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Electrician Nerd Needed - Induction Generation

7K views 59 replies 18 participants last post by  Termite 
#1 ·
Hi - My utility lets us sell power to the grid if we use biomass and they let you sell 10 megawatts. The income comes to $8 million a year if you can hook it up.

I'd settle for $100,000.

I'm really fixated on this. I think I need a therapist more than an electrician.

Grid connect is difficult and difficult but an arrangement called induction generation connects you to the grid. The phase is adopted by the generation so it always matches. You can brief yourself on this matter with inet searches.

I have lots of questions but I'll do this. I want to do 100kw - go ahead and dispell me.

Good luck!

Phillip
 
#38 ·
pmanske;575815]Hi - Gen manufacturers would not make a gen set that could not handle its own power. Three installers of these systems have not been concerned about current. They are concerned about about phase matching, voltage regulation and islanding. We does not talk about current.
I have no clue what you are talking about. You need to be concerned about current because every one of your pieces of equipment must be rated to handle the current of your system.

and you weren't talking about genset manufacturers. You were cobbling together one of the generators you linked and whatever prime mover you ended up using.

One thing I have and everyone else has missed is demand/load. When the load goes up, more fuel is needed as the engine has to turn more to keep up speed. I have no idea what load will be
.and this shows why this won't work for you. The load on your equipment will be the same, morning noon or night. You are producing power and how much power you feed to the grid is your load.



.
I'm not certain if you need switchgear for each engine or if you can bank them into one switchgear.
I think you need to research so you know what switchgear is.
 
#39 ·
I have no clue what you are talking about. You need to be concerned about current because every one of your pieces of equipment must be rated to handle the current of your system.

and you weren't talking about genset manufacturers. You were cobbling together one of the generators you linked and whatever prime mover you ended up using.

.and this shows why this won't work for you. The load on your equipment will be the same, morning noon or night. You are producing power and how much power you feed to the grid is your load.



. I think you need to research so you know what switchgear is.


You are dead wrong about load. The current is on the device using the power, not on the gen set. The only breaker on the genset is attached to the genset to make sure the system is protected if the gen itself shorts out.

Increased demand on the gen shows by increased demand on the prime mover. We ran a fresh water boiler that made stream to make fresh water from sea water and it took lots of power. The supply of watts was maintained only by increasing engine RPM - the power load was shifted to the engine. If you look at a fuel use chart for diesel engines you'll see 1/4 load, 1/2 load etc. Lower load means no one is drawing power ie off peak demand.


Load = resistance whether it is a normal use or a short. Short = infinite resistance. If you put out 700 KW and no one uses it, there is no load. If you put out 700kw and you get demand for 900 KW, the machines won't work
or the bulbs wont go bright or the network breaker may go.

Current is caused by resistance and resistance is load. A generator is a piece of wire that makes no current.

P
 
#40 ·
Look here.... if you a battery in flashlight but do not turn the bulb on the battery (gen) will last a long while but the battery/genset is set up to provide. Once you turn the light on the load is applied and the battery has a shorter life as the light consumes the potential in the battery.

If you wanted to game that WE contract you could measure grid load and not produce when grid demand is high. You'd still get paid for providing the watts but you would feed no load thus saving fuel.

P
 
#41 ·
Hi - I really don't know what that meter really measures. The meter measures as the watts go across, it does not measure potential or what is available. If the outgo meter is the opposite of the income meter than the meters measures what is drawn, not what is provided or what the grid is capable of providing. Your house meter measures the kw hours your houses uses, not what is available on the grid.

P
 
#44 ·
pmanske;575838]You are dead wrong about load. The current is on the device using the power, not on the gen set.
so, what would be "the load"? The millions of homes connected to the grid maybe? You are misunderstanding what you are doing here.

The only breaker on the genset is attached to the genset to make sure the system is protected if the gen itself shorts out.
Well, not true at all. In fact, a breaker on a genset would not be involved if there was a short on the generator side of the breaker.

.
We ran a fresh water boiler that made stream to make fresh water from sea water and it took lots of power.
Oh God. Not the famous boiling water experiment. Ya got me now.
The supply of watts was maintained only by increasing engine RPM -
Really now. I think you might want to research generators. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

the power load was shifted to the engine.
you really don't understand any of this.

If you look at a fuel use chart for diesel engines you'll see 1/4 load, 1/2 load etc. Lower load means no one is drawing power ie off peak demand.
ok, you believe whatever you want


Load = resistance whether it is a normal use or a short.
wrong

Short = infinite resistance.
no. 100% incorrect.

If you put out 700 KW and no one uses it, there is no load. If you put out 700kw and you get demand for 900 KW, the machines won't work
or the bulbs wont go bright or the network breaker may go.
So, you figure they just save those electrons in an electron reservoir somewhere?

Current is caused by resistance and resistance is load.
wrong

A generator is a piece of wire that makes no current.
wrong
 
#45 ·
=pmanske;575841]Look here.... if you a battery in flashlight but do not turn the bulb on the battery (gen)
a battery is not a generator, at least in the terms we are dealing with.



