Local Power Generation

I currently have either a large pond or a small lake (depending upon your view) which is fed from freshwater springs and these provide enough water to overflow a small dam and feed two small water turbines which produce a maximum of 7.5KW each and they actually average 14.4Kw output. Much of this power is put back into the grid and I get paid for it so I am self sufficient in electricity and in the event of a power failure I can dump surplus power through resistor banks and turn it into heat or I can divert the power to be used by others in the village and this is the crux of this project, our own private network of electricity. We call it our ELAN or Electrical Local Area Network.

For a few years we have toyed with the idea of powering ourselves and now this is a step closer as we have run cabling around the village so any surplus power can be used by my neighbours and the idea was to run things such as freezers to keep food frozen and to power low wattage lighting and charge up battery banks so everyone can have lighting through power cuts and periods where freezers can be set to their coldest setting and fully frozen down are coming to be a reality.

This will work as follows, any surplus power will be equally shared and everyone will be allocated slots and in this time they will run higher power items such as freezers and once fully cooled they will stay frozen for hours if unopened and use little power, hence why fully freezing them at their coolest settings. Because we have this power it needs sharing equally around the village and our little community already runs LED street lights using solar battery banks and have done for years and this brings me to our electrical guru, Craig. Our friend Craig works for a consultancy designing electrical grids and networks and specialises in designing local networks to integrate alternative energies they produce themselves and bias the use of this self generated electricity before they draw any from the grid. This means that at times some systems run purely from electricity they produce themselves and large electricity users can save themselves £££ Thousands per quarter by just letting him design and build their new systems and the cost of employing him; and he is a friend.

I already have 2 X 7.5Kw generators installed into a dam I constructed and these have the benefit of being compact and require a small head of water to operate them and their only issue is heat and this is why the water passing through them cools them down. I also own the outlet stream for a short distance and the ground falls sufficiently to install a second dam which is installed and this now has a 20Kw unit installed on it and has been tested and is an “on demand unit” which speeds up and slows down with demand and is a useful unit to have. We also have a second 15Kw unit and together this should generate up to 50Kw of electricity for the village and Craig has worked his magic again and this 15Kw unit will be switched off until it is needed and it will work simply. Both 7.5Kw units will be online and producing a constant 14.4Kw which powers my home and dumps surplus into the grid for which I get paid and the 20Kw unit will also be on line with its variable output and as soon as it exceeds 15Kw output it will shut right down and allow the second 15Kw unit to come online and as its power is exceeded it will speed up and produce up to 20Kw.As I own the 2 X 7.5Kw units and built both dams my electricity will be unlimited and any surplus will be divided between the rest of the village and this is where Craig really came into his own as he has been building units to limit power to each house and divide it equally.

We have 18 houses to power and we have built in the mains electricity being on and being off and while it is on it will act as supplementary electricity and be used to top up the main source which will be our water turbines and if each house is allocated 2Kw and they need 2.8Kw they will draw the remaining 0.8Kw from the grid and the main 2Kw will from our own supply. If mains electricity is affected and turned off for any reason our priorities change and everyone will still be allocated the same 2Kw and they won’t use it all and not at the same time and this is where Craig comes into his own as he has built his own modules which measure consumption and speak to each other.

Every house is allocated 2Kw and if they exceed this they can call on more power if available and this is run on a priority basis by having his internal boxes installed between the plug and appliance and these measure the current draw and speak to each other through a data cable (not Bluetooth) and they see what power is in the ELAN grid and who is demanding what. If demand is high then they shut down or limit the supply to each house and the boxes measure demand on a specific appliance such as a freezer and allocate some of this surplus to run the freezer motor for up to 15 minutes and this is on the order the freezers compressors fire up. If the freezer freezes and shuts down it allows another freezer in another property to fire up for up to 15 minutes and this should ensure all freezers and their food remain frozen for long enough if they wait in a queue to freeze again.

Many systems will be charged overnight when demand is low and this will mainly be the battery banks and fortunately we have managed to get some Nuclear submarine batteries which are 3 years old but have a 10 year manufacturer’s warranty and are quality batteries. They are currently 5.2Kw battery banks and will run the LED lighting for several days and have enough capacity to run an inverter for other mains powered equipment for several hours and Craig has built digital electronic chargers next to the banks to charge them and they are variable power output chargers with multiple modes. Many residents also have low voltage DC supplies running around their homes for lighting and the potential to run other 12V equipment if needed such as security cameras or 12V security lighting and alarm systems and in the event of a power cut out village will be brightly lit. Many other appliances have been converted and gas boilers use both 12V and 5V DC and use on board transformers to get these voltages and again Craig has simply bypassed them and run then straight from an external transformer so if power goes and we lose electricity we can run gas boilers in village homes.
Many other appliances can be run from 12V DC and cordless tools are another item which run system batteries and most manufacturers now have digital chargers which can be wired into a vehicles electrical system to charge multiple batteries from this voltage while the vehicle is running, or from the cigarette lighter. Many people have these wired into their sheds or workshops and simply extended their 12V wiring into their sheds and charge their tool batteries. Many people have rechargeable lighting such as lanterns or torches which are rechargeable and can plug them in to recharge while they are in bed and Craigs box of tricks have timers so they can start recharging at 2am or whatever time is set to balance out the loads.

Costs? Up to now it has cost around £200 per household to install the cabling and battery packs and it guarantees we all have some electricity at mains voltages and we can run systems such as heating systems if gas is still running or we all have log burners so we can still have heat if the gas goes out and somewhere to cook. We have plenty of fuel in the form of seasoned timber and everyone is fully stocked with wood/logs and we have tonnes of home made briquettes made from a mix of old paper, sawdust, and cow muck and they don’t smell and we have lots of raw materials to make more so we have heat.
Many have converted their gas boiler burners to the multi fuel type which can run on different gases or gas mixes and this means they can be run from bottled gases so we have gas and electricity if they shut both grids down and most of us grow a lot of our own food so we have something to eat.

Our new system has been tested and works fairly well and the only problems would be with electric cars s we couldn’t supply the demand required for charging them so diesel it is then and our transesterification plant will be cranked up to convert veg oils into diesel and I currently run my tractor and teleporter on a 50:50 mix of diesel and transesterified veg oil.