating oil sold, diesel is what will be delivered to your house, without the dye which is used to code #2 fuel sold subject to the different tax schedules we have for different uses. We've used heating oil in the engine on our boat without any apparent reduction in performance, but it is an old engine of relatively low output. The oil company recommended that a lubricity enhancer be added when we took it on to, in effect, make it more similar to what they sold for diesel use. Our Mercedes 220D was run for 175k miles on furnace oil by the previous owner and another 100k on diesel - this in northern Minnesota and with appropriate additives depending on time of year.
But that was in the US.
If this sort of situation doesn't obtain in the UK, then my recommendation makes no sense. If you are able to heat with oil, or propane (LPG) clearly that would be better than electric heating where you would then have to generate the power for heat as well as you other needs. The advice would be to be certain you know what you're doing if you do anything like this.
None of my thoughts was addressed to dealing with an outage of more than possibly a week or two. Having seen that people can generally soldier on without power for weeks at a time at their homes so long as the supermarkets, petrol stations, and other utilities in the vicinity are operational.
@pjp - if it is a real SHTF situation your hunting neighbour/neighbor could be very useful to have on side - I think I would be offering him an extension cable at the very least!
I have already detailed the basics of my backup system on the original thread - (page 2, http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/1/3/more-wind.html) and have wood stoves so heating not a problem. Could also re-wire the kerosene CH boiler so that it was supplied by the sine-wave inverter if I had to, and then have hot water, for as lost as the batteries lasted. But I don't know much about generators, and recognise that it would be very useful to have one so I could charge up the solar batteries (4 x 100Ah) when the sun doesn't shine. Anyone got any sugestions for a quiet, fuel efficient generator which can output 16-20v for battery charging? I know I could use my car for this, but would prefer not to have to use a road-taxed fuel, and a portable generator would be more flexible, and if it could also do sine wave, also act as a backup for the 500W solar inverter. (I always like to have two of everything electrical).
The French use paraffin/kerosene heaters and sell the fuel in 20-30 litre containers. Apparently they very good with little or no smell. Not like the ones I remember from 50 years ago. I hope the link works.
http://www.leroymerlin.fr/mpng2-front/pre?zone=zonecatalogue&idLSPub=1047462447&renderall=on
@ lapogus - When I worked in the marine industry some Sterling engine based generators were being touted as a quiet, efficient means of charging batteries, and providing heat. A quick search throws up the name of WhisperGen, which I remember. They are a NZ based company, and have now formed a joint venture with a Spanish concern. Something like this could be what you're after?
http://www.whispergen.com/main/HOME/
Or see my earlier suggestion regarding "Inverter" generators. These usually have a DC output, but for large battery banks it would be much better to have a multi-stage AC-DC charger, and power it from the generator. Or get a "combi" which charges or produces AC depending on your needs.
One other comment about noisy generators. It does advertise to burglars that someone is home. The sad fact is that burglaries do happen during these blackouts and especially during this recession. The power outages around me seem to always happen in January and February. The less hearty folk pack the hotels even if they have generators. I live in an area that suffers from affluenza and many do not appreciate discomfort for extended periods of time. As good neighbors we pull together and watch each others homes during these blackouts....but it's usually the scavengers from other parts that we need to worry about. Many homes go abandoned during these blackouts with someone checking up only once a day. The noisy generators at least warn the burglars that someone may be near.
A question worth asking. Has anyone got experience of Combined Heat and Power with residential size units?
re Lord B
You may need to clarify what your requirements might be. I spoke to my co-worker who installs solar panels, and solar water systems, etc on the side. His website.
He has solar panels on his house for electricity and heats water with solar water system from apricus. So this solution could handle electricity and heat. My house uses forced hot water as do many where I live so this could be a real solution. He said the water does get steamy from the sun.
Another co-worker's house (in the pics from the website with solar panels) has geo-thermal heating and cooling and solar for electricity with lots of battery backup. Co-worker1 installed co-worker2's solar panels system. Even though co-worker1 drinks green kool-aid, he is very knowledgeable about this stuff. I could ask him questions if you have any in this direction.
Dave Ward,
Inverter gensets such as made by Honda produce AC, at least 60 Hz 120vac - don't know about 50 Hz 250vac. They are very quiet, come in a number of capacities, run on gasoline and as you've mentioned vary rpm with load and at lesser loads cannot be heard - maybe not good for chasing away the miscreants.
At the same time, there's a lot to be said for generating DC into a battery bank and then getting your AC from an inverter. Clearly, this would be more costly, but gives the option of cycling a reduced load silently. Assuming you keep the batteries charged up while you're on utility power the batteries and inverter can be setup as a sort of residential ups to keep your heater, refridgerator, etc. running while you realize there's an outage and get the genset fired up.
One other thing. Whether the genset turns at 3600 or 1800, 3000 or 1500 in 50 Hz land has little to do with the noise it makes - the subtlety of the exhaust muffling is controlling. Consider the number of exhaust strokes made be a 3000 rpm single cylinder genset vs a 3 or 4 cylinder 1500 rpm unit.
We run a Ferryman 7.5 hp 3600 rpm single cylinder diesel genset on board Arcadian and it is very quiet - effective shroud and water condensed exhaust.
Sandy
Some of the paraffin heaters in the Leroy Merlin catalogue need mains electricity to run the electronic ignition and the fan. They are very effective, as I know from experience, but are not much use in a power cut. The simpler ones with a battery igniter are cheaper anyway. Incidentally, once you've bought your first container of paraffin, it's cheaper to refill it at your nearest LeClerc where they sell paraffin on draught.
re Kevin
Appologies I was thinking more along the lines of generating a reasonable amount of electricity from a boiler or wood burner. There seems to be an increase in the number of devices now available for home installation. As an example:
http://www.toolbase.org/Technology-Inventory/Electrical-Electronics/combined-heat-power
Dreadnought
I haven't tried this type of heater,but know expats who have one or more.
I guess a car battery and inverter might overcome the mains electricity problem - bearing in mind the caveats in earlier posts?