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Selling Electricity Back to the Grid
Has anyone any experience in doing this?
It looks complicated byt not impossibly so:
http://www.ecocentre.org.uk/selling-electricity-back-to-the-grid.html
http://www.bettergeneration.co.uk/introduction/selling-electricity-to-the-grid.html
are two links from several, but I would be interested to gather real personal experiences before taking this forward.
One specific question:-
How many turbines can you have before it goes beyond domestic? I COULD have several if the sums worked out.
It looks complicated byt not impossibly so:
http://www.ecocentre.org.uk/selling-electricity-back-to-the-grid.html
http://www.bettergeneration.co.uk/introduction/selling-electricity-to-the-grid.html
are two links from several, but I would be interested to gather real personal experiences before taking this forward.
One specific question:-
How many turbines can you have before it goes beyond domestic? I COULD have several if the sums worked out.
Under no circumstances may any part of my postings be used, quoted, repeated, transferred or published by any third party in ANY medium outside of this website without express written permission. Thank you.
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Comments
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Nobody - Government, Electricity industry, Turbine manufactuters etc - makes any claim at all that generating electricty cheaper with turbines is cost effective.
Even small turbines cost £thousands and the output is small.0 -
I remember seeing a piece on the news about this a while ago. It looked straightforward enough, at any time you're generating more electricity than you use then the excess will flow back to the grid. Over a quarter you'll still use more electricity than you generate, so you'll still end up with a bill to pay.
The article I saw was about an electricity generating boiler rather than a wind turbine, but certainly the savings were less than impressive - about 2k for the boiler which would then save you about 100 pounds a year. From what I've read the home turbines don't generate vast amounts of electricity either, so you'd have to be doing this for environmental rather than money saving reasons.0 -
Put simply, there is no microgeneration currently available with a payback of less than about 10 years with grid export. You can reduce this to 5 or 6 years with sufficient grants, but its still a bit of a gamble.
If you do still want to look at it, there are two main types of export:
(1) Metered export - you will have to have an export meter installed at your expense (up to a couple of hundred pounds) and you will then receive money for units you export - ususally pretty minimal unless your installation is huge
(2) Unmetered export - you get paid for every unit GENERATED, whether exported or not. Obviously you get less per unit, but it usually works out better on domestic installtions
As for your final question, most suppliers regard 5 or 6 kWe peak installed as being commerical level, although you should still be able to get an export deal. Installations over 30 kWe peak must be half hour commerical metered - not feasible for an indivudal!0 -
http://www.microchap.info/stirling_engine.htm
See above link.
If your central heating boiler is due for replacement,you could install a micro chp unit such as the whispagen which uses a modified stirling engine. The engine drives a generator to produce electricity. The byproduct>heat,is used to heat your home/hot water. These are already being installed in new build houses and some council properties in my area.0 -
I'm generating a small amount of power through a wind turbine and a solar panel. The turbine is home-made and I still haven't got it quite right yet, also I live in an area that doesn't have a great deal of usable wind.
I would say that it's not as easy as it first appears, and there's a few pitfalls that are not obvious to the untrained eye......
eg. A windmill generates 1kW at 20mph winds, so it would follow that it generates 500W at 10 mph right? Nope! it generates 125W at half the windspeed because the output follows a cube law in proportion to windspeed.
I'm a long way off selling to the grid, and as likely to get that far as I am winning the lottery (I don't even buy a ticket!).
But I make a little that runs a few lights and is a lot of fun. If you can run most of your house WITHOUT selling to the grid, you'll still be winning.0 -
http://www.microchap.info/stirling_engine.htm
See above link.
If your central heating boiler is due for replacement,you could install a micro chp unit such as the whispagen which uses a modified stirling engine. The engine drives a generator to produce electricity. The byproduct>heat,is used to heat your home/hot water. These are already being installed in new build houses and some council properties in my area.
Personally, I would avoid these units at all costs! The theory behind them is fairly sound, but rather than, as you suggest, the waste product of the generation being heat, its actually the other way round - i.e. you generating heat produces a small amount of electricity.
But the payback is awful on them, and if you use them to generate all your electric, your gas bill goes through the roof. In a modern, insulated house, these boilers are a waste of money as your boiler should be on so little, the electricity benefit will be tiny!
In short, good theory, rubbish in practice0 -
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pssst
http://www.microchap.info/stirling_engine.htm
See above link.
If your central heating boiler is due for replacement,you could install a micro chp unit such as the whispagen which uses a modified stirling engine. The engine drives a generator to produce electricity. The byproduct>heat,is used to heat your home/hot water. These are already being installed in new build houses and some council properties in my area.
Personally, I would avoid these units at all costs! The theory behind them is fairly sound, but rather than, as you suggest, the waste product of the generation being heat, its actually the other way round - i.e. you generating heat produces a small amount of electricity.
But the payback is awful on them, and if you use them to generate all your electric, your gas bill goes through the roof. In a modern, insulated house, these boilers are a waste of money as your boiler should be on so little, the electricity benefit will be tiny!
In short, good theory, rubbish in practice
Actually its a complex calculation to see where they can and cannot pay back. It is very regional and depends on the energy sale price back to the grid, your offset consumption, as well as any Micro CHP tax credits which might be received. Here in Germany you can even get one time payments to help offset the purchase cost a little bit. BUT, you do have a point in that a heater has a much higher efficiency for producing heat, so the question is really about the cost of the power...0
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