Thursday
Mar102011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Generators
Mar 10, 2011 Energy Given that it looks like the lights will be going out soon, it may be worth taking a look at one of these - a home generator:
There is a markdown of 40% or so at Amazon at the moment. (H/T Lord Beaverbrook)
Reader Comments (38)
Done that 2 years ago and already used it once in anger
I have a Yamaha 6.6KVA generator, which is enough to keep us comfortable except for heating and hot water (two hot water tanks, and a heat pump ar too much for this generator).
It has served well during power cuts. However, a few things to remember before buying one of these relatively cheap generators:
You need to run them (on-load) for half an hour or so every couple of weeks if you want to be certain that they will start when you need them.
They are noisy. Most are two-pole generator heads which means the engine has to run at ~ 3000 rpm. 4-pole generators are more expensive, and petrol engines do not produce as much power at lower rpm. You need a diesel engine for that.
Even those wil Honda or Yamaha engines have a life expectancy measured in the hundreds of hours (or maybe low thousands). So if things become as bad as it looks that they might in the UK, these are going to get lots of use, and may not last long.
Also, expect government regulations on petrol storage to become more rigorously enforced.
So you will be faced with breaking the law, or running out of fuel pretty rapidly.
It runs on petrol which means it must cost a bomb to run, with all the various taxes and duties on petrol. Better to get a gas or kerosene powered generator.
You can convert the carb on the petrol ones to take bottled gas eg LPG, not sure if there is any savings but if you heat the house with LPG and have an outlet it could work.
Spot on Phillip, about as efficient as those ruddy windmills! Having worked in Nigeria for many years and suffering brown outs on good days, the very minimum for each house was 27 Kva. The small estate I live in had about 30 houses. It really is amazing how the human body can shut out the noise of all those diesel engines!
Buy SDMO SH4000 Special Offer plus Power Transfer Switch 16A Inlet Connector, 16A Lead & Oil £799.00
Power transfer switch included so not a bad offer for a backup genny even though its petrol. You will always be able to find fuel for it, neighbours car, lawn mower, kids motorbike etc!
This machine runs for 5.7 hours at 4kW on 12 litres of petrol. Petrol's now £1.40 a litre, so I reckon this machine provides 22.8kW hours for £16.80. Or about 73p per kW hour. Even ignoring the capital cost, that has to be one of the most expensive ways to generate power available. Most people pay about 12p a kW hour.
But with eco-nutters like Steve Holliday running the National Grid, it might be the only option available to us.
silent:
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&channel=s&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=736&q=silent+generator&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=15791682389445216238&sa=X&ei=xQh5TdTYBsSGhQfY3tj2Bg&ved=0CDIQ8wIwAA#
but i reckon all the other criticisms above are valid here to.
or silent(?) diesel:
http://www.kmsdirect.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=23&zenid=5c1a0e18bb964724ce61dfddc34fe169
The experience of the rolling blackouts about 10 years ago in California may be a guide. The public outrage at the lack of electricity caused a complete collapse of the anti-power plant environmentalists. Construction permits for new power plants that had been held up for years magically were granted.
Liberal politicians loudly proclaimed their anger at the blackouts and demanded the construction of new plants that they had previously loudly opposed. Environmental organizations like the Sierra Club went on record that they had never opposed new power plants (a bald-faced lie, but their media allies never called them on it...).
I don't think British politicians who give lip service to turning out the lights have any idea what to expect when the lights actually do go out.
As posted previously, bought a 3.2kw genny (last one in Aldi; dissed to £129.99) - and yes, I KNOW it won't run my whole house but if I unplug my freezers, pooter and the like, and feed them directly via extension leads, I can keep the basics going..
Back in the first 'three day week' in the 70's, I was chief engineer for a medicines company, and we ran the whole factory on a fairground generator (with all the limiters disabled) and a couple of putt-putt ones. For the second three day week we'd installed a 500kW diesel jobby - and actually produced more during that period than before or after..!
Those were the days - and if Steve Holliday has his way, they'll be back again...
