Originally Posted by 56S

Didn't I see you on that doomsday preppers show

I have a 1600 watt Yamaha and a 5K briggs powered boat anchor. The 1.6 runs the fridge,freezer,DSL for the wife and a few fans and lights. The 5K will only be used to run the well pump. Usually I'll burn three gallons a day cycling the Yamaha. I heard story of a local guy that ran his whole house on a propane powered generator for a week and the cost was over $1,000.00.

Thanks usefull number for the genertor .Is that 24 hours a day for 3 gallons or part day ?

Yes for your friend if you go down to the local rent a generator and get the big one on trailer with 75 kilowatts even with slightly Cheaper propane you can spend ~$1000 a week .Natural gas is much cheaper than propane on average .
Its probably ~$600 for the rent a week and ~$400 for the fuel a week

Ralf

Originally Posted by aerogel

Yea

Redundancy is the key to me.
I’m still tied to the grid and use it every day.
I have two natural gas whole house generators that allow me to switch while one is being worked on.
I have a complete off grid solar system with batteries x2 of what I need.
Maintenance for all is around 2k a year.
The money I spent on all of this I could have paid for on grid power for the next 50 years
It’s more about peace of mind than anything else.

Well there is the big problem the grid could go down from monetry currency issues
If the USA dollar and EU euro takes a big slide and oil rich countires wont sell fuel in dollars and euros and demand other stuff like Gold silver or Russian roubles the abilty of the USA and Europe if caught in that to buy fuel could be bad .
In that case with very reduced fuel supply the grid would be swiched off many hours of the day

I dont want to be in the grid ASAP

Ralf

Originally Posted by UlteriorModem

Nat gas gensets are somewhere around 12-20% less efficent than gas/diesel. However the lower fuel prices may offset that. You just cant get as much energy out of LPG.

Recently did a large generator installation which used BI Fuel technology. It runs for the most part off LPG but when a large block load drops in it starts using diesel. It works but it wasent all it was cracked up to be. Oh btw it was pretty big about 175KW.

The cheapest energey source by far is 'on the grid'. Just a fact of life. Unfortunatly that is about to become more expensive as well.

I am also helping this camp site with 160 killowatt genertor source on how to convert it to run on LPG
How much does that convertion coast ball park and can u suggest companuy in europe that can do it for economic price
The local garge stations to convert small 4 cyclider 1000cc to 1800cc cars to run on LPG charge €2000 (~$2600). Local regultions in spain mean only certified car makers are legaly allowed to do cars LPG convertions and that rule makes the LPG cartel charges way too much to make it economic for cars to change to LPG unless they do ~50,000 miles a year .

The last few spainish LPG opertors I talked too were talking telephone numbers to convert the 6000cc diesel engine to run on LPG and would be cheaper to buy new engine ready made with LPG convertion than use the local LPG convertors operators that I spoke to.
The Bio fuel prices are not worth it and trying to make each day ~250 liters of fuel from restrants waste oil in the region isnt runner and not even a mix of 40% of 100 liters a day is viable .

Ralf

Originally Posted by Park_Flyer

Soooo, the Rossi thing didn't pan out eh?

Well my intel on that subject is that its first commercail machine is working very well and the USA army is the first buyer and they are pleased with its performace .
However its a one mega watt project in this time inside a trucking 30 foot container so its a bit big for the small guy .
The smaller machines are like ~15 kilowatt production buit no word on any production date
However Rossi since 1994 has been at this and now in 2012 the first commercail product is sold and is on test
I will be long dead at that rate of production from Italy for when the mini 15 Kilowatt machines are for sale in the local hardware shop

Ralf

Originally Posted by electroman7

...snip....
I did discover that these smaller generators can be fairly cheaply converted to propane or natural gas fuel. By far the cheapest fuel here is natural gas. I can justify using generator power only by gonverting to gas and using power management for my house.
...snip....
.

thanks lots ofinteresting stuff there

Where do you get info on converting these small generators to run on natural gas or kits whatever .
In spain natural gas is cheapest and propane is looking to be too costly .
I know to factor in 15% power loses as well
Yeah for me its not just the cost but the real need and desire for extra securty to be off the grid

Ralf

Originally Posted by treehog

I am also helping this camp site with 160 killowatt genertor source on how to convert it to run on LPG
How much does that convertion coast ball park and can u suggest companuy in europe that can do it for economic price

Ralph, The genset was designed from the ground up to be dual fuel so I cant really answer the question about conversion. I'm sorry I dont know anyone in the UK but I will be there out there.

Here is a websited dedicated to doing just that.. converting to NG might ask around there...

http://www.dualfuel.org/

Originally Posted by treehog

Well there is the big problem the grid could go down from monetry currency issues
If the USA dollar and EU euro takes a big slide and oil rich countires wont sell fuel in dollars and euros and demand other stuff like Gold silver or Russian roubles the abilty of the USA and Europe if caught in that to buy fuel could be bad .
In that case with very reduced fuel supply the grid would be swiched off many hours of the day

I dont want to be in the grid ASAP

Ralf

A stand alone system such as used on RVs is the only way to go then.

