I've been offered a yard to house my timber kiln, it is adjacent to a road with an electricity supply and I'm deciding whether to go with a generator 11 hours a day or the grid supply. SEEboard deem it a business connection and are asking for details of welders, motors, cranes etc. as well as the total load (about 15kW(e)max) before they will quote.
Has anybody knowledge of costs of a recent 100A domestic installation?
AJH
They are wanting to know how much surge capacity you need. I assume it's mostly a refrigeration plant, to do water removal? Those can use quite large amounts of electricity. If its insulated very well ~500mm, I would imagine you could do most of the heating, from recovering waste heat.
Sorry, can't help with up to date domestic connection charges, but isn't that rather irrelevant anyway, if they're trying to class you as a business connection?
As to details of loadings, that's standard practice. They have to be certain they have an adequate supply for anything you're likely to connect.
On what you say, however, a nominal load of 15kw for a kiln is likely to be mainly reistive, and shouldn't present any problems for them (or you).
Be warned, however, using welders, motors over 3hp or other 'dirty' loads may require some reinforcement of their distribution system, the costs for which will be included in the calculations for the charge to you, as the person who has brought about the need for the reinforcements.
As Wanderer says - ??
Anyway, FWIW I had to pay United Utiities 730 GBP two years ago for a new domestic installation. Specs: terraced house right on the pavement; existing main already buried in pavement; and muggins had to do all digging between outside of the house wall and meter position.
David
Just to compare with the quote they prepare for me, the "yard has a certain hope value for the owner so a supply already fitted will be a benefit for him.
I'd do the digging, so I guess the only other cost is having an electrician fit a consumer unit and outdoor sockets, it makes it worthwhile at these prices.
AJH
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No it uses waste heat and a through flow in dual cycle with a recirculating system, it removes about 3 tonne of water/shift.
AJH
There is one fan currently engine driven which will need a starter as it will probably draw 10kW, we have little way of telling what power it currently consumes as we have not monitored fuel consumption yet.
AJH
benefit for
pavement;
electrician
IIRC after my shop fire we were charged something like £600 to re-make the connection to the main that they cut off underground while smoke was billowing around, and then a further £600 to reconnect the cable to the meter. All the auxillary works such as trenching and locating the new commercial equiv of a consumer unit were done at extra cost by my contractor. Also my contractor ended up repairing the drain EDF broke whilst disconnecting us in the first place. Lucky I was insured
AWEM
Err. It seems to me that it's quite reasonable to class something this large as industrial...
I'm sure you know this, but you are definitely into 3phase territory by the time you're talking about 10kW motors.
As for installation prices as far as I can tell, they roll dice. Or it's based on the niceness of the biscuits you give the guy who comes around, or something else similarly incomphrehensible.
A friend had a quote in East Anglia of about 800 quid for a bog-standard three phase 100A/phase installation (negligible distance) last year. Expect it to be at least about the same again for very minimal wiring to go with such an installation.
I'd guess your 20kVA generator is going to cost a few thousand quid a year to run just in fuel (200*11*4*.33 was my basis for this), so there's a bit to play with.
Cheers,
Will
I agree, as I said I was looking for a comparison, initial feedback is that costs are similar.
AJH
I was thinking I might get away with a number of smaller ones, started in sequence but we'll see.
Yes at the figures you are quoting the grid connection is a snap compared with running a generator.
AJH
Thanks, these figures are all in the ballpark that make generating un competitive. Though I note you still needed a big generator for your induction furnace.
AJH
If you can use the recovered heat from the exhaust, then it can be much less clear.
At least on fuel costs.
I dont see how a gen could ever compare with grid. Setup costs are usually higher, fuel costs are much higher, there's equipment maintenance, repair and replacement, and finally it ties you in to a certain amount of labour and inconvenience. If the prices were even close I'd go grid.
If you want heat at competitive rates I'd take a good look here:
Not long ago people were saying that self generated power was cheaper. Why's it changed? Is it because diesel prices have risen more than electricity prices? Aren't we also in for another hike in electricity price?
It hasn't. In recent memory, generation of electricity yourself, from 'normal' fuels has not really been very close. The best large power plants are bumping up to 50% thermal efficiency.
My generator, for example, specifies a fuel consumption of 230g/ per horsepower hour (for the engine). Say at 4hp, that'll be 920g/hour, or about 1.5l, for 2880W of shaft power. If the generator bit is 90% efficient, that's 2600W, or 1.7Kwh/l.
If I run it on road taxed petrol, that's about 60p/Kwh. On untaxed, it'd be about 30p/Kwh.
Or a little less if it was running on gas.
This is maybe 3 times more than grid electricity prices.
The very best conventional generators may get to 2 times.
Where it can be worthwhile is if you can use the waste heat of the engine. In this case, it can beat - on fuel costs - grid electricity.
Anyone seen these things? Mentioned in the press a few months ago; the idea is you have your vwery own natural gas-powered generator ibn the kitchen! IIRC payback time was about 10 years or something:
David
Yes, when I was involved with fitting a chp system based on a 10kVA genset into a classroom, several years ago, the diesel fuel cost was almost exactly comparable with the value of electricity generated compared with grid electricity. In that case the connection charge would have been GBP50k.
As I recall O&M cost of the genset far exceeded the value of any heat recovered during the heating season.
The problem is that there is a six fold difference between the bulk price of electricity and its distributed price but the same applies to diesel.
AJH
I'm not surprised. People often seem to make casual mental comparisons between car servicing and generator maintainance - not realising that one year of 24/7 generator running is *way* more hours than you would expect an ordinary car to do in its entire life. (Acknowledging, of course, that some automotive wear mechanisms are absent for the generator.)
Having looked after various people using generators to power their isolated houses, I always try to discourage others from getting into that sort of situation too casually.
Will
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