Our local gas utility here in Red Sox Nation has been running radio ads
aimed at homeowners promoting the Honda household-cogeneration
equipment, which includes mention of selling extra generated electricity
back to the utility, and gummint credits to help you purchase your
equipment.

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c07...neration-Unit/

Anyone here have any experience with them?

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.

"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
news

Our local gas utility here in Red Sox Nation has been running radio ads
aimed at homeowners promoting the Honda household-cogeneration equipment,
which includes mention of selling extra generated electricity back to the
utility, and gummint credits to help you purchase your equipment.

UNLESS there is one of those silly laws in place that requires the utlity to
buy back power at "retail" rates there is no way this can make sense.

The homeowner would be buying fuel at "retail" unless (again) there is some
kind of special deal with the gas company.

But the real killer is the "wear and tear" on the relatively small sized
home power plant. Even with "Honda Quality" after about 6,000 hours the
engine would have to be replaced/rebuilt.



http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c07...neration-Unit/

Anyone here have any experience with them?

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.



** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On May 28, 11:59*am, Jeff Wisnia wrote:
Our local gas utility here in Red Sox Nation has been running radio ads
aimed at homeowners promoting the Honda household-cogeneration
equipment, which includes mention of selling extra generated electricity
back to the utility, and gummint credits to help you purchase your
equipment.

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c07...ld-Cogeneratio...

Anyone here have any experience with them?

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.

No experiance, but would you save money with it?

On May 28, 3:29*pm, ransley wrote:
On May 28, 11:59*am, Jeff Wisnia wrote:

Our local gas utility here in Red Sox Nation has been running radio ads
aimed at homeowners promoting the Honda household-cogeneration
equipment, which includes mention of selling extra generated electricity
back to the utility, and gummint credits to help you purchase your
equipment.

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c07...ld-Cogeneratio...

Anyone here have any experience with them?

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.

No experiance, but would you save money with it?


Interesting concept. For electric generation, it's small, only 1KW,
but I guess it's sized that way because any larger and the
corresponding waste heat would be more than needed for a typical
home. What does the marketing say about the cost to buy and
operate, life expectancy, how much you make selling electricity back
to the utility, etc?

On 5/28/2008 9:59 AM Jeff Wisnia spake thus:

Our local gas utility here in Red Sox Nation has been running radio ads
aimed at homeowners promoting the Honda household-cogeneration
equipment, which includes mention of selling extra generated electricity
back to the utility, and gummint credits to help you purchase your
equipment.

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c07...eneration-Unit

Anyone here have any experience with them?

No, sorry. Just a general comment: I was a little surprised to read the
description, since to me, cogeneration has always meant taking the
previously wasted energy from one process and recovering it. (The
classic example is using excess steam or other heat from an industrial
plant to generate electricity.)

Not that this isn't an interesting application, but it is really just a
way of capturing thermal energy from an IC engine that would otherwise
be lost, and using it to heat water.

To me, a *real* cogeneration unit would be one that would capture heat
from gas appliances, say, and use it to generate electricity. Probably
not practical on a single-home scale, but maybe on a multiple-unit level.


--
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute
conversation with the average voter.

- Attributed to Winston Churchill

On May 28, 6:16*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 5/28/2008 9:59 AM Jeff Wisnia spake thus:

Our local gas utility here in Red Sox Nation has been running radio ads
aimed at homeowners promoting the Honda household-cogeneration
equipment, which includes mention of selling extra generated electricity
back to the utility, and gummint credits to help you purchase your
equipment.

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c07...ld-Cogeneratio...

Anyone here have any experience with them?

No, sorry. Just a general comment: I was a little surprised to read the
description, since to me, cogeneration has always meant taking the
previously wasted energy from one process and recovering it. (The
classic example is using excess steam or other heat from an industrial
plant to generate electricity.)


That exactly what it is, how it's been used in commercial electric co-
generation applications and how it's used in this application.




Not that this isn't an interesting application, but it is really just a
way of capturing thermal energy from an IC engine that would otherwise
be lost, and using it to heat water.


