Biobill
The net meteing is going pretty good so far.  By tomorrow morning I will have put about 115 hours on the engine this week running on heated vegi oil.  If all goes well  I will pull the head at 500 hrs and have a look.  I will post more details in the comming weeks in another thread about extended run times.

Scott

here is a different way to look at an age old argument:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what th ey decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on e day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers, he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers?How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough mon ey between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where t he atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Scott

Hello all I would like to resurrect this thread, the main goal is to discuss the best way to run a lister type engine for extended periods unattended. 

My situation is as follows:
I have a 6/1 in a detached garage that has been treated to reduce sound.  I have a layer of 5/8 drywall on top of that is homosote and on top of that is another layer of 5/8 drywall.  The second layer of 5/8 drywall was not my choice, it wad done to meet fire codes.  The mechanical noise is almost nothing when over 10ft away from the building.  The exhaust is directed into a buried 30gallon drum by a 2” black pipe.  The outlet of the buried drum goes into corrugated black plastic pipe and is a downhill run for at least 50 ft.  At this point the noise issue has been taken care of.

Fuel is wvo run through a makeshift bag filter then stored in a 16 gallon plastic tank.  The oil is then gravity fed through a 10 micron wound string filter and onto a 5 micron string filter, each costing about $3.00 from Mcmaster.

I have been experimenting with different operating rpm, I ran the engine at 380rpm and was able to produce 1500w at my inverter (this is after generator, line and interface losses) for 51 hours without stopping. The only problem I was able to detect was that the belt attaching the engine to the gen started to wear and there was a fine black dust on the side of the generator.  I concluded this was due to some slipping on the pulley, which is only 5” in diameter.  I do have an idler pulley to create more belt to pulley contact, but even with this it seems to be slipping, and it is already tighter than I would like.

I am considering having another pulley made, this time 6” which will allow me to run the gen at about 475-480 rpm

I am running the engine at a lower speed, primarily because it makes less noise, which will allow me to run it 24/7.  If I do run it 24/7 the gen room is always warm and I don’t need additional diesel or hands on time for the start up/ shut down fuel switch over.  Running the engine 24/7 will make oil changes and other maintenance chores more frequent, but at the lower rpm I think I should have an adjustment factor.  A bypass oil filter is an obvious upgrade I will be adding, to help extend oil change intervals.

My most pressing concern is how to protect the engine from self destructing if there is a problem.  I am looking into some electromagnets that can be used to hold open fuel, compression, and air intake.  If power is lost to the string of electromagnets all three will turn off, releasing whatever they held open(on)  I believe I need high engine temp. oil level and something that will react to over speed.  High temp and oil should be straight forward, but over speed may require some creativity.  Any suggestions?

Also please point out any problems with running the engine at a lower speed.

I plan to gather data on fuel consumption vs load and rpm to determine the optimal running rpm based on fuel consumption. 

Any other suggestions on anything I left out is appreciated

any insight form others running long hours would be great
Scott

dmp
fact is that I was in contact with the EPA prior to the engine orders I placed.  Each time I called and verified that because they were stationary they were excluded from various epa regs.  The last time I called they said in jan of '07 I could not use the exemption any more.

Yes there are others who import engines, and as far as I am concerned they are taking a huge risk for little gain that I simply am not willing to take.  Listeroids are an interesting distraction from real life for me and I suspect many others here.  There is no way in Hell that I am going to risk everything I built up over the lase 15 years so I could import engines from India and make a few dollars. 

I have said it to anyone who has contacted me looking for an engine, that you can proably import one yourself and never have a problem.  The dealers will probably not have a problem eithther.  but if they ever do get caught they wont be going to alkatraz....more likely bankruptcy court.

dmp if you feel so strongly i will gladly give you Atuls contact info, order up a load and sell them you can get a good deal when ordering a container at a time.

For me It is a no brainer decision:
risk outweighs reward 3000 to 1*



Scott

  *(refers to the $32000 penalty)

Well guys I finally did it.  Today my utility (Connecticut light and power) came to my house to do a witness test.  What that means is they inspected my net metering setup,  And it passed the inspection.  I am now able to sell power back to the grid legally and 100% by the book. 

It has been a long journey, having to get approval from:
 my city, which required departmental approval from
the health department (noise regulations)
environmental board
building department (fire codes and electrical codes.
And the utility, which had to approve of the design of the system as well as the fuel used.

Getting these approvals was not exactly easy.  You have to remember that the city and utility has likely never heard of using a diesel engine designed in the 1920’s running on veg oil to produce electricity, much less trying to sell that back to the grid.  With that said it took a lot of time for me to educate the various departments and agencies on why this would 1.)work and 2.) comply with the various regulations and rules.

In the end the plan has changed a bit, but the spirit of the original idea still holds true.  Convert free for the taking veg oil into useable electricity and heat. 

In the weeks and months ahead I will try to do a better job of detailing the process.  I should be able to include actual output data vs fuel consumption, etc.

The take away for now is that it can be done by the book and in compliance with all the regulations.

Scott

Bob
Interesting analysis, taking into account depreciation and all.  When you do that you are getting into the area of tax accounting.  This is fine, but if you are going to bring in the IRS, you might as well keep track of ALL your  costs. i.e. milage at 48.5 cents (per 2007 IRS milage allowance).  You can also deduct any plant and equipment from your taxes, i.e. your Lister engine, your gen head, the welder you bought to build the frame, the materials for the frame, and the list goes on.  If you do everything by the book and you have a net positive balance with the utility at the end of the yeaer you should claim this as income.  It will be taxed as regular income at your rate  I am no tax expert, but it may be a good idea to talk with an accountant about this, if there is a tax advantaged way to use net metering, then by all means do it.

Bob your analysis of the rates is not exactly complete.  I will use my rates, as I know what they are, it is better to use a real life example.
My all inclusive rate less fees is 19.2 cents per kwh.  If I produce up to my domestic usage over the year my production is worth 19.2 cents per kwh.  If I produce over my domestic usage I am paid the “avoided rate” which is basically the commodity charge.  This is running about 7c per kwh.  Now I do have the ability to sell “recs” (green energy credits) at a rate of at leaset 3c per kwh.  This brings my production value up to 22.2 cents per kwh up to my domestic usage. The value is 10.2c for anything over my domestic usage.

We all know that there is heat to be used, and if I capture heat from the exhaust and or collant loop I can reduce my heating requirements for my house during the winter.  So if I run the engine mostly in the winter, I can accrue kwh credits when I also need the heat.  If I produce enough kwh during the winter, I may not need to run the gen during the summer.

If you use ALL the tools available this can make sense, but as someone else said, no one is going to make a living doing this.

Scott

I have the inverter, but the comm card arrived broken.  I am waiting for a replacement card so I can reprogram the inverter.

Scott

instead of buying an inverter you could connect the genset directly to the grid and use some approved control device to disconnect.

Unfortunately this is not a viable solution.  For the small size generator a home owner would use, such a device is not available.

I have an inverter and interface box scheduled for delivered today with modifications that should allow easy use with the output from the standard ST head.  After testing I will post results and details.

Scott