For most family homes a comfortable usage would be 2Kw, lighting, gas central heating boiler, radio or tv, computer, telephone, refrigerator, occasional kettle/toaster/microwave oven. Not appropriate for the washing machine, tumble dryer or electric oven or electric heating and forget the vacuum cleaner.
Based on calculations above you should find it will work out cheaper than 73p/Kwhr as you will not use 4Kw of power on a regular basis and the generator should regulate speed, but hey the lights are on the house is warm and the footy is on the telly at least the family is safe.
A few of my friends that chose to stay in Christchurch NZ after the earthquake bought generators (some homes are still without power after nearly three weeks).
They also reported high running costs, but if the choice is working or sitting in the dark, the former wins.
There was also a fairly high exodus from town (maybe 10,000 people). In many ways, this may be a microcosm of the UK down the track (minus the shaking).
As always, the unintended consequences for any government policy can be seen a mile away by everyone except those in charge. Every household having a portable genny is not exactly going to help with the carbon emmissions is it?
Have we any idea how rolling power cuts will effect the workplace? Presumably we will be working long hours when it is moderately windy, when it is very windy or very still, we will be able to just stay in bed.
Been there done that. I've got two generators - 2000w and 600w. Where I live in the countryside the electricity is overhead and we have three or four blackouts a year. One time our electricity was off for four days! And to be really green we have a coal fire and tons of coal! Eat your heart out greenies.
Oh a friend of mine has a diesel genny - 4000 w - and he runs it on heating oil. Very cheap.
@AndrewSanDiego,
"I don't think British politicians who give lip service to turning out the lights have any idea what to expect when the lights actually do go out."
There will be a reckoning, tho' what's the betting, that Huhne has back-up and triple back-up facilities, it's a no brainer just like Dave - he's got his turbine, the f**kwit.
I believe, in the not too distant future, there will be breakdown of social order in Britain, we have no national guard and the army is too small, there will be civil war here but it won't be about the lights going out.
@Athelstan -- this is probably not the right place to discuss this, but I happen to think you are right, and its not only in the UK.
There is a huge transfer of wealth taking place at the moment. It is blatant, and they don't care.
The transfer is all from the middle classes, the productive members of society. Some crumbs are thrown to the non-productive to keep them quiet, since this is where uprisings normally start. The middle class normally has too much to lose to think of revolution. But in not very long, the middle classes will have little left to lose. That is why the loud sucking noise of your money going to the rich end of society is not being silenced, they are grabbing wealth as fast as they can.
The Chiefio has a blog I was reading earlier about a small domestic water heater cum generator (running on gas?-no good for me)
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/dear-england-power-to-you/
which links to this
http://world.honda.com/news/2011/c110203Micro-Combined-Heat-Power-System/index.html
That's not a generator. THIS, is a generator:
http://www.power-technology.com/contractors/gensets/aggreko/aggreko1.html
In the US we tend to do things on a bigger scale.
BACK IT UP RIGHT!
"As always, the unintended consequences for any government policy can be seen a mile away by everyone except those in charge..." --Stonyground
What makes you think these are unintended consequences?
"...I believe, in the not too distant future, there will be breakdown of social order in Britain, we have no national guard and the army is too small, there will be civil war here but it won't be about the lights going out." --Athelstan
The EU will be happy to send a couple of divisions of German artillery over, strictly as a peace-keeping mission, at the request of your government, of course.
