On 06/05/2017 14:29, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 06/05/17 13:34, Clive Arthur wrote:
On 05/05/2017 19:42, AnthonyL wrote:
I was watching the early development of electricity generation and
houses had their own coal fired generators before power distribution
became widespread.

Now is the time of year my fuel contracts come up for renewal; I can
get gas at less that 3p/kwH but my electricity supplier (soon not to
be) has upped their rate to nearly 14p/kwH which had me wondering
about the economics of using the cheaper gas to generate my
electricity.

ok, a bit t-i-c but it'd be fun having my own steam generator
(modified boiler?), turbine and generator. I recall a viable jet
engine (intended for VTOL some 45yrs ago) that could be picked up by
one person so a turbine needn't be too big.

Why not just run an ordinary generator from gas? As long as you need
the heat as well, you'd be quids in, ignoring capital costs. And noise.
And safety.

Cheers
Well as the CHP in Denmark is testament to, you end up generating heat
beyond your needs.

5Kw is about what a house needs and that's about 6.6 brake horsepower

A small steam engine fed from a gas powered boiler could do that. At
about 20% efficiency. leaving you wit about 25KW of waste heat. Oh dear.
Thats enough to heat the house 5 times over in the depths of winter...


Well, I suppose you'd size it according to the heating needs rather than
the electricity needs and use the grid as an AC accumulator. The
*average* household electricity consumption is about 500W, I think,
although the shorter term winter average (when you needed the heat)
would be more.

It's probably not practical, or it would already be done, and obviously,
only a small proportion of people could do it.

Cheers
--
Clive