Open Challenge....Verifying claims with actual Grid Tie energy production.

[oneoff]

what a great project, you should be able to get 40-50,000 hours out of those gen sets before rebuilds, running on that fuel ?

You may very well be right. Maybe 460 Ford gas motors just like light hydrocarbon gases.(turbcharged but not needed unless you need some more horses.) No adjustments so far to valve train; no ring oil consumption and even the spark plugs are super clean after a couple of years running continuously. The little bit of crankcase emissions eventually fouls the radiator core ( direction of air flow is designed to push air through the rad. ; but if you direct the inevitable bit of emissions to the floor and that problem goes away. They do wear out waterpump bearings. Next time may even put a grease zerk to if that extends the change interval of less than a year (8760 or so hours).


One of gensets had the oil filler cap on same head as crankcase ventilator pipe and there was some valve noise develop after a couple years. It was found to have that white oil crud starting to accumulate from lack of ventilation in valve cover on the one head. However a pleasant surprise was that the valve noise all disappeared when the oil filler and its mesh breather was put on the noisy side. An oil change was all that was needed. Should make a Youtube video of that bright idea before it gets forgotten. The valve covers even had identical filler openings.

You'r correct though. Thirty thousand hours and you'd say the rings might have just worn in. The motors do run what seems to be hot; but have never shut down or boiled except for water pump/fan belt related incidents. Fan belts (even though double v belt design) is second weakest link. However removing the fan blade and using an electric motor driven large torrington HVAC fan for draft eliminates belt failure as only waterpump circulation is actually involved. The alternator is really just used as a tightener and the gensets could have their trickle charger plugged in to keep the battery in shape.

Pretty troublefree setup; and super dependable so far in 5 or more years of use.

Now a person can expect to begin to have troubles. Never pays to complement things made out of iron.

[Guest]

spent many years looking after gen sets/engines/drilling rigs in some pretty remote locations like above the arctic circle
we eventually eliminated alternators and fans on gen sets in particular
those two were the biggest problems for sure
trickle chargers were installed and remote fans and cooling units kept engines much cleaner

[oneoff]

spent many years looking after gen sets/engines/drilling rigs in some pretty remote locations like above the arctic circle
we eventually eliminated alternators and fans on gen sets in particular
those two were the biggest problems for sure
trickle chargers were installed and remote fans and cooling units kept engines much cleaner

Another benefit is the noise levels change to actually being able to carry on a conversation

[chuckChuck]

NR Green Power has 4 - 5MW waste heat generating stations on the Alliance Pipeline compressor stations in Saskatchewan

[recapped]

Oneoff, I commend you on your project. And thank you so much for sharing.

[oneoff]

Just for information Saskatoon City Solar Demonstration Site ....thats minutes ago today 1:45pm 33Kw solar panel boiler plate ratings and 304 watts output at that minute. Totally piss poor insignificant production; but giving it another hour and it will be shutting down for 20 plus hours and about 10:30 capable of firing up those three 100 watt incandescent bulbs once again.

Do you really want to rely on that in the middle of a cold Sask night.

[furrowtickler]

Just for information Saskatoon City Solar Demonstration Site ....thats minutes ago today 1:45pm 33Kw solar panel boiler plate ratings and 304 watts output at that minute. Totally piss poor insignificant production; but giving it another hour and it will be shutting down for 20 plus hours and about 10:30 capable of firing up those three 100 watt incandescent bulbs once again.

Do you really want to rely on that in the middle of a cold Sask night.

Good point ...
If one could store the suns energy from summer to help out it would be feasible.
I get the whole warm fuzzy feeling that solar will help reduce some emissions but reality is that we will get skinned on carbon tax’s to heat our homes for 3 months of the year out here in rural Canada unless we all go to grain / pallet / wood burning heat for the winter .
Or get gen sets that run on 100 % bio diesel for the winter months and cook over wood heat . This is what’s coming .
This whole fantasy of eliminating fossil fuels is going to be a train wreck for most of Canada other than large urban centres that will get subsidized electricity and carbon tax exemptions at the cost of everyone else Like Quebec.
Say good bye to any disposable income unless we go back to homesteading like the early 1900’s .
Unless we get some miracle energy source for the winter months within the next 5 years ..
I could be wrong but as of today there is no viable “green” energy source for the winter months in 98% of Canada year round .
All the solar and wind “studies” from areas like Australia , Africa whatever are completely useless here 5 months a year let alone the 3 months in the dead of winter 🥶.
We are headed down a dangerous path economically to even live here .
Hopefully things change ....

Rural Canadians should be careful what they wish for , cause the climate won’t change at all if rural Canada goes fossil fuel free .
This is not about climate , it’s about wealth distribution... period .
I can’t understand how the majority of people don’t get it , but they believe that Trudeau will give them rebates ...
Rebates will come at the cost of a few ... that be us ...

[oneoff]

Saskatoon reporting 229 Watts generated at 3:45pm.. My Inverter#1 at 5471 Watts; #2 at 5470 #3 at 1564 watts and other site at 5564 Watts.


There is a trend showing up and its fair to say that no matter what the season; time of day or mood of the operator; some methods of electrical generation have totally different characteristics. No judge needed...even by any metric of reliabilty; scaling; freedom from weather (or climate) effects; even cost per Kwh when a fair analysis is done.

Sure you can make it cost more.

