Wayne.B wrote in
:

On Sun, 20 May 2007 05:51:09 +0000, Larry wrote:

at $1500, approximately 1/4 the cost of the usual diesel
genset in this class, you can replace it 4 times to the break-even
point, spreading out your operating cost over many years, not at at
the outset.

Here's my take on the numbers.

Let's assume a 1500 hour life which may be optimistic. That means you
are paying $1 per hour for equipment amortization which is more than
20 cents per kwh even if all your fuel is free. Fuel at current
prices would add another 20 or 30 cents.

Generating your own electricity is not cost effective if you can buy
it for 10 cents per kwh.



Do you think it's only going to last 62.5 days?! 1500/24 hours per day =
62.5 days! Maybe we should be more optimistic and add a zero to make it
15,000 hours. That's still only 1.7 years....

Now, using that figure instead of a two month life span, that puts it at
..10/hour for 5.2KW of power. Let's say a half load, 3Kwh for 10 cents
(free fuel but I'd have to add in some maintenance, oil changes, filter
changes, etc. so it's not accurate). That's only 3.33c/Kwh, 1/3 what
South Carolina Electric and Gouge charges, right? It gets cheaper as
load increases and less as load decreases, par value about 1000W of
load....

The numbers look different at 15,000 hours....not an unheard of diesel
runtime if you change the oil every 100 hours like you're supposed to and
service the air filter and oil strainer per the book. This little diesel
probably won't run that long, but I'm not sure. There's at LEAST 4000
hours on my Honda EU3000is gas genset on an air-cooled gas engine of no
particular great note....It still starts instantly, when called for. I
run it a lot all summer and in winter loaded with a 1500 watt electric
heater to keep my feet warm at work. I've never even changed its spark
plug! The spare is in a drawer in the truck.

Larry
--
Metallurgy has come a long way in the last 20 years.....