Ignoramus21810 wrote:

Anthony Matonak wrote:

Ignoramus21810 wrote:
...
Well, to put the engine under full load, I would turn on a 4.5 kW
water heater, dropped into a bucket of water. I did that to test my
generator and I can make it a little more robust for everyday use.

So, yes it would be easy to use, and yes, I expect my house to be a
light load for most of the time.
...
Excuse me if this sounds like a wild, implausible idea, but
perhaps it would work better if you had a smaller generator
to handle the majority of the light loads most of the time?

You would only need to fire up the big generator for the
occasional big loads. I know it would be additional expense
but it would also give you a better chance of still having
power even if one of the generators went down.

First, it is expensive, second, I do not like the idea of maintaining
two generators, and third, loads are intermittent. Think about my
refrigerators, range, etc, I cannot run out and switch from one genset
to another every time someone wants to boil a teapot of water.

This points to a need for a small demand management system for off-grid homes
with limited instantaneous power capacity from generators and inverters. We
might turn the fridge off while the range runs, turn the range off for a few
seconds while the well pump runs, and so on, with Insteon/X10 hardware and
a wireless controller to implement a priority scheme. If someone turns on
a teapot with the switch on the handle, the AC receptacle senses that and
signals the controller, which delays applying full teapot power until the
controller turns off something else in the house. Small on-grid businesses
with demand meters could also use boxes like this.

On a larger scale, a few years ago I met a negawatt trader who made money
in New York State on-line power auctions by meeting predicted utility grid
demands on peak summer days by turning off central AC systems in large
apartment buildings for an hour or so in the afternoon. He got paid the same
as an energy provider, and only bid when the instantaneous auction price
got up to about $1/kWh, but he got more valuable credits, since reducing
demand creates no pollution. The smallest practical load for him was
1 megawatt, and he seemed excited about the chance to control 1 kW loads
automatically.

Nick