Combining Heat and Electrical Generation . . . At Home!
Those of us most familiar with the water heating strategy in the US face an everyday problem with which I can relate. For every shower I take, I have to let 1.5 gallons of cold water drain from the long, cold pipe hanging in my crawlspace before the hot water from my garage water tank reaches the spigot in my shower . . . at the exact opposite end of the house. To reduce these frustrating transmission losses, many in Europe have switched to tankless water heaters that provide on-demand hot water much closer to where that water is used. I remember being fascinated by these smallish boxes mounted on the walls of tiny bathrooms in Britain, wondering how they produce the heat for my shower.
That said, this little gizmo has gotten me really excited. It's a home hot water heater that produces electricity at the same time. It's the Baxi Ecogen, a Combined Heat & Power generator designed to fit in and provide both hot water and extra power for British homes.
The Ecogen produces the hot water exactly as other tankless boilers do, but adds a helium-charged solid state Stirling engine that produces electricity from the excess boiler heat, up to 1.1 kW per 24 kW of heat energy. Furthermore, these engines do away with the traditional mechanical linkages of old and pull power from the pistons instead with electromagnets, thus converting the piston movement directly into electricity where it is fed back into the grid. Hopefully the trials will prove the units and, after some expansion, models providing US current will become available.
Why is this so exciting? Currently, whenever we want hot water, we must consume electricity from the grid to produce it. That goes for everyone with an electric water heater, tankless or not. With an Ecogen (and a gas line), every time we produce hot water for our needs we also provide the grid with extra electrical power we or our neighbors can use -- without consuming any extra natural gas! The Ecogen system simply captures a portion of the heat most tankless boilers otherwise lose and converts it to electric power.
Let's extrapolate just a bit. When it gets colder outside, the power plants must work harder to power the individual furnaces with their electric pumps and fans, baseboard heaters, space heaters. Let's say one used a hydronic radiator system (these, for example) instead of gas, oil or electric, and charged it with an Ecogen system. Whenever heat is needed in colder weather, the electric connection from this house would be providing some power to the grid at just the time others need it; if enough houses convert to this or similar systems, power companies can avoid buying expensive peak power. This is cogeneration at its finest!
What had me really excited, though, was the potential availability of just the Stirling engines and the hardware to connect them to the grid. This would provide me with a good reason to expand the planned solar hot water system and convert the extra heat we capture into power we can use and sell. Products like this -- and expanded incentive programs that will help people install them -- give me hope for the future of our grid.
That said, this little gizmo has gotten me really excited. It's a home hot water heater that produces electricity at the same time. It's the Baxi Ecogen, a Combined Heat & Power generator designed to fit in and provide both hot water and extra power for British homes.
The Ecogen produces the hot water exactly as other tankless boilers do, but adds a helium-charged solid state Stirling engine that produces electricity from the excess boiler heat, up to 1.1 kW per 24 kW of heat energy. Furthermore, these engines do away with the traditional mechanical linkages of old and pull power from the pistons instead with electromagnets, thus converting the piston movement directly into electricity where it is fed back into the grid. Hopefully the trials will prove the units and, after some expansion, models providing US current will become available.
Why is this so exciting? Currently, whenever we want hot water, we must consume electricity from the grid to produce it. That goes for everyone with an electric water heater, tankless or not. With an Ecogen (and a gas line), every time we produce hot water for our needs we also provide the grid with extra electrical power we or our neighbors can use -- without consuming any extra natural gas! The Ecogen system simply captures a portion of the heat most tankless boilers otherwise lose and converts it to electric power.
Let's extrapolate just a bit. When it gets colder outside, the power plants must work harder to power the individual furnaces with their electric pumps and fans, baseboard heaters, space heaters. Let's say one used a hydronic radiator system (these, for example) instead of gas, oil or electric, and charged it with an Ecogen system. Whenever heat is needed in colder weather, the electric connection from this house would be providing some power to the grid at just the time others need it; if enough houses convert to this or similar systems, power companies can avoid buying expensive peak power. This is cogeneration at its finest!
What had me really excited, though, was the potential availability of just the Stirling engines and the hardware to connect them to the grid. This would provide me with a good reason to expand the planned solar hot water system and convert the extra heat we capture into power we can use and sell. Products like this -- and expanded incentive programs that will help people install them -- give me hope for the future of our grid.