generator query

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the doctor

Part P Doctor ™
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Hi All!

This may seem a daft question but my sister asked and it got me thinking:coat

She is building a house in Ireland and has no supply at present....

It is 1700 euro to get the hook up from a pole a couple of fields away

It is 120 euro/year standing charge

It is 13c per kWh

She is growling and talking about a generator/ battery rig up like a UPS. I have poo pooed this explaining she is into serious money there.....probably more like 100000 euro i says..... :D

then i got thinking.....and here it is!

if i draw 1 kWh off the supply to run a 1 bar heater at the above costs.....how much would it cost in fuel to draw that same 1kWh off say a 15kVA genny, forgetting maintenance costs of the set? headbang

 
Hello alan i cant give you any figures but about 5 years ago a company i worked for occupied a unit on a ind est due to be demolished and power to be removed however the lease was due to run a bit longer they looked at getting a generator and weighed up usage of fuel compared to electric and it works out pretty much the same speak to any supplier and they will confirm this i think we used grange power in heywood 01706623555 a good set of lads hope this helps. Ps please look at my post on the fluke tester :) cheers.

 
best thing to do would be look at a genny and see what its fuel usage per hour is, compare than to how many KWH your going to get and see how much its going to cost per unit.

but this is purely the fuel to power it. you would need to add on for maintenance costs etc.

could always get a few different sized genny's too - i.e little 1KW for when you dont need much power.

as for heat, no point in going diesel > electric > heat. would be better getting a diesel heater

 
TBH those prices do not look Over the top (can I use OOT here?) to me. I would guess the fuel consumption on a genny would be greater than that anyway.

 
My uncle was talking about this last time I was over there, Genny charging a stack of forklift batteries (think they are 2v each, probably wrong) for say 8 hours per day, with the exhaust routed through a water tank like an element, to sort out the hot water and heating for the house. Guess you'd do the cooking on a fire though, or while the genny was running.

Use an old genny, run it on old veg oil!

 
quite a few people in Ireland use gennys, was a pub in the North, (the ponderosa) on the glenshane pass used a big diesel for years and years, up until about 15/20 years ago IIRC,

a lot depends on your actual usage and how much power you are actually going to waste IMO.

I think it would only be viable for those who had/could obtain a decent sized one cheap,

and could fuel it even cheaper, (heating oil springs to mind, as does red(green in the south) diesel from a friendly trucker.)

 
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