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Generator query


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Hi everybody...

I have really enjoyed reading many of the posts on this forum, and I would really appreciate some honest feedback on what I have written below. It is clear to me that there are some very knowledgeable contributors out there!

I work for a small, family-run UK based (but French speaking!) power engineering company who specialise in the manufacture of top quality bespoke generators. The majority of our products go into mobile welfare units (used on building sites etc), to provide light, heating, hot water, and power for their occupants; however, we are curious to know if there is a market out there for our product to assist, back up or replace a domestic supply.

I am not talking about a little petrol set the size of a beer crate here, (which could just about power a kettle), but rather a 4 cylinder diesel engine providing up to 27 kVA (or more if required...) housed in its own super-silent acoustic canopy, which could run (if required) continuously, and would only need a service every 1,000 running hours.

The advantages, as I see it, are below...

·         Continuity of supply – a generator can ‘kick in’ automatically should the mains supply fail giving a constant supply of power

·         Synergy of fuel supply – a generator can run on gas oil, kerosene or gas allowing it to ‘tap in’ to many existing central heating resources. Failing this, we can provide a self contained bunded tank of up to 600 litres (allowing tanker deliveries of 500 litres (the minimum for most UK based fuel companies) whilst still having a supply of 100 litres in the tank)... or an even larger separate tank allowing months or even years between filling up

·         Lower electricity tariff – provides the option of having a separate circuit for ‘heavy’ appliances such as washing machines, kettles etc powered on demand by a generator, and just using the mains supply for the ‘lighter’ appliances such as lighting, TV’s, PC’s etc.

As you can imagine, these machines won’t fit under the kitchen sink (800mm deep, 1500mm wide, 900mm high (without fuel tank – 1500mm with)) and would need to sit tucked away in a garage or somewhere similar... they would also probably cost in the region of £8-12K, so fall into the bracket of serious investment rather than a ‘nice to have’ luxury! With this in mind, my thoughts are that it may suit bigger, more rural properties with an unreliable power source, but then again, I may be way off!

It might be that everyone already has a generator, or that electricity supply is cheap, plentiful, and reliable, and that this idea is a non-starter; however, I would love to know your thoughts on this before I invest any more time and money into looking for agents / distributors etc.

Many thanks for your comments in advance – if you want more, I will be happy to bore you with all the information you can handle!

James

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I was interested until I saw the price and thats in GBP !  But, realistically, thats expected for the kit you're talking about.  What many farms do around here is simply have a generator that can be connected to a tractor PTO, cost 1000 - 2000 € buys you quite a large unit, just ready to lift on the 3 point and away you go.  I saw recently a 5kVA diesel genset for I thin k 600 €, not bad, not quality, but as an insurance for the freezers, its fine.  Just my take, those with big swimming pools may have different views.

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Thanks for that!

On reflection, I think that the product we are offering will be better suited to larger remote houses - An old school friend of mine had been faced with a masive connection bill on a rural property, and hearing his story, I thought that a generator might solve the issue. However, rather than just use one as a back up, we would provide a primary source... you couldn't permantly run your house off a tractor PTO, but with our kit which utilises a battery bank and an inverter, the generator only fires up (automatically) when the batteries are low, or when a large demand occurs (kettles / washing machines) and then runs until the demand drops and the batteries are full again. This means that it only runs maybe 2-4 hours per day using under 2 litres of gas oil (at 50p/litre) per hour.

This also frees the owner of EDF's shackles, although it seems that if the property is already connected to the network, there will little benfit in purchasing one of our lovely big generators!

If, by any chance someone is interested in the above, you can contact me . Once again, thanks for the feedback!

James

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This is a modern, Western, first-world country, you know! Here (in France), electricity is cheaper than in the UK, and available just about everywhere! I don't know where people get the idea that French supplies are unreliable from; my supply here in rural Brittany is miles more reliable than the supply in Urban Worcestershire ever was...

EDF don't have a monopoly any more...

Sorry, but I doubt if you would have as big a market here as you have in the UK, plus, there are several French suppliers of such equipment (mostly for backup and site supplies, too).

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I too was quite interested until I saw the cost.

I have a smallish rural proerty in 87 which has no mains electricity (nor water for that matter) and no possibility of getting mains electricity as the cost would be exhorbitant. We currently rely on a small solar power set up for lights, satellite TV and CD player and use a £200 petrol generator for power tools and for pumping water from the well as and when required.

The house is wired with power points and light sockets for use with a permanent generator but when I look at usage I start to feel that the solar power's doing pretty well so the only additional thing we'd need a generator for would be kitchen appliances - although with a gas cooker even that seems a bit unlikely. Sure there's a few inconveniences in not having mains power but I doubt I would want to overcome them by using a 10k euros generator.

My ultimate plan is to by a half decent diesel generator with a remote start which can be used as and when required rather than be running constantly. I epxect the cost to be less than a thousand euros.

Richard T

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I have worked, not too long ago, as editor of a trade magazine dealing with just the sort of generators you describe.

I would tend to agree with most of what Nick says, apart from the fact that our particular rural French supply tends to be far less reliable than that at our English house.

I would endorse the fact that there is a lot of similar equipment on the market - you are talking professional rather than the few hundred euros that the purely domestic users here would be looking to spend on a genset. The market has attracted a lot of major players in Europe, even the likes of JCB - but that may well reflect that the demand is there rather than the market being saturated. You may well find customers in France (but bear in mind the high costs associated with running a French business). But your equipment sounds rather too good for any but very isolated premises, away from the grid (which is not a lot of places in France) where a reliable supply is needed for electrical or electronic equipment. Quite a niche market in fact.

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I think 8k GBP is not a bad price for a pro diesel 27kVA fully auto genset with UPS and bunded 500 l diesel tank.  Fully installed and conmissioned I trust [:D]  and if the figures of 2hrs running for 50p are right ([;-)] thats getting close to utopia LOL !

Yes a tractor would not run anything like as reliable as this setup but if all you need to do is provide power to run the muck conveyor or milking machine should the EDF supply fail then thats all you need.  It wouldn't surprise me if many non techie farmers would be happy to leave the tractor running for hours on end - before the recent price increases in diesel fuel that is !

To the poster with no power in 87, check out the Bricos and garden machinery shops.  That little diesel gen set I saw back in the spring was the business for 600 €.

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It's a lovely sounding bit of kit, but too expensive for 99% of us here.

It's got me thinking though. My dream is to go off grid one day using solar energy for hot water and panels on the roof charging up a bank of batteries, inverters all over the place, low voltage lighting and so on. To use such a DIY - ish system properly needs some education, sympathy and care and understanding - something a lot of people e.g. teenagers, visitors, in-laws just don't have. It would work OK when you were alone in the house or with a few trusted people but otherwise I can imagine conversations like "No you can't use your hair dryer while I'm watching the foootball" or "You should have had a shower this afternoon when the water was hot and not now at 10pm after we've done the washing up and the water has all gone cold". and "You're just going to have to wait until the wind blows until you can have more toast".

So, I really like the idea of an idiot proof system that needs no human input but just fires up and powers what's necessary only when necessary. I suppose a much smaller generator combined with a huge and complicated box of electronics could sort that out. It probably wouldn't come cheap though. 

 

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