This past summer ,we experienced storms that knocked out power for 1oo's of thousands of people for up to 2 ,in some cases 3 weeks .For those who had or were able to obtain gensets,prioritizing their actual electrical needs became a harsh reality .I know of one fellow who had a whole house generator that automatically switched on when the grid went down.He went about his business ,blissfully unaware just how much his power generation was costing him.When he got his gas bill,he found that generator cost him over $100 dollars a day to run.Most folk however had smaller portable gensets incapable of running whole house .Most of these quickly learned about energy management ,even then for some it was a bitter experience ,spending upwards of $40-50 dollars a day in gasoline in their largely inefficent generators ,just so they could run their A/C and TV sets.

Cooking on the outside grill became popular for many on a daily basis.

What I found particularly amazing was the large number of kids outside playing ,in the case of my parents neighborhood a couple doz kids they were unaware even existed.Some though, appeared totally lost as they stabbed at their ipods ,futiley searching for a wifi signal..

Do you know of any Lister projects in case I missed something

Ralf

Not that I remember the links to.
For awhile the was a shop that had many to choose from , then there were the ones made in india,
Lister engine on google brings up new and old ,and also forums on that type of engine.
Heavy beast, but slower running, quieter and pretty efficient

Update on the larger 160KW generator fuel figures.The original figures of 1/16 liter of hour are wrong as this genertor only needs to make 25 to 30Kw of power and therfore the real number for fuel consumption will be more more like ~0.5 liters per hour per kilowatt.

The generator uses ~10 liters per hour at ~1 euro per hour
the genrator makes average of ~25 kilowatts of power each hour goes from 18 kilowatts to 28 kilowats at different parts of the day
This makes fuel cosumtion of abot ~0.4 liters per hour or ~0.40cents per kilowatts

Inthis case a 6 cyclinder Diesel 6.8 liter jon Deere ~210 kilowatt motor drives a genertor that can make as much as 160 Kilowatts of power . In full power the fuel use will be a lot more than the ~1/4 load that requres ~10 liters per hour to supply ~25 kilowatts of power

Sorry but only managed to get the real power generation from very tempory replacement genertor while the main gennie needs to be repaired and that new gennie that shows the
kilowatts demands

A smaller 50 killowatt generator would probably be using less fuel mayby 7 liters a hour to make the 25 Kilowatts of power demand and leave enough head rooom for demands in the new crisis economy where demand has dropped

Ralf

Originally Posted by UlteriorModem

.....snip.....

Here is a websited dedicated to doing just that.. converting to NG might ask around there...

http://www.dualfuel.org/

Thanks dealing with them now

Further to the thread i been looking many generator sites and the expected fuel use
best i can see m its about 1/2 liter to at best 1/4 liter per hour per kilowatt

here is teck details for typical engine used to make 200 kilowatts
http://www.hardydiesel.com/downloads...AG4-Nov-08.pdf

You can see the number liters per hour starting at 200kw dropping down to 25% or 50kilowatts .At 50% or 100 kilowatts the fuel used is 26 liter s
.26 liters per hour makes one kilowatt


The generator that is in the camp site is 160 kilowatt but only ticks over
It uses 10 liters per hour generates about ~25kilowaatts per hour ( underutilized )
Anyway for gas convertion they use diesel for the engine to keep it ticking over .As they ramp up the power the diesel is not increased very much but natural gas is injected into the Air intake
Eventually when the engine is 100% power the fuel mix will be 70% natural gas and 30% diesel
However if the engine is operating at or close to tick over most of the time the engine will not use much gas or very little .

To get 100% natural gas to work is rare in converting diesel engines to and very expensive as thee natural gas need the diesel fuel to explode to ignite it .

However for gasoline engine natural gas will work with 100% natural gas once the engine has warmed up on gasoline first .The saving depending the part of the world are about ~50 to ~ 80% with lots of Europe about ~65% saving to be expected on fuel costs

Bio diesel with more than 20% bio mix looks to be too complicated with many issues that require to be solved
Saving look like at best with 100% bio fuel scavenged from restaurants hotel in the region (just try to find ~240 liters of used chip pan oil every day ) would get at best ~50% saving (and that isn't factoring in increased maintenance costs from the nature of bio fuels )

Roughly small motors Diesel from suppl lists ( most quite fuel consumption at ~50%) indicate that smaller engine will be about 1/2 liter per kilowatt and after about 100kilowatt the fuel figures go down to typically 1/3rd of liter per kilowatt . Gasoline versions are generally small sub 10 kilowatt and use more fuel per kilowatt .

However there is room to find out the really bad engines versus the really good engines on fuel and maintenance costs

So always interested to see new numbers that confirm or don't confirm the fuel figures supplied so far .

I suspect that the preppers and other generator owners in New York and Station Island with their generators will be able to add numbers after hurricane Sandy (and still many days later millions don't have power in those regions) ??? and snow storms are hitting the region

Ralf

Im not to sure of the exact specifications of my generator but I enjoy having it very much its got me out of some ruff times recently. Here is where I got it
http://www.12volt-travel.com/generat...ts-p-4775.html some of the features are

•Powers AC products up to 1500 watts
•Easy to monitor, dual-outlet, AC panel
•Built-in 1500 watt inverter with protection features
•Industrial design
•Quick and easy to recharge
•One year warranty