If you wanted to game that WE contract you could measure grid load and not produce when grid demand is high. You'd still get paid for providing the watts but you would feed no load thus saving fuel.
ya, they need to fill up the electron resevoir. They don't pay as much for that as when somebody is actually using the power.
 
#47 ·
Fuel efficiency & run time
Look for a generator that is both fuel efficient and has a long run time. Honda generators offer several features that meet this need.

Honda Inverter generators feature our exclusive Eco-Throttle, which automatically adjusts the engine speed to match the power needed. This allows for maximum fuel efficiency.

Because our EU generators are so fuel efficient, they boast incredibly long run times- as much as 20 hours on a single tank of gas!

Our EB and EM generators have large fuel tanks, so you can run your generator for long periods of time without refilling.

Most Honda EB and EM generators feature Auto Throttle. Auto Throttle automatically raises the RPM of the generator from idle when the load is applied, and returns the RPM to idle when the load is removed. It helps to increase fuel efficiency, reduce the noise level, and decrease wear and tear on the generator's components.


It is your position that an engine attached to a gen will spin at one speed regardless of load. Honda and I disagree with you. You can make 500kw an hour but its a big deal if no one wants to use the power. No power requests = no load. The gen will operate at 500kw but at a low engine speed. When load is applied, the RPMs of the engine go up. When load is taken off, the RPMs and fuel consumption drop.

P
 
#48 ·
It is your position that an engine attached to a gen will spin at one speed regardless of load. Honda and I disagree with you. You can make 500kw an hour but its a big deal if no one wants to use the power. No power requests = no load. The gen will operate at 500kw but at a low engine speed. When load is applied, the RPMs of the engine go up. When load is taken off, the RPMs and fuel consumption drop.

P
You go ahead and believe whatever you want. Throttling an engine does not mean an increase in speed. Just like in your car. when you go up a hill you must push the accelerator pedal and open the throttle simply to maintain the same engine speed.

in a generator, it is even more important to maintain a constant and specific speed. The frequency of the power produced is determined by the number of poles in the generator and the speed of rotation. If you alter the speed, you alter the frequency.

A typical generator will run at 3600 RPM.

btw, the Honda units you posted about:

Honda 's inverter technology takes the raw power produced by the generator and uses a special microprocessor to condition it through a multi-step process.

First, the generator's alternator produces high voltage multiphase AC power. The AC power is then converted to DC. Finally the DC power is converted back to AC by the inverter. The inverter also smoothes and cleans the power to make it high quality. A special microprocessor controls the entire process, as well as the speed of the engine.
that is not common in a genset and doesn't apply itself well to high power output generators without a considerable cost penalty.
 
#51 ·
Hi - You can hook a diesel gen to the grid by hacking a solar/PV inverter.

The inverter does not care where the electricity comes from as long as it meets the required input.

The volts/amps/watts required for input are bizarre and not produced by off the shelf DC gens. You'll need a custom wound gen to produce at that rate. You can use a wind turbine gen simply by attaching it to a engine is you wish. The wing turbine gens are pricey due to special windings but a gen wired to produce at one speed is much less complex sans development cost.

So - that is how you hook a generator to the grid.

P
 
#54 ·
Don't let all the haters discourage you pmanske, you're on to something here.

I used to work for a company that built power plants in the 89's and 90's. Our plants were from 5Mw to 250Mw. Back then, the basic number was one million dollars per megawatt of power output as a turn key construction cost. I would imagine that there has not been a dramitic reduction of these 1985 budget numbers.

So the genset should set you back about what $500K ? Then zoning, lease, EPA and FERC hoops
 
#55 ·
Hi Anti - thanks for the time. The inverter is expensive at least for me but it looks like it will work very well.

The next alternative is induction generation. If you don't know about that, read on it as its pretty interesting. I have some gossip about the utilities not accepting grid connect even with UL approved induction gens. I did find one local electric contractor willing to do a study to see if they would connect and they want $5000 - $10000. USDA has a grant available for such studies and I'll write that in a few days. I don't like that part where I pay and if study says yes and then everyone else gets to connect for free.

https://www.selinc.com/search/SearchPage.aspx?searchtext=700gt

SELinc has a grid tie device that looks good but I'm still talking with them
700GT

Cheers!
 
#59 ·
Hi Gary,

My posts are on topic, they always have been. I've talked about fuel, contracts, grid connections and those matters are close enough. You are free to interpret the rules as you like.

The quality of the discussion here is bad. You should shut the site down for that reason. It certainly hasn't helped me any.

Good luck,

Phillip
 
#60 ·
Hi Gary,

My posts are on topic, they always have been. I've talked about fuel, contracts, grid connections and those matters are close enough. You are free to interpret the rules as you like.

The quality of the discussion here is bad. You should shut the site down for that reason. It certainly hasn't helped me any.

Good luck,

Phillip
In that case, we'll just go ahead and close this thread, but will stop short of shutting down the site.
 
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