That exactly what it is and how it's used in this application.



To me, a *real* cogeneration unit would be one that would capture heat
from gas appliances, say, and use it to generate electricity. Probably
not practical on a single-home scale, but maybe on a multiple-unit level.

Capture what heat from what gas appliance? Gas appliances like water
heaters, furnaces, etc turn gas into heat, so in any effort to
optimize them it makes more sense to just recover more of the heat as
heat, not try to turn it into electricity.




--
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute
conversation with the average voter.

- Attributed to Winston Churchill

wrote:
On May 28, 6:16 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 5/28/2008 9:59 AM Jeff Wisnia spake thus:


Our local gas utility here in Red Sox Nation has been running radio ads
aimed at homeowners promoting the Honda household-cogeneration
equipment, which includes mention of selling extra generated electricity
back to the utility, and gummint credits to help you purchase your
equipment.

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c07...ld-Cogeneratio...

Anyone here have any experience with them?

No, sorry. Just a general comment: I was a little surprised to read the
description, since to me, cogeneration has always meant taking the
previously wasted energy from one process and recovering it. (The
classic example is using excess steam or other heat from an industrial
plant to generate electricity.)



That exactly what it is, how it's been used in commercial electric co-
generation applications and how it's used in this application.





Not that this isn't an interesting application, but it is really just a
way of capturing thermal energy from an IC engine that would otherwise
be lost, and using it to heat water.



That exactly what it is and how it's used in this application.




To me, a *real* cogeneration unit would be one that would capture heat
from gas appliances, say, and use it to generate electricity. Probably
not practical on a single-home scale, but maybe on a multiple-unit level.


Capture what heat from what gas appliance? Gas appliances like water
heaters, furnaces, etc turn gas into heat, so in any effort to
optimize them it makes more sense to just recover more of the heat as
heat, not try to turn it into electricity.




--
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute
conversation with the average voter.

- Attributed to Winston Churchill



Apologies if I have mentioned this here before, but at my first
injuneering job out of college in '58 I saw some running test models of
a refrigerator with an insulated DHW tank on top of it. The fridge was
gas powered like a Servel and the heat removed from the "icebox" was
dumped into the DHW tank. The name the company I was working for had
given those units was "Stator".

I don't think they ever made it to market, at least not in the USA.
Reasons I can think of were that they were about 8-1/2 feet tall and
ceiling heights in homes were coming down fast. Plus, energy cost so
little (relatively) back then that there wasn't that much incentive to
save it.

Didn't some of the olde kitchen stoves have a DHW tank associated with them?

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.

Jeff Wisnia wrote:

wrote:
On May 28, 6:16 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:


Apologies if I have mentioned this here before, but at my first
injuneering job out of college in '58 I saw some running test models of
a refrigerator with an insulated DHW tank on top of it. The fridge was
gas powered like a Servel and the heat removed from the "icebox" was
dumped into the DHW tank. The name the company I was working for had
given those units was "Stator".

I don't think they ever made it to market, at least not in the USA.
Reasons I can think of were that they were about 8-1/2 feet tall and
ceiling heights in homes were coming down fast. Plus, energy cost so
little (relatively) back then that there wasn't that much incentive to
save it.

Didn't some of the olde kitchen stoves have a DHW tank associated with
them?


Yes, the kitchen stove, as well as the "furnace" in the
"cellar", and wood fired. Sears or Monkey Ward catalog sold
the u-shaped iron pipe that fit the manufactured two holes
in the furnace. Grandparents used them, like most of the
farm neighbors. A metal pitcher on the back of the stove
was ho****er.

BTW, those Honda units were on the news several years ago.
The Japanese used them with ng/propane to provide a heat
pump for cooling & heating, electricity and heated water.
They used ceramics in the engine for low friction and long
life. Looked like a good idea at the time. Also KMart had
a window mount Panasonic heat pump like 18-30K btu for less
than $400, incredible price at the time. Motels used the
same concept but cost thousands of dollars each.

If I could just come up with an efficient way of burning
junk mail for heat and hot water.

-larry/dallas


Jeff