Valhalla

[shaunuk]

remember that its not a purely ROI based on money, there is also return on smugness (ROS ?) when your running of your own generated power all day and night, which for me is worth 2x the ROI in money terms

 

[dawsonnick]

You're 100% correct on that one!

 

[johnb2713]

remember that its not a purely ROI based on money, there is also return on smugness (ROS ?) when your running of your own generated power all day and night, which for me is worth 2x the ROI in money terms

I had a great deal of mega smugness on Christmas day, the whole 24 hours run on 7.5p kWh and today, we wont be using any grid electricity at all.

 

[offgridAndy]

I've looked at going off-grid for several customers over the years, the numbers just don't stack up, unless you are prepared to live like a hermit.

I'd beg to differ actually. My house has dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier etc. Plus lights and all normal stuff. UFH (wet system). We have 1000Ah (C5) @24 V lead acid. Quote for replacements in Oct 2022 was £155 per 2V cell so £1860 plus VAT from ManBat who are now called Ecobat. I'm actually going to upgrade to 48V Lipo's, which will cost £7000 =/- for a 48Kw 48V battery.

Last 12 months my running costs has been 350 litre red diesel for the genny at 60p litre. So my all up electric cost for 2022 was £210. Can't see I'll get a house run for much less. BTW we use 12Kw per day.

 

[dawsonnick]

I'd beg to differ actually. My house has dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier etc. Plus lights and all normal stuff. UFH (wet system). We have 1000Ah (C5) @24 V lead acid. Quote for replacements in Oct 2022 was £155 per 2V cell so £1860 plus VAT from ManBat who are now called Ecobat. I'm actually going to upgrade to 48V Lipo's, which will cost £7000 =/- for a 48Kw 48V battery.

Last 12 months my running costs has been 350 litre red diesel for the genny at 60p litre. So my all up electric cost for 2022 was £210. Can't see I'll get a house run for much less. BTW we use 12Kw per day.

That is certainly efficient and rather neat.

 

[johnb2713]

I'm actually going to upgrade to 48V Lipo's, which will cost £7000 =/- for a 48Kw 48V battery.

Upgrade to LifeP04 batteries, way better than LiPo, Fogstar in the UK are great supplier, good prices etc etc.

 

[offgridAndy]

Hi there, thanks for that. I had found a reference tho this in one of the threads earlier today.

 

[binky]

I'd beg to differ actually. My house has dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier etc. Plus lights and all normal stuff. UFH (wet system). We have 1000Ah (C5) @24 V lead acid. Quote for replacements in Oct 2022 was £155 per 2V cell so £1860 plus VAT from ManBat who are now called Ecobat. I'm actually going to upgrade to 48V Lipo's, which will cost £7000 =/- for a 48Kw 48V battery.

Last 12 months my running costs has been 350 litre red diesel for the genny at 60p litre. So my all up electric cost for 2022 was £210. Can't see I'll get a house run for much less. BTW we use 12Kw per day.

it's not £210, as you have spent £thousands on the gear and that all has a limited lifespan, so you need to divide the lifespan into plant cost to get a yearly figure, plus add any maintenance costs. Now , its fair to say, if you are in an off-grid place and getting a grid connection will cost say £10k or more, then the money spent on gear is offset against that cost, and it's also fair to say last time I did any numbers for a client was around 8 years ago, long before energy price hikes. It's also fair to say the customers I was talking to wanted all green energy, and no gennies, which makes it very hard to achieve as you have to over spec everything to cover a long spell of bad weather, and they all had a grid connection already, so the plant cost wasn't merited at the time. Those clients were also heavy energy users, way in excess of your 12kW a day - I use less than that, but heating is gas/ woodburners. 12kW I would say is quite low in this day and age and quite achievable as you already know. I'm guessing your heating is via woodbuners or the like?

 

[offgridAndy]

Hi Binky. Of course it's only a running cost per annum for electric not the all up cost to run the house, but I'm still pretty chuffed!

I don't want to hijack someone elses thread so I won't start a long conversation here. Suffice to say that my system obviously has developed greatly over the 20 years and we started off using 2500 Ltr red diesel plus about the same 28Sec oil for a boiler per annum.

I've got an air source heat pump to fit next so I could put up a post about that as it develops. Then I'll get shot down by the Pro's but I can take it.

 

[johnb2713]

I've got an air source heat pump to fit next so I could put up a post about that as it develops. Then I'll get shot down by the Pro's but I can take it.

Dont worry about the 'noisy' pro's, keep us updated, sounds interesting and route I may be pursuing myself soon.

Did you ever consider running your generator as a Combined Heat and Power plant? I've done it a couple of times on industrial sized gennys and was toying with doing for my domestic installation. It makes good use of the waste heat from power generation.

 

[offgridAndy]

Helo John, Adding in the heat source pump involves an overhaul of my heating system with a new twin coil tank, controls etc. Where should I start a new post?

My lister is in a seperate building about 25 mtr from the house. And as my original aim was to reduce use of genny I was not willing to invest resources into a vanishing resource, ie waste heat.

 

[johnb2713]

Helo John, Adding in the heat source pump involves an overhaul of my heating system with a new twin coil tank, controls etc. Where should I start a new post?

My lister is in a seperate building about 25 mtr from the house. And as my original aim was to reduce use of genny I was not willing to invest resources into a vanishing resource, ie waste heat.

Maybe a new forum should be created here for green heating systems and controls. (Admin?)

The whole CHP gets quite interesting with efficiencies, on one of the sites I did they weren't using enough electricity to generate the heat they needed so we added a few electric water boilers into the mix and did the trick, electricity heating water with the additional load providing more heat too. It would have been interesting to add a water to water heat pump into that mix to really extract the last bit of waste heat.

 

[binky]

I've got an air source heat pump to fit next so I could put up a post about that as it develops. Then I'll get shot down by the Pro's but I can take it.

We only shoot down idiots who impersonate being competent whilst charging people money for their ignorance.

If you have a bit of land, ground source works better. But do keep us posted, there's been a lot of discussion about heat pumps in general, can't say I'm too convinced by them, but I haven't got one. My next target is external wall insulation, single skin Victorian walls are a bit lacking heat retention.