Anybody familiar with 'Freewatt' cogen

Steve_175

Anybody installed these or serviced them?

http://www.hondanews.com/categories/1048

DanHolohan

Our old friend,

Noel Kelly, works for the company. It's a division of ECR International. I've been watching it with great interest for the past few years. I'm a believer.

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

Does anyone know

If it produces enough electricity to make it worthwile, or does it only produce a little electricity that you can use in a power outage? ECR makes quality products.

Thanks, Bob Gagnon

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hot_rod

I've been looking also

We lose power a few times a year during ice storms. Sometimes for a week or more.

I looked this brand over at the REX show last year.www.marathonengine.com/cogeneration.html
They really suck the heat from everywhere. Even a jacketed generator.

All or the companies I visited in Germany recently had small CHP units installed. This looked like a nice brand.

www.senertec.de/englisch/frames.php

hr

Tom Blackwell_2

Take a look at the website. Electricity produced is minimal, about 500 watts left over after the fan motor and such. The unit has integrated control of frequency and phase angle so it ties directly to the house wiring. Still, if the run hours are enough in a cold climate that 500w adds up. Supposedly, a lot of units are being sold in the New England area of the country. CHP is the business I used to be in, in the 5-10 megawatt range. Unfortunately with gas prices at $10.00/Million BTU the economics don't work out.

Noel Kelly_3

freewatt overview

Hi guys,

Any opportunity to respond to questions about freewatt is welcome and I invite you to call me at 508.359.4500 if you want to talk further.

In the meantime, freewatt is all about saving - money and the environment. In Massachusetts with electric rates of between 16 and 22 cents per KWh homeowners can reduce their electric bills by as much as $1,000 and reduce their carbon footprint by approx. 5,000 lbs of CO2 (based on MA generating fuel mix).

How? By displacing electricity that would otherwise be purchased from the central power plants that often operate at fuel efficiencies of 33%.

The freewatt system consists of a furnace or boiler with an additional component developed by Honda specifically for the application. This in no way resembles what we traditionally think of as a generator. Over ten years in development by Honda this engine will run for an average of 4,000 hours over the course of one heating season. Whereas the average automobile runs for 3,500 hours over the course of its lifetime! Seeing is believing.

Think of this as a multiple stage heating system - first stage is 12,000 Btus from the cogenerator with the additional demand being met by the furnace or boiler. With a constant delivery of this low level heat we achieve a significantly lower first stage heat delivery than other appliances. This has the effect of reducing the runtime of the furnace by as much as 50% - a Btu is a Btu. Couple this with multiple stage furnaces and a modulating boiler and you can appreciate the inherent efficiencies.

The freewatt produces 1,200 watts (1.2kW) for every hour of operation. For much of the time it will be running in "cogen mode" which has a parasitic loss of around 100 watts with the warm air system.

freewatt is a NG or LPG system that includes the heating appliance and the Honda MCHP. The cogenerator by itself cannot be added to an existing system.

Those of you that know me are aware of my enthusiasm for micro-combined heat and power and freewatt in particular.I have been with Climate Energy for seven years now and have seen freewatt germinate from an idea to a remarkable product. We are faced with some very serious issues both individually and as a nation. Whether you are concerned by the rising cost of operating a home or sustaining a liveable environment, there are only so many options that are available to us. I invite you to visit www.freewatt.com to learn more about one option that is available to many - today. Or call me!

BTW - attached is a photo of Fletch Kelly. He is 12 now and this was taken a year after he survived a vicious attack by a pitbull. Another little miracle.

Noel Kelly

DanHolohan

Thanks, Noel.

You forgot the photo.

Noel Kelly_3

Wonder dog...

Thanks Dan - I missed a button.

DanHolohan

Noble.

Eric Guyer

freewatt

The freewatt system runs in the cogeneration mode about 3500 hours per year. At 1.2 kw output that adds up to a lot electricity over the year --- about one-half that needed by a typical home over the year. Indeed, our freewatt system produces as much electric power as a 4 kW solar PV installation which costs about 5 times the price of a freewatt. We have plenty of homes that operate like this, its significant power output is a proven fact. Also, the price of gas is not really an issue. Incrementaly cost of producing electricty with freewatt while your heating your home is only about 3 cents per kWh at $10 Million BTU. This compares to about 15 to 20 cents in a lot of the Northeast. Taken all together, owners of freewatt are saving between about $700 to $1000 a year in electricty.

