Comments on: Make Electric Power in Your Basement?

By: Tim Hitchcock

Tim Hitchcock — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:00:21 +0000

Helpful info. CHP works well when space heating is done with circulating hot water, in radiators and radiant floors; the norm in norther europe. German units are preferred in Scandinavia…e.g., Siemens and Krupps. Even more ubiquitous in Scandinavia are centralized community boilers which circulate heated water through insulated pipe networks.

Capstone Turbine has been doing CHP for years using microturbines and heat exchangers, in 30kW and 60kW packages, that can be configured for several liquid and gas fuels. They produce 3-phase AC power at the same time, nice match for light industry.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:47:57 +0000

Why produce electicity this way for 15-20 cents per KW when nuclear produces the same for a retail rate at half the cost with ZERO green house gases? This just uses natural gas for nothing.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:28:29 +0000

OK article, but I’d like some technical details on how different CG systems work.

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By: Rom

Rom — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:59:20 +0000

I read about a company that uses solar thermal for hot water(heating) in the winter and used the excess heat in the summer to run a Stirling engine to produce electricity to run the AC. It seems like a good idea. I imagine there is a ton more heat generated in the summer than needed for hot water. Might as well put it to use.

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:15:43 +0000

Yeah, solar thermal would be a much cleaner source for a co-generation unit than gas. But as long as people use gas, this is a way to make it cleaner, by getting 2 outputs per input. In Europe they use biomass waste.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 06:44:48 +0000

Learn something new everyday.

Unfortunately these things run off gas and not energy falling out of the sky, so there’s a fuel cost. From my experience with Gas heating it’s not a super cheap source of energy.

A way a co-generation system might make sense was if the heat source was solar thermal, like a solar water heating system, but it depends how these residential generators turn gas into electricity.

By: Hippy Hop

Hippy Hop — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 02:38:48 +0000

Oh. Actually, this is not a new thing anymore. I already saw this done some countries and some households in the US as well. But this is still a not much known alternative for most of us homeowners. But this is really a great idea and a great way to reduce electric bills.