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jjoshua
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ

jjoshua

Premium Member

Status of Micro-CHP in US

Where can I find a Micro-CHP system in the US?

I need to replace my nat gas furnace and HWH soon. I might as well get a system that can provide electricity at the same time.

Is anyone selling these systems any more?

Anonuser
join:2003-01-03
Milwaukee, WI

Anonuser

Member

I'd love one of those systems!

I am looking into something similar-ish..
Hybrid water heater. Uses a heat pump to absorb heat in the room to heat the water, having a 2 fold effect of cooling the room and heating the water. Though, not the best for Wisconsin, as we are colder climate longer portion of the year then warm. If I lived down south, it would be perfect!

PSWired
join:2006-03-26
Annapolis, MD

PSWired to jjoshua

Member

to jjoshua
»www.marathonengine.com/c ··· ion.html

jjoshua
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ

jjoshua

Premium Member

I received info from them. Their systems may be a bit too large for my needs. Also, the price is $40-$50K.

Plus, their system does not work in case of a POCO failure.

PSWired
join:2006-03-26
Annapolis, MD

PSWired

Member

There was a honda one floating around at one point as well. Not sure that it was ever distributed in the US.

»world.honda.com/CSR/spec ··· rt-home/

jjoshua
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ

jjoshua

Premium Member

»www.freewatt.com/product ··· WarmPlus

This system is no longer being sold. The company is waiting for Honda's next generation product which may be available in 2 years.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
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tschmidt

MVM

said by jjoshua:

This system is no longer being sold.

I looked at that system a few years ago.

One of the problems with micro-CHP is there is not a good solution for summer air conditioning. During winter waste heat from electricity production can be used for space heating in addition to hot water generation.

During the summer the big load in most homes is air conditioning. If someone is able to effectively use waste heat for AC I think the market for micro-CHP would explode. One possible solution is to use waste heat for humidity reduction thus reducing overall energy demand.

The other limitation is availability of cheap natural gas. Economics do not make sense if you live in the boonies and need to use Propane, as it is much more expensive.

/tom

jjoshua
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ

jjoshua

Premium Member

Yeah. Would just run the system to produce hot water during the summer which is silly because we could use heat from the A/C compressor for that.

ropeguru
Premium Member
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA

ropeguru to jjoshua

Premium Member

to jjoshua
Does anyone have any info on the NG consumption running one of these 24x7? Would be interesting to see the amount of NG needed to provide electricity and heat in the winter vs. an NG 90+ efficiency furnace and needing electricity.

I looked on a couple of web sites but none of them gave an indication as to typical consumption. Just useless charts.

pike
Premium Member
join:2001-02-01
Washington, DC

pike to tschmidt

Premium Member

to tschmidt
said by tschmidt:

said by jjoshua:

This system is no longer being sold.

During the summer the big load in most homes is air conditioning. If someone is able to effectively use waste heat for AC I think the market for micro-CHP would explode.

I once had a house with a natural-gas fired absorbtion air conditioner, using ammonia for refrigerant. Would the heat output of a micro-CHP be sufficient to operate this type of A/C?

PSWired
join:2006-03-26
Annapolis, MD

1 recommendation

PSWired

Member

It's done commercially, but I'm not aware of any small-scale absorber that uses combustion waste heat. I started looking into this last year but never pursued it.
PSWired

PSWired to pike

Member

to pike
Also to answer your question about the heat output- you'd be generating far more electricity than your house could consume in order to meet the home's cooling load with a generator waste heat fired absorber unit. Whether this would make any economic sense depends on the cost of gas, your utility's net metering terms, electric rates, and generator maintenance costs.

My gut says this would be very difficult to make feasible for residential.
MaynardKrebs
We did it. We heaved Steve. Yipee.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-17

MaynardKrebs to jjoshua

Premium Member

to jjoshua
Ingersoll-Rand make units too but they are overkill for what you want. Most CHP units are best utilized for commercial building installations, or for say a small townhouse complex with 'district heating'.

As to the 'wasted' summertime hot water issue, bury a large superinsulated holding tank and store hot water in there for use in radiant floor heating in the fall, or keep your Olympic-size pool @ 86F