Subject: Re: Selling electricity back into the public grid

From: [email-masked] (Nick Pine)
Date: 7 Jul 1995 04:13:41 -0400

Harry H Conover <[email-masked]> thus misinforms us: :-)

>The problem is, on the scale of your operation, your cost to produce
>the electricity is (when you amortize the cost of your equipment
>into your overall cost), is far less than the wholesale electric
>prices that the electric company will pay you.

In many states, eg Pennsylvania, the PUC interpret the PURPA law to mean that
the electric company must buy back electricity from even the smallest 
producers at the retail rate, ie the same price they sell it for, until
the producer reaches zero net monthly consumption, at which point they start
paying a lower wholesale rate...

Residential, home-heating-oil-burning Intelligen cogeneration systems
typically pay for themselves in 3-5 years, by zeroing out peoples' electric
bills, without even counting income from net overproduction of electricity. 

Nick

---

From: [email-masked] (Nick Pine)
Date: 8 Jul 1995 09:03:42 -0400

Michael Maas <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Nick Pine ([email-masked]) wrote:
>
>: Residential, home-heating-oil-burning Intelligen cogeneration systems
>: typically pay for themselves in 3-5 years, by zeroing out peoples' electric
>: bills, without even counting income from net overproduction of electricity. 
>
>I believe the price of the intelligen system is right around 10k.  A 5 year
>payoff would mean 2k per year.  2k seems like a lot of electricity to me.
>How are you figuring this payback?

Electricity where I live is about 12 cents/kWh, max. There are a lot of people
with electric bills of $150/month or more, especially those with electric heat,
many of whom have grown to hate electric companies with a passion. I wrote a
little computer program to estimate payback periods, using electric company
step-tarrifs, and some previous electric and oil bills for a house. Several
calcs for proposed systems showed payback periods of 1-6 years. The best was
for two neighbors, sharing a system for home and swimming pool heating. The
worst was for a small auto repair shop, with demand service, a welder and an
air compressor.
 
Payback is better if you already need a new oil burner. Of course plain oil
burners have an infinite payback period, and seldom operate with Intelligen's
93% efficiency. Their unit has a 150F exhaust gas temp, and uses a 1 1/2" PVC
fluepipe.

Yes, $2K is a lot of electricity. I could find better investments than an
Intelligen system, with my monthly electric bill of less than $50, but I'm
an energy miser, with a tankful of oil in the basement that I haven't used
in two years, and I rant more about telephone rates than electric rates... :-)

Nick