Since I reside in 'hurricane land' out in the sticks where public utilities are unavailable (water and sewage), I have a 25Kw propane generator attached to a 500 gal tank. If a hurricane makes landfall in the vicinity, one is guaranteed to be without electricity for an extended period. My first encounter occurred in 1979 with Hurricane Frederic in Mississippi, the eye passing directly over my home located 14 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. No electricity for 9 days; when one lives in the country and relies on an electric water pump for water and has a dependent requiring refrigerated medications, it is impossible to survive without electricity, so I immediately purchased a 5Kw gasoline powered generator the day after the landfall from an 18 wheeler supply truck brought in to assist hurricane victims. In my current home in Texas, my septic system has electric pumps connected to surface sprayers, so I must have electricity for both water and sewage as well as refrigeration. I used to have a smaller propane generator (8Kw) for emergency purposes, but Hurricane Rita in 2005 convinced me to upgrade because hurricanes also tend to occur during the late summer/early fall when it is hot; surviving 13 days without air conditioning when it is 95F every afternoon, well ... I'm too old for that now. So when Hurricane Ike visited us in 2008 and we went 7 days without commercial electricity, my new 25Kw generator not only operated the water pump, septic system, refrigeration, kitchen stove and appliances, etc., but also one central air conditioning unit as well. My family and I were in 'fat city'. Just recently, the draw-off receptacle attached to the main power line running to my home exploded, leaving us without public electricity for 2 days. My generator has an automatic switch that interrupts the utility line and starts the generator automatically when the public utility electricity fails; when the latter is restored, the switch automatically cuts off the generator and reconnects the utility line. There is a brief pause without electricity which turns off your computer and messes up the digital clocks, but big deal.
Sounds like a major investment for emergency purposes, but I also use the propane to heat my large Quonset hut greenhouse during winter. I maintain a rare tropical plant collection which would perish if I could not heat the greenhouse during winter. My 25Kw generator is also hooked up to the propane furnaces in the greenhouse (which require electricity to operate the circulating fans), so should we loose electricity during winter, say during an ice storm, well my generator covers such an emergency as well. I have friends in the nearby city who lost a valuable topical plant collection (worth tens of thousands of dollars) during an ice storm in the 1980s because they went without electricity for 5 days and had no backup -- the outside temps were in the 15-20F range. Now they have installed wood burning stoves in their greenhouses as emergency backups.
Gixxerboy: "That's not a generator. THIS, is a generator"
Your Crocodile Dundee reference is appreciated, but I can top that easily:
http://mysolar.cat.com/cda/files/126901/7/ds130mpu.pdf - 15 Megawatts, and it's on wheels!
Fair disclosure - I work for the manufacturer, Solar Turbines (and no, our gas turbines don't run on solar power!)
"That''s not a generator. THIS, is a generator"
http://www.powercubes.com/listers.html
Is there a slimline electric generator similar in price to that model that can be permanently mounted on the roof of a Chevy Volt?
A few observations: Only a fool would expect to run a generator at full load for any length of time. The one shown would be fine for 2 -2.5Kw loads, which would still leave headroom for motor start-up loads such as fridges and deep freezers. You get what you pay for, and a well respected name like Honda usually involves a 25-30% price premium. The same applies to the alternator itself. There are numerous Chinese "clones" available for less than half the price shown here, BUT they often use aluminium wire for the windings. This fails due to fatigue & corrosion much sooner than copper.
The main problem as mentioned above is after extended periods of non-use. Unleaded petrol seems to "go off" much quicker than the old leaded 4 star, and now also contains a small percentage of alcohol. This, along with the volatile components, evaporates if not kept in sealed containers, and makes starting difficult. There is no easy solution to this, but a can of Bradex "Easy Start" will get things running. It's still available from car accessory shops, and probably other sources, so get a few cans now!
A regular run under load will help, but make sure it's long enough for the engine and oil to get really hot, otherwise the combustion products won't get evaporated off, and corrosion will be a problem. A yearly oil (and filter if fitted) change is also a sensible precaution.
Gas conversions will get round the storage & starting problems, and also keep the oil cleaner. Kits should be available for all popular engines as they are also used in indoor site environments where petrol can't be. Bottled gas isn't cheap any more, but if you aren't going to be moving the genny around get a large 47Kg size. A smaller portable one would be handy to cover change overs.
The power transfer switch mentioned by Lord Beaverbrook would need to be a) rated the same as your incoming mains supply, which it has to carry when not feeding the generators output, and b) will need installing by a qualified electrician, adding to the cost. It does, though, offer by far the safest and easiest means of connecting in the event of a mains failure. One thing to bear in mind is that you won't know when the mains comes back on! We have a separate feed from the meter which feeds the garage and shed, and we just plug the Hoover into this and switch it on. This lets us know when the supply has been restored.
