freewatt micro-chp

Rich Kontny_3

You make an excellent point as sooner or later we will get around to some mandated energy conservation. The utilities who are now answering to shareholders (who want bigger returns) are aggressively expanding not only power production but are improving the transmission grid.

We are doing some work on the new two turbine coal fired power plant in Oak Creek, WI.the capacity of this plant will be more than doubled when complete. The demand will not be.

Near our home a private owner put in a 150' wind turbine as a grid feedback money maker. Many times it is locked out due to a full grid. The housing slowdown, green movement etc all have to be factored in before investing in co-gen or other feedback systems. I would recommend checking very closely with your utility and getting a written payback contract before even thinking about installing anything.

radmix

freewatt micro-chp

Does anyone have any information or input on a freewatt micro-chp. combined heat & power. From what I understand it uses the gas in your home to produce power before it befor it goes into the heating system?

Jay Zebryk

Honda

http://www.hondanews.com/categories/1097/releases/3944

joel_19

free watt

www.climate-energy.com

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Norm Harvey

Braintree Electric and light division utility in Braintree, MA has about 25 of the honda units in homes as a test. And the Museum of Science in Cambridge, MA had sn exibit on them not too long ago.

From what I see though the units are designed for warm air heat. Since the majority of the country is warm air and gas it seems like something that should catch on fast.

drew w ,little rhody

Our shop had a seminar on this month ago. We have system for forced air set up that operational. They said a hot water version will be coming soon.We have one of those set up but it is not operational.

EtienneHancock

freewatt

The way I understand it is: The unit won't operate above a given outdoor ambient temp. Below the OA temp, the Honda generator will run to produce electricity. At the same time approx. 12,000 btus/hr will be generated as a byproduct of the generator combustion. This heat will be sent through the heat exchanger that is attached to the furnace or boiler. The furnace models use an ECM motor to dissipate the 12,000 btu's into the airstream, or into the main hydronic zone of the structure. You must have the need for heat to run this unit. It DOES NOT work as a backup generator in case of a blackout.

hot_rod

The EcoPower was at the REX show

this year. It uses the Marathon engine originally designed to power AC units with natural gas power,as I recall.

I was impressed with all the areas they found to pull waste heat from on the unit.

www.marathonengine.com/cogeneration.html

hot rod

Noel Kelly_3

freewatt

Please check out -

http://www.heatinghelp.com/greenpage.cfm

This is Dan's "Green" page under the Resources button above.
Look under "Green Products".

There is a link to a report (Freewatt from Climate Energy)
from last heating season which gives a great overview of the system and its benefits.

For the record - the Warm Air freewatt has been commercially available since June while the Hydronic freewatt will be available by June '08.

Noel K.

Unknown

co-generation issues

I'm a big advocate of creative thinking with regards to energy usage, and obviously systems like Freewatt have a role to play. That said I have some questions about the real impact of such systems.

In regards to the utube video posted by noel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE7cl0b7P9o

One of the first points that the owner of this system makes is that he is now able to keep his thermostat at 70 degrees, as opposed to his friend who has inflicted a 62 deg temperature on his disgruntled family.

If efficiency gains are utilized to avoid behavior changes the net gain of such improvements is zero. This points to a big problem with efficiency. Behavior only changes with deep ideological commitment, or meaningful economic impact. Finally SUV sales are slumping, and GMC has announced it may discontinue the hummer, big progress, but only achieved by the current economics of energy.

To invest in efficiency and eat up the gains with comfort and convenience does nothing for future generations.

The other concern I have with this concept (free watt) is that I believe it takes advantage of net metering. In-fact I would not be surprised if net metering laws would have to be altered if this system became widely adopted.

The grid currently has no use for extra capacity during off peak periods, when heating loads are the highest. Users may be seeing retail compensation for spare night time generation capacity, but this energy is of no use to the utility and in all likelihood is doing no useful work. As far a night time operation is concerned the environmental impact of this equipment would be negative, 12,000 btu's of heat and the electricity sent back to the grid to do nothing!
Obviously a condensing boiler can make much better use of gas in this situation. I would also imagine that achieving the ultra low nox possible with sophisticated burners, is not possible with an internal combustion engine even a Honda! (could be wrong). And what of the mechanical issues (friction etc) and the embodied energy in a device with such a limited life cycle?

For an application with a 24hr. electric load that can utilize this units output I see this as a very environmentally attractive option. However If most of the night time generation is being put back in the grid this is no more than an opportunistic use of progressive net metering law that defeats the intended purpose. It may make great economic sense but I believe if examined critically it has little if any positive environmental impact, when used at night.

Electric cars could change this , with off peek charging.

Noel Kelly_3

Scott,

Great points! Permit me to address them one at a time.

