

Swarm of 100,000 generators will produce power on demand - AndrewDucker
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-09-home-power-plants-project-unveiled-in-germany/

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ekanes
An example of pointing to the one big measurable thing "Hey, no big ugly power
plant in the countryside" and missing the sum effects of 100,000 real actual
people having these in their basements.

It will "save" money, but actually each of these 100,000 people pays $7,000 to
get started (and then saves some on their bills).

It's innovative and the _best-case scenario_ looks good, but the many unknowns
and places it could go wrong make it likely a mistake down the road.

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jws
The unstressed win here is the cogeneration. The waste heat is captured and
used for building heat and hot water. That gets them the 92% efficiency
number. On a CO2/(kwhr at the house) basis you can't beat that with
centralized power plants.

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stcredzero
Also, if they provision these households with something like the WhisperGen,
then there's also a gain in efficiency from the use of a Stirling engine.
There would also be a benefit from economies of scale. Right now Stirling
engines are expensive because they are uncommon. Increasing demand for them
would make their high efficiency cheaper, and therefore more widely available.

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radu_floricica
Why on earth would they want _less_ nuclear power? And replaced with low-
efficiency gas, too. Are they sponsored by the Russians or something? Because
from an ecological point of view I don't really see any reason.

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AndrewDucker
You only run the numbers you need at any one moment, and you can power up/down
extremely quickly. This gives you fantastic control over additional power.

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wizard_2
There's delivery and demand advantage to decentralizing power generation.
There's also a huge load balancing challenge associated with it.

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stcredzero
These things can only deliver power to the local distribution node. As for
load balancing, I don't think it's an insurmountable challenge to respond to
the local distribution network's load. Microprocessors excel at this sort of
thing. Install a large, over-sized hot water tank to the customers with this,
and it's even easier. Install larger generators at local power-hungry
businesses that also use hot water, and it's even easier.

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jasongullickson
Sounds like a generator repair man's paradise...

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ramchip
_Gas plants have an advantage over nuclear power stations in that the heat
produced by the latter is wasted, the DIW energy expert said._

And by the same reasoning, they have an advantage over solar stations...
Reusing the heat will boost the efficiency a little (if you define it as
pollution per kW/h generated), but it'll still be nowhere near nuclear power.

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nradov
What happens when Russia or Ukraine cuts off their gas supply again?

David JC MacKay has some better ideas on alternatives to micro-CHP.
[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c21/page_14...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c21/page_145.shtml)

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mmt
My municipal power company has already implemented multi-stage gas-fired
generation in its new power plant.

Fortunately, I'm in California, where the weather is warm, so ideal here would
be to use waste heat from an air conditioner to pre-heat water.

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sireat
This does seem to bank on the fact of the big Baltic Sea pipeline Russia-
Germany coming into service.

I like the idea of a small power station, but if you are going to be paying
$7,000 per installation, you might as well go solar or wind power(probably
wouldnt generate as much power though).

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illumen
Seems likely that the gas part could be abstracted out... once the rest is
working ok. Then people could have a choice of putting in a solar or a wind
generator... or having all three.

Gas lets them simplify the problem. Since the power generation is more easily
controlled with gas, it makes the task less risky.

It's also a multiple use thing... people already pay for heating, electricity,
and for hot water, so this thing does all that for them too. So you can spread
the cost over those things, plus you get paid rent, and money every year
depending on how much power you generate. Finally you pay less on your
electricity bills.

As a bonus they get to pump money into a car company... which governments are
wanting to do now to stop them dying. I wouldn't be surprised if there are
government subsides people could get to cover the $7k too. Extending a
mortgage for these things would be very easy to get as well.

A very sensible approach all around... a good first step.

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kirubakaran
Its like EC2 for power generation.