I've got a 4.5 KVa diesel generator stashed in the barn. The previous owner of this French house bought it after the "tempete" in 1999 curtailed the electricity supply here, for three weeks.
I use it occasionally if I'm doing work in the barn, but haven't yet been forced to use it to bail us me out of trouble...
SWMBO and I live on a 36 foot trawler. We are either at anchor or on a mooring about 300 days per year, the other 65 either in the yard for maintenance or at a marina while we travel overseas.
We run the genset every day about 4 hours to charge up our bank of 8 golf cart batteries. The genset is a 3600 rpm water-cooled (both engine and generator-section) single cylinder diesel 4.2KW. Engine is a German Ferryman. For those who get their hands dirty from time to time, I might add that it is a work of art - ought to have a coffee table built over it - no "crummy" parts.
This system now has over 4,000 hours on it and although it does consume parts - most frequently the rubber impeller for the coolant circulation pump at about 600 hour intervals. It is reliable. It was not inexpensive.
The supplier Entec-West, also markets a unit which provided 50 Hz output at 3000 RPM with a bit less kW.
Many of our fellow cruisers are using the petrol powered Honda 2kw gensets located somewhere on their boats where the fumes will not accumulate in the cabin. I doubt if many of them have the loads we do, so likely they don't run them as long per day. If the theory that they were likely to survive only a few hundred hours of operation had any basis, i suspect i would have heard about it. On the other hand, they likely aren't run near capacity for very long each day.
Charging our batteries initially requires 16 amps at 120 VAC. The charging is stepped down as the batteries come up to voltage. We can charge batteries and make coffee (electric), or run the toaster oven. We cannot charge batteries AND air-condition or reverse-cycle heat, or charge batteries at full load and make hot water in the 6 gallon hot water heater. If you buy a unit for your house, you couid buy a lower capacity but more substantial one of you could shuffle the loads, thus avoiding the need to make 8 or 12kW when by scheduling you might never need more than 3.
I realize that the above isn't exactly analogous to what you guys are facing, but I do have a recommendation.
With the caveat that our sub-basement is full of water and it provides the cooling medium for the genset, it is easy for us to have a water-cooled unit. My suspicion is that a substantial water-cooled diesel is what you will need if you have to operate daily. The serious units which I've seen as stationary generators on the islands have all been water-cooled (most with radiators) and usually run years at a time without serious repair so long as the fuel is well filtered, moisture removed, and either made to purpose, or augmented with lubricity improvers.
I've been living with 2 diesels (propulsion and generator) for eight years and driving them (while we still had automobiles) since 1980. While it is true that they all will burn heating oil, my direct experience, some of it bad, is that unless you know exactly what it is, and if it is not already suitable for engine use, don't put it in your engine unless you really do know how to correct its deficiencies.
I might add that our genset is purring away beneath the sole about 4 feet from where I'm sitting and it is a pleasant sound indeed.
The lights are going to go out - that much is a certainty. At my age the priority is to have a source of warmth. My plan B is to have a generator connected to the electrics of my gas fire (extractor fan and ignitor) and to hope that electricity and gas don't both fail at the same time. I think I'm right in saying that a generator supply can't just be connected into the domestic wiring - it has to have dedicated separate circuits. I'll probably buy sufficient capacity to keep a fridge running - the rest we'll just work around (i.e. don't open freezers, use candles etc).
The lights are going to go out - that much is a certainty. At my age the priority is to have a source of warmth. My plan B is to have a generator connected to the electrics of my gas fire (extractor fan and ignitor) and to hope that electricity and gas don't both fail at the same time. I think I'm right in saying that a generator supply can't just be connected into the domestic wiring - it has to have dedicated separate circuits. I'll probably buy sufficient capacity to keep a fridge running - the rest we'll just work around (i.e. don't open freezers, use candles etc).
Vernon E,
This is what you need http://hondagenerator.co.uk/pages/powertransfer.htm
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It is actually running on a good motor a 4Kw Max power output from a Honda GX270 engine