I have no idea about the tariffs. They made a big thing about how environmentally friendly it was but I assume they would not have done it if it was not going to make some sort of economic sense.
It is in Mount street, North Sydney. I call it the "Special K" building because when viewed from a distance from one side it shows an enormous "K" shape, but it is really called Ark.
"The building?s primary source of power is an on-site trigeneration plant that uses gas turbines to provide energy for electricity and heating/cooling for the base building. Trigeneration reduces carbon dioxide emissions by producing heat, cooling and power simultaneously from a single energy source. Ark is among the first buildings ever to be equipped with a trigeneration system."
That's a very interesting building. I had no idea what cogeneration was. This is more or less where my "invention" was heading in my head.
The electricity factories burn coal, and are probably around 50% efficient at best (I bet its more like 40). The waste heat is dumped into lakes and ponds. Google Hazelwood pondage in Melbourne, I waterski there during winter! The lake is heated by the adjacent power factory, and is too hot to use in summer.
So when we heat our houses with electricity, after conversion from coal, then transmission losses, we are probably only using 20% of the original energy found in the original coal. In many ways we are much less efficient at heating our houses than the poorest houses in China, where they use coal directly in the home. That's a pretty sad fact.
The issue of noise and pollution is nothing. My math shows that a single V6 engine is enough for a group of 10 to 20 houses. A suitably built and suitably placed generator will be less noisy than passing cars on the roads outside. Cars are very quiet these days. All I hear from the road outside is tyre and wind noise, I only hear engine noise from older cars.
A couple of thoughts about your idea. Don't want to knock it totally on the head as it has some merit, but just a few pluses and minues to consider.
A genny needs a constant speed input, most designs require
3000RPM to deliver 50Hz output. You can of course gear up or down the engine so the engine doesn't need to operate at exactly 3000RPM (although gearing will introduce losses), but unless you have a CVT (ie more losses), the engine will need to stay at a constant speed. Higher speed = higher output, but the engine will die faster. Lower speed it will last longer, but won't have as much power. I'd suggest that those taxis with 1,000,000km on the clock mostly run at around the 1500-2000rpm range, where 50-60kW will be all you'll get out of a holden V6 on petrol, less on gas. To get the 100kW out of it, you'd need to lift your speed to around
3000rpm, which would shorten life.
Alternatively, given that you'd need to be able to take the engine offline for servicing, you could have 2 engines but have them running at eg 2000RPM. Your thermodynamic efficiency would drop, but at the lower RPM you'd get much better engine life, and you'd now have some level of redundancy (albeit only at off-peak loads).
As a plus, by running at a constant speed, you can do things like altering the camshaft for optimal tuning which will get a bit more power and efficiency. Startup and warming up are the worst times for engine wear, so with that reduced the engine will last longer. So I reckon if you ran at 2000RPM, with regular maintenance, good quality oils etc, you probably would get the equivalent of 1,000,000km @ 60km/hr (16000hrs).
As for overall cost effectiveness, well if you were doing this on a commune or something where you could keep the government at bay, then it probably would be viable. As soon as you start involving regulation, your costs will skyrocket.
Looking at regular electricity, the cost per MWH of coal generated electricity is around 3c. Some of the 20+c that we pay retail is used up in distribution costs, but the vast majority of it is eaten up in bullshit like "green energy targets", lining the pockets of fatcat retail suppliers, and buying electricity off the people who got govt subsidised solar system under the upper-middle class welfare scheme.
well , the noise from a v6 is a damn lot quieter than a rattly diesel. park a v6 commodore next to ANY diesel , and tell me which one is louder...
diesel is
Imagine the noise with that running 24/7.
There are plenty of large KWH capacity diesel generator sets around, (probably based on truck engines) that would be designed and built precisely for this purpose therefore much more efficient at doing this job, and designed to last long under these conditions.
Finally, you would need to have 2 of them, or ability to switch back over to grid power, for when you have to do servicing, oil changes, spark plugs and so on.
Unless you have the grid as backup a second unit would be needed as backup in case of failure also.
You would be better off switching your stove, hot water system and home heating (if any) over to gas then you would achieve much closer to the levels of efficiency that you claim that gas can deliver than running these as electrical appliances via a gas powered generator. - assuming you can get a supply of gas at the prices quoted.
I think Sylvia should know a bit about generators and running costs lately, having become the recent proud owner of one.
A lot of the heat is lost out of the exhaust pipe, you would have fun collecting it.
You could put the engine in the basement, and run the exhaust up through each floor, with it running through radiators in each apartment on the way :).
God help you if it leaked Carbon monoxide and killed someone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- no differant that having natural gas coming into your home
Soviet apartments had arrangement like this, it even looked like a giant exhaust system in some units. (really excellent for drying out towels etc though)
They didn't use exhaust fumes though, steam was pumped around town from suburban "heating stations". I don't know what energy source ran these but it was probably one of the most inefficient ideas ever thought up. (hence the manholes seen often with steam escaping) That's socialism for you.
why is every one so worried about a v6 engine lasting ? NO ONE seems to be worried about portable generators lasting and no one is worried about power stations lasting.
Then you are just idling the engine. Ideally you set the engine revs at the maximum efficency, then gear the generator to run at the required cycles, also chosing the right size (power) generator. We are not talking about sing the car alternator here.
Has anyone considering this done the math on cost of gas through the
25% efficiency of the motor and compared that to electricity charges?
If you could a) suck enough gas to run a motor, b) easily generate own power, c) make an ROI, don't you think Honda and other generator makers would be tapping this market to sell generator sets running off gas?
Do you recall any motors running off propane bottles? Where they're used? Why?
Large scale, plenty of underground coal mines look at it and quite a few have high enough gas concentrations in their exhaust vents to do so. A few rubbish pits have now also been tapped for gas powered generation.
At one stage, it home-bloke wanted to used LPG, you purchased a petrol powered generator and had it converted to lpg. It cost about $400
Now, you can buy a range of lpg powered generators. Do a web search.
Why? Petrol is explosive, hard to store, convenience, etc.
Note, i'm not the person promoting the enginer conversion.
say vn commodore v6 : unloaded 25 mpg ( i dont know correct figure, just wild guess.) now you know if you put a trailer on with 2 tonn steel and fill the inside of car with steel, you get 5 miles per gallon.
NOW IF YOU STRIP the car down , take boot/bonnet/ seats. doors off etc.. your mileage will be say 30 mpg.
so turn>> dont forget the load turning a generator is minimal compared to
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