[chuckChuck]

Everybody knows solar pv is a poor performer during December and January. Nobody expects it to replace other steady sources of supply. It's supplemental and intermittent. I shouldn't need to repeat this again and again but it doesn't seem to get through.

Of course the doomers and gloomers pick the end of December to rant on about how bad solar is. They say little about solar PV in June, July August! I wonder why? December is the perfect time to compare intermittent solar PV output with fossil fuel generation sources! LOL

How each utility or country incorporates renewables or other low carbon sources of electricity into their grid will depend on what they have to work with.

the UK hit a record 47% of its electricity from renewables in the first quarter of 2020. Ignored!

North Dakota gets 27% of its electricity from wind. Ignored

Saskpower is investing in significant new wind capacity. Dismissed and ignored.

Alberta is making great strides in replacing coal with gas and lowering carbon emissions. They also have significant wind and some solar.

Yep, we are going to need fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. But there is significant adoption of low and lower carbon electricity sources occurring in many countries, regardless of whether you believe it doesn't work or not.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

OK, let's compare June at Brooks solar farm.


16.5 hours of daylight at Brooks on June 21, and yet it only achieved 26% of capacity.
Would still require 4 times more installed capacity at only 26%. And many days peaked out at ~ 1/3 of capacity

So during peak daylight, a grid tied solar installation such as Chuck's will produce 4 times more energy than needed if it was June 21 all year long. Sold into the grid at its true value of 0, since so will every other grid tied solar be trying to sell 4 times more than the grid needs at that hour. But it isn't June 21st all year long.

[fjlip]

"the UK hit a record 47% of its electricity from renewables in the first quarter of 2020.

North Dakota gets 27% of its electricity from wind."


No doubt the rated output at max, real world maybe a quarter of that.

A total feel good virtue signal, oh let's SAVE the planet and have EXPENSIVE on- off electrical
unreliable power supply?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

"the UK hit a record 47% of its electricity from renewables in the first quarter of 2020.

North Dakota gets 27% of its electricity from wind."


No doubt the rated output at max, real world maybe a quarter of that.

A total feel good virtue signal, oh let's SAVE the planet and have EXPENSIVE on- off electrical
unreliable power supply?

But more importantly, at what cost.
Paul Homewood follows this issue in the UK.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/dummies-guide-to-renewable-subsidies/ https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/dummies-guide-to-renewable-subsidies/
One of the commenters added it up:

So that would be £464 per household in 2019 (including FITs and capacity market auctions.

And this:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/02/11/green-subsidies-will-continue-to-push-up-power-prices-for-years-to-come/ https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/02/11/green-subsidies-will-continue-to-push-up-power-prices-for-years-to-come/
And the black outs, and the exporting/importing to make it work, especially at times like this:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/11/27/coal-outperforms-wind-power-in-uk-wind-week/ https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/11/27/coal-outperforms-wind-power-in-uk-wind-week/

Almost anything is possible if you can pass the costs on to the consumer, and government will make up any other shortfall, and reliability is no longer considered to be a requirement.

[oneoff]

"the UK hit a record 47% of its electricity from renewables in the first quarter of 2020.

North Dakota gets 27% of its electricity from wind."


No doubt the rated output at max, real world maybe a quarter of that.

A total feel good virtue signal, oh let's SAVE the planet and have EXPENSIVE on- off electrical
unreliable power supply?

The US military is said to have a saying "you can make pigs fly if you put enough horsepower behind them"

In theory you could try to make enough storage (eg. batteries) and when and if you got enough storage to make intermittent solar or wind power work; you'd still have issue of requiring multiple solar panel capacity than peak needs; the batteries don't exist to accomplish this; it would be prohibitively expensive (as in the working technology doesn't exist and rare earth minerals, cobalt and whatever compounds required would have enormous environmental impacts to achieve their extraction and processing.

The same faulty logic applies to thinking cheap renewable energy sources automatically makes cheap end product elecricity for consumers.

Only if you ignore the changeover costs; and close out all thoughts of the still required base energy needs for the 65% to 85% of the time that OTHER base energy supplies have to be ready and able on minutes to extended periods of time when those intermittent supplies just aren't capable of performing up to necessary demands and expectations.

How many times does a person have to say that?

[fjlip]

You will need a BIGGER 2x4!
THEY repeat a LIE often enough....try to make us believe/NOT think/don't Reason/don't read facts/deny the truth.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

The US military is said to have a saying "you can make pigs fly if you put enough horsepower behind them"

In theory you could try to make enough storage (eg. batteries) and when and if you got enough storage to make intermittent solar or wind power work; you'd still have issue of requiring multiple solar panel capacity than peak needs; the batteries don't exist to accomplish this; it would be prohibitively expensive (as in the working technology doesn't exist and rare earth minerals, cobalt and whatever compounds required would have enormous environmental impacts to achieve their extraction and processing.

The same faulty logic applies to thinking cheap renewable energy sources automatically makes cheap end product elecricity for consumers.

Only if you ignore the changeover costs; and close out all thoughts of the still required base energy needs for the 65% to 85% of the time that OTHER base energy supplies have to be ready and able on minutes to extended periods of time when those intermittent supplies just aren't capable of performing up to necessary demands and expectations.

How many times does a person have to say that?

Well said.
I've tried saying it every way possible, and used analogies, all to no effect. They just keep repeating cheapest generation source, ignoring the fact that it ( so far) always results in drastically higher enduser costs.