View Single Post
Old 06-11-14, 03:29 PM   #1
Fordguy64
Journeyman EcoRenovator
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Cincinnati ohio
Posts: 338
Thanks: 40
Thanked 35 Times in 31 Posts
Default the start of my chp system

well not sure if most of you know what a chp is but it stands for combined heat and power. basically a small motor driving a generator to power house and then use the waste heat from the coolant and the exhaust to heat dhw or even heat your house in some cases.

ive started the project on another forum.

Battery/generator project

basically i picked up 2 semi truck apu units. and those both have generator heads on them. one is a 7.5kw at 3600 rpm (ill be selling this one i think) and the other drives a 4kw head at2600 rpm.

my plan is to add a large frame alternator to this motor to charge my 24v 840ah batter bank. that was the main goal anyway. now ive decided to go a little further...

So my latest thoughts for this system are:

1. Use system to charge my battery bank of 24v at 840ah with a 110-555 alt and maybe even 2 of them at some point. UseAls smart dc generator to control that

2. I'd like to be able to drive a 5-8kw generator head also.

3. Use waste heat to heat dhw and maybe some of the house depending on run times in the winter and also the outside temp.

4. This is the one that I know least about and have only seen people talk about but have yet to see a system actually in use. That would be to drive an ac compressor to heat/cool. I've seen a few people talk about it on here but I have not seen any systems in use? Correct me if I'm wrong. Anyone seen any on another site? Links?

Obviously I wouldn't be able to run them all at the same time..


And more info/thoughts on the ac/heat pump idea. I don't use much ac in the summer as I have a whole house can that draws just over one amp at 120v. It does a really good job of keeping the house cool as long as the humidity isn't high. So I would probably use it more in heat pump mode then anything and that actually works out because that's when I have the least amount of solar input to the batteries. So the generator will be running more anyway. I've thought about making a 200 gallon thermal storage/buffer tank for the heating/cooling and just pump that water thru a water to air heat exchanger in my central hvac system. I know that the water would have to be kept very cold (below 40*f) to get any kind of good dehumidification and cooling. On the heating end of things I could use the engine heat on the cold side of the ac system to increase the efficiency and the overall heat output of the ac system..

Anything I'm missing?

so i know we have a lot of handy people with regular ac unit but im looking into the engine driven end of things.. thats where i think ill need your help the most.

any thoughts or other ideas are welcome..

Rob

Fordguy64 is offline   Reply With Quote
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Fordguy64 For This Useful Post:
AC_Hacker (02-01-18)