Keeping in mind that cogeneration has been applied on a commercial scale since the time of Edison and is recognized as one of the single most efficient ways to generate electricity…

Norm keeping his thermostat at 70…

I have had occasion to visit many, many homes this past winter and common to all is a noticeable decline in levels of comfort. People are purposely compromising their comfort because of the cost of fuel – particularly those heating with oil. The standard dictum is…one degree setback for an eight-hour period over the course of a heating season will result in savings of 1%. Excluding nighttime setback, Norm’s friend will save 8% of…let’s say 1000 therms at $1.80 per therm = $1,800 for savings of $144. Great! Norm’s friend has realized real savings by reducing his overall fuel bill but his family is not comfortable. Norm keeps his thermostat at 70 (this is a warm air system after all), does not save $180 on fuel but does save over $800 on his electricity all the while reducing fuel usage at the central power plant and his carbon footprint by 5,000 lbs of CO2.

Let’s do the numbers –

Friend:

Heating: Keeps thermostat at 62 for total of $1,800 - $144 = $$1,656
Electricity: Pays 18 cents kWh for 4,500 kWh = $810
CO2 related to heating season electricity use = 6,000 lbs
Net cost for energy during winter months = $2,466

Norm:

Heating: Keeps thermostat at 70 for total of $1,800
Electricity: Generates 4,800 kWh…$860 at utility rate of 18 cents
CO2 related to heating season electricity use = 1,000 lbs
Net cost for energy during winter months = $940
Reduction in CO2 = 5,000 lbs

Makes good sense to me.

Net metering…

Almost 40 states have net metering on the books and of those, 14 include fossil fuel based micro-chp. This number is increasing as states realize the benefits of micro-chp - one example being Vermont’s recent decision to include micro-chp with other states to follow.

Peaking…

While the northeast has its greatest demand for electricity in the summer other parts of the country peak in the winter. In Minnesota for example, the utilities will shut off heat pumps during the winter and bring on gas-fired furnaces in return for which homeowners’ receive reduced gas rates.

I agree that this might at first seem counter-intuitive in the northeast but imagine thousands of internet enabled micro-chp systems that could be energized for the few hours that constitute peak demand in this region. For the utilities – none of the problems associated with siting, permitting, building and maintaining standby generation.

This is somewhat longer than I anticipated but I extend the same invitation to you as we do all – if you are in the area please come visit us and we would be happy to share the comprehensive data that we have compiled over these past years.

Noel K

Noel Kelly_3

Correction

Norm's total winter energy bill is $1,800 and not $940.

My creative math aside, these are still significant savings.

Noel K

Unknown

Noel,

I'm not arguing with the economics, although I didn't really look at it to hard. I'll take it on faith that that the system saves money. At current market gas prices what is the cost per kw of the electrical component alone?

My question is: if most of the spare capacity is at night when most utilities have no use for this power, can we really count these savings as an environmental benefit. Are these carbon offset figures credible since many of the electrons returned to the grid may do no useful work besides turning the users meter backwards.

Does the price per kw cost of on site electric generation justify summer use, when there will be no heat recover benefit? I like the idea of internet enabled networks putting these units on line for peek events, but is this part of the current package? If it cost more to generate on site when no heat benefit is present, what incentive would a user have to participate in this. Seems like this remote networking and grid integration would need to be part of the legal framework of the net metering arrangement for such equipment.

While I'm hardly an expert on the electrical grid, I have read that there is even debate about how effectively P.V generation is utilized by the grid. Thermal plants can not fluidly adjust their output. P.V inputs are highly variable. Even If centralized generation could be throttled, imagine the effect of a large cloud suddenly bringing solar inputs to a screeching halt. This could easily bring down the grid. For this reason it is the offset component that is much more important than returned power.

Mitch_4

I have always thought

that in non peak times for plants that cannot throttle electric production, it would be a great idea to divert it to a hydrogen generating plant to produce hydrogen for fuel cell cars. Electric utilities can start producing and selling fuel. reduce our dependancy on foreign oil, and establish a viable fuel alternative distribution center.

Nuclear plants would be excellent for this, as they do not regulate power effectively, just put it out.

Mitch

Larry C_13

Nuke plant regulating outputs.


> Nuclear plants would be excellent for

> this, as they do not regulate power effectively,

> just put it out.


Not quite Mitch.

Nukes can regulate their output quite easily, within limits. The reason they run at 100% rated output is that they are a huge investment and the owners want to maximize their ROI.

Coal burners are limited as to how fast they can change the temperature of the refractory bricks. If they ramped the power output up and down to follow load, the thermal transients will wreak havoc with the bricks.

Hydro can be turned on and off assuming there is sufficient bypass capability in the dam. However hydro is generally the cheapest to produce.

Gas turbines can be turned on and off within minutes, however they are generally used for peaking purposes only.

I believe Germany is having a problem with so much wind power being fed into their grid and with the country being so small, that any large storm system that alters the wind speed creates disturbances with their distribution system.

Solar has an advantage in that typically they output the most energy when the demand peaks.

As far as load shifting, there are some methods that do work, such as pumped storage at Niagra falls, Ice making for air conditioning, resistance heaters for heating of concrete floors, etc.

Larry

Mitch_4

Thanks Larry

You said what I meant, I said it poorlyThey can regulate it, they don't want to if possible....because they prefer to run a nuke plant 100% flat out, ff peak supply could be used to generate hydrogen...and O2 for canisters as well ..

Mitch