Your statment of 500 watts would be correct if freewatt incorporated a standard old warm air furnace with a power hungry split-capacitor motor. Instead, we use an ECM motor in our intergrated furnace and, at the low speed it operates while in the cogeneration mode, the power consumption is less than 100 watts, netting at least 1100 watts of cogenerated power for home.
I encourage anyone new to cogeneration and its benefits take a look under the hood of freewatt. Most that do walk away with a whole new view on the possbilities of home heating. freewatt is the result of the intense collaboration of world-class power and heating system engineering teams at Honda and here at Climate Energy over a number of years. We believe it will do more for the heating industry that than the hybrid automobiile has done for the auto industry. The Honda technology in our system has already reshaped the heating industry in Japan with tens of thousands of application in Japanese homes. North America will be next.

We enjoy showing off our technology and product. We welcome visitors to our facility in Medfield, MA. freewatt means cogeneration for the home is here today, is affordable, and practical for the heating trades.........and it comes with a outstanding 5 year parts and labor warranty so there is no need to be shy.

Eric Guyer
CEO Climate Energy

joel_19

joel

Hey guys,
This is the real deal I've seen it up close the last few years a couple times and it is very impressive. You should take them up on the offer if interested and check it out. I'd probably have one myself but there's that whole i live in the sticks thing and there isn't any NG out here. love to put one in someplace but where???? my guys don't have NG either except for 1 and he's got a brand new Vitodens.

hot_rod

Install one at my place, Joel

LP please

hr

Kevin_in_Denver_2

net metering, etc.

Do any states allow you sell back to the grid with this system? If not, you could install a PV system first, then add this later.

Kal Row

the problem is the local unitilities...

or rather the local distribution in any but the newest types - the local lines and transformers may be running on the edge that they don’t want you to feed back into the system for fear you will tripp out the local line protectors - even if you aren’t producing that much power - a phase or freq match error - can wreck havoc on the line - con Edison in nyc is real touchy about the subject

even those 13watt screw in fluorescents make them crazy – cause one of the line input rectifier diodes can short and now you could be drawing 13amps "DC" (half a waveform only) instead of "AC" from the line without tripping your breaker and unbalance their local transformer setup - it causes lots of magnetic Hysteresis (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/solids/hyst.html cause an electromagnet inducing dc gets more saturated) and thus overheating – if you have those bulbs and they get dim or buzz – change them forthwith, or your next electric bill may be unusually high

Rich Kontny_3

Passive and active

Reminds me about the old Solar Seminar I took for several weeks back in the late seventies. This was held at UWS (University of Wisconsin -Superior)

Payback comes very quickly with passive part of solar, house orientation,thermal mass materials,window placement etc while costs jump when you move to the active part of solar heating and cooling, (Active part requires pumps, storage tanks , collectors etc. Both passive and active work best when they are proactive versus reactive. In other words it is best to start from scratch and design the building envelope around the variables. (Location, heat source(s),size of home, construction materials etc.)

The name freewatt is a little miss leading as a fossil fuel is generating the electricity at a given cost plus cost of equipment and maintenance.This is still an active system yet one worth looking into.

In 1978 I stayed at an apartment complex near Madison, WI where they used natural gas for electric generation and captured the waste heat for space heating that supplemented the electric heat and water heaters. This is basically the same concept with many added features.

I like Dan started watching this concept several years ago when they went under the name of Climate Energy. They have taken their time to do their homework as Honda is one of the finest manufacturers of small engines in the world. This combined with sophisticated controls and cautious initial marketing tells me that this company wants to do things right.

Good to hear that they are ready for expanding there market area(s) The questions I have are mostly answered except for how the concept is accepted.

Best of luck to these innovators!

Rich K.

jim post

Sign me up for the demo program....

when it gets to Wisconsin. This would be a great addition to my Tarm heated hot water system....It would cover the shoulder seasons and summer hot water + electricity year round. Any ideas on ballpark costs?

joel_19

Mass

Mass has net metering by law,not sure about other states

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

Noel

Is there anyway this generator could use hot water to produce electricity? Like the excess hot water we have in the summer from our solar panels? Could you tell us how long the units are guaranteed for and how long the payback might be. Thanks, Bob Gagnon

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Rich Kontny_3

Bob,

Bob,

Go to: Climate Energy.com and read the info about this concept.I thought this had a uture several years ago and talked to them directly. There phone # etc. is listed on the site. They were not only cordial to me in 2006 they have kept me current. (Great website by the way!)