"Mike" wrote in message
...

Visited the Homebuilding and Renovation show at NEC and saw for the first
time a MicroCHP which really looked the dog's doodahs. It was on the
PowerGen stand but of course nobody had any details on how to buy one.

Does anybody know the commercial situation with these ? When will they be
available and for how much ?

A press release from Gledhill, the intelligent thermal store manufacturer.
http://www.gledhill.net/water-storag...cle14-mchp.htm

The first 550 houses are under construction right now. Powergen have been
doing trials for a few years with the Whispergen Stirling and Gledhill
thermal store. http://www.whispergen.co.uk Another company, Microgen are to
introduce a Stirling version, probably using the Gledhill store too. Their
unit is made by Rennai in Japan, although designed in the UK.
http://www.microgendirect.com/main2.swf The Microgen has a free wheeling
piston Stirling with the power generating coils in the piston and around the
cylinder. The Japanese are very keen on this technology. The UK government
is actively promoting mCHP, although it can only ever be a medium term fix.
The long term has to be not using masses amount of energy to begin with.

The gas bills are no different to using a normal condensing boiler, but the
electricity bills drop by around 1/3, depending on household. As
electricity is 4 times the price of gas here, that is a considerable saving
to the home owner. As time moves on and more energy efficient appliances
are being introduced, so savings may be greater on the electricity side as
the Stirling unit would provide more local power than drawing in off the
grid.

Then there is the environmental impact of less emissions and less power
infrastructure, which may mean less electricity pylons ruining the views of
the countryside.

See my recent post on this. The Gledhill web site has a few slide show
presentations and a page on the central control system that the power
provider may use to operate the units remotely.





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