Domestic Power Generator: Electric grid hookup Question

[Tmac]

Iam getting a 6KVA Lister Gen set 1 Phase.
I want to power my domestic power needs with it. I dont need to run it full time. But when I do run it I want to feed the excess generation capacity