The Baxi Ecogen micro-CHP boiler

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  • paulfelce
    paulfelce Posts: 132
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker
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    jonewer wrote: »
    It produces up to 1kWh? What happens when its produced it? Does it asplode? Does it pack its bags and head off to the costas? Do I have to buy a new one?

    Doesnt really fill me with confidence when a company whose business is heating doesnt know what a kWh is!

    http://www.britishgas.co.uk/products-and-services/boilers/boiler-service/boiler-range/ecogen.html

    BG don't seem to know much better.

    Ps fascinating thread this, we had the solar PV installed in November and are now looking at replacing the boiler.
    I was originally scared off of CHP due to comments about the cost, but I guess I've already paid a fair bit of the costs by already having an export meter.
  • If I am not mistaken the Ecogen has a built in inverter and generation meter so you will still have to cough up the 6k plus Paul.

    Energy catcher is the way forward until the price of the CHP boilers drops.
  • Thanks for the fab info above. We are in the process of ordering our ecogen - I just wanted to ask where the naysayers live? Partic Orffyreus? Reason I ask is because being in north east scotland we have a high heat demand which is why the thought of producing electricity at the same time appealed. I did look into pv but we have no south facing rooves and there ain't much light in the winter. What do you think? Does the higher heat demand make it more worthwhile?
    K
  • Hi Angellic,

    Sorry for the late response to your post.

    I am in West Yorkshire and probably have a lower heating demand than you do but that is not my reason for believing that the Ecogen is not a good investment.

    The high initial fully installed cost, reputedly between six and eight thousand pounds, makes this a very expensive option even when taking into account FIT payments.

    The Ecogen is not the most efficient boiler on the market. There are available, condensing system and combi boilers that are considerably cheaper, and more efficient. Although these will not generate electricity, they will have a shorter payback period and because of their higher efficiency, use less gas, overall.

    In principal Micro CHP is a great idea and with new fuel cell technology becoming available, as with the Baxi Innotech, then hopefully market forces will drive the unit price down to a reasonable level.

    It is the price of the Ecogen that is the main problem although personally I have reservations about tariffs being paid for these systems as there is the possibility that some people will run a boiler when not necessary in order to receive inflated tariff payments.

    As stated in an earlier post, I have installed solar PV, a wood burner and high efficiency boiler system for £10,500. I expect savings and FIT payments of £1000 per annum on electricity alone.

    As for your particular situation, it may well be that due to high heat demand, FIT payments for generation could be higher than average due to longer system running times, and I would expect that during the winter months, you will generate enough electricity for your household needs.

    If you decide to have the Ecogen installed I would be interested to know how it performs.

    Regards

    Gavin
  • GrahamE wrote: »
    I have just installed a Baxi Ecogen 24 on 2 February. Total installation cost was £5,977. This compares to the quoted cost of installing a standard SEDBUK A condensing boiler of £2900. Part of the higher cost is the Ecogen unit itself which is priced at £3,743 and the cost of electrical installation that you don't have with a standard boiler. So the "incremental capital cost" is the difference between installing a standard condensing boiler and a mCHP unit.

    Based on the results of the 9 days of operation it has generated an average of 8kWh/day of power and reduced normal electricity consumption by 4kWh/day. Based on my marginal electricity costs and the FIT rate of 10p/kWh for generation and 3p/kWh for export (which is assumed to be 50% of the quantity of electricity generated) I'm currently forecasting a total economic benefit of around £35 per month during the winter months. Gas usage is about 10% lower than the previous boiler but that was SEDBUK D rated, and of course is complicated by the external temperatures being different, i.e. warmer weather means lower gas usage.

    So from an economic perspective, and assuming just 6 months of substantial use in winter, that means income/savings of around £210/year, which divided by the incremental capital cost of about £3000, gives a simple yield of 7%. Whether this justifies the investment depends on what your cost of capital is. Taken over the 10 years of the FIT period and assuming a) that energy costs rise by around 10% per year on average, and b) the boiler lasts that long I calculate the nominal Internal Rate of Return at about 2%. Not great, but I'm betting on energy costs rising substantially more than 10% per year over the period.

    As the data improve with time I'll re-post with an update.

    Some other background information : The Ecogen design was developed by British Gas who then sold it to Baxi - part of the condition of sale being that only BG is authorised to install the Ecogen for Baxi. So you get slightly higher installation costs because it's BG rather than your average local heating and plumbing company. However, to get the FIT payment the installer needs to be MCS authorised, and most local companies aren't.


    Graham

    I in the process of getting the quotes done now. Does the £5977 installation cost include the inverter and the meter?
    (Im planning to get a 1kW air to air heat pump to use the elctricity to heat our living room thus reducing our gas consumption even more.. :) I will only switch the Heat pump on when the boiler is operating.

