hobbes wrote:

Hi,

I was just wondering if in the USA anyone has one of these units? What
it is is a small One Cylinder engine, with electrical power generation
(1kw) and hot water heater heating (2.8 kw).

It is sort of efficient in that it unlike normal standby power
generation, alot of the heat is used for heating and hot water, just
line he Steam heat supplied in Manhattan New York.



I am not sure if co-generation is that useful with internal combustion
engines. Usually it seems to be used with steam turbine power conversion
where the process necessarily has a lot of waste heat which normally
goes to a cooling tower or to a river.
The cooling tower portion of the power plant is replaced by the space heating
and water heating needs of a local town or city.

Does anyone know if internal combustion engines produce as significant
portion of waste heat as steam turbines?