    Hope your CHP boiler works really well.
  • In a nutshell if you want to be on friends and family terms with your installer in my case BG. Do Not Buy One!
    Cost us £8.5k in sept 2011. To date we are awaiting Baxi's decision whether this one is to be condemended.
    The life span is two months. Gas boiler works fine but it's the electrics the sealed sterling engine fails. With this failure you don't generate electricity.
    Baxi is slower than slow to answer any questions.
    Save your money or spend it on a car you'll get more enjoyment.
    I live in the south west and I understand there are only a few installed our nearest Eco gen boiler has also generated the same fault.
    Buyer beware at all costs. Looks good on paper, but only a handful of engineers would be able to service it.
    Never had a whole quarter so can't comment on our feed in tariff refund. Watch this space how long will boiler No 3 last!! Then again how long will Baxi last churning out unsatisfactory boilers. Perhaps Watchdog would like a story?
  • GrahamE
    GrahamE Posts: 6 Forumite
    edited 5 March 2012 at 11:51AM
    tomw_b wrote: »
    Graham

    I in the process of getting the quotes done now. Does the £5977 installation cost include the inverter and the meter?
    (Im planning to get a 1kW air to air heat pump to use the elctricity to heat our living room thus reducing our gas consumption even more.. :) I will only switch the Heat pump on when the boiler is operating.

    Hope your CHP boiler works really well.

    Hi there Tom,
    The Ecogen doesn't have an inverter - the way it works is that the Sterling Engine is a reciprocating magnetic piston which generates electricity by passing up and down through a wire coil, (you'll remember from your school physics lessons that moving a wire through a magnetic field creates an electric current). The piston goes at the same frequency as mains electricity (50Hz) so the power generated is at mains frequency.

    The cost that I originally quoted of £5977 was for everything including the generation meter - nothing else to pay. I was sorry to read that West12 hasn't had a good experience with their unit - mine has been working fine.

    Anyway, having now had my Baxi Ecogen boiler in operation for a little more than one year I wanted to provide an update on its performance over the 12 months since it was installed (3 Feb 2011 - 3 Feb 2012). The figures on the amount of electrical energy saved are made slightly more complex because in July I also had a solar PV system installed, but I've tried to exclude the effects of this.

    Gas consumption for the 12 months was 22,970kWh. This compares to consumption with the old boiler (averaged over a period of four years) of 34,600kWh/yr. The Ecogen used only 66.4% as much gas as the old Potterton unit. So in efficiency terms I would say that the Ecogen is certainly equivalent to a typical SEDBUK A-rated standard condensing boiler. Financially just putting in the more efficient boiler has saved me about £390 (based on my marginal cost of gas). But, as others have pointed out, a similar saving could be achieved by installing an ordinarycondensing boiler, so this saving doesn't count toward the economics of having an Ecogen.

    During the year the Ecogen generated 1618kWh of electricity, and I received £193 in FiT payments for this. If I use the same assumption as the FiT scheme I should also have saved about 808kWh of mains electricity (i.e. 50% of my generated output) which is worth about £86 to me at my marginal cost of electricity. Therefore, based on the original incremental installed cost of the Ecogen (£3,077) the total simple return amounts to 9%.

    This of course isn't the right figure to use - you need to take account of the income over the whole 10 year period, and the original cost. If I assume that FiT payment rates will rise on average by 3% per year (i.e. the rate of RPI in the long term), and that electricity costs will go up by 8% per year (which is very conservative as the latest DECC study implies 14% per year) - I calculate that the rate of return on my investment is about 2.2%. That's not great but better than a typical savings account. If I used the DECC figures the return would be 4.1%.

    And in reference to Orffyreus's comment (13 Feb) that someone might run their boiler just to earn the tariff, they'd have to be quite financially illiterate to do this. My experience is that on average over the year the Ecogen consumes 14kWh of gas per generated kWh - so they'd be spending about 45p on gas to earn about 12p in FiT payments. Even assuming that only the 6kW burner is running, the unit would consume more than 18p of gas to make 12p of electricity.
  • berjerac
    berjerac Posts: 12 Forumite
    Ive just had a quote from BG for a baxi ecogen chp microgeneration boiler of £8,500. I'm in the south west and no other installers are around here. Tried to find out about Eon whispergen but no information on that.
    The lifting trolley needs clearance and needs to lift straight up, so cannot go on top of a cupboard. The clearance needed is
    min installation height 1450
    min installation width 515
    min installation depth 876 for the trolly, then this goes down to. h 950,w450,d426, for the boiler. bg rep said it can go on and internal wall, with some reinforcement. Not sure at all!
  • Orffyreus
    Orffyreus Posts: 12 Forumite
    berjerac, you can get a 3.68kw Solar panel array for about £6200 and a new combi with a 5 year guarantee should be about £1200. I know where my money would be spent. At current tariff rates you would possibly get £30,000 in payments and benefits over 25 years. Greenersky.co.uk
  • jamesingram
    jamesingram Posts: 301 Forumite
    Any update on pricing on these ?
    I presume if combined with PV fits would be ocnsidered total amount for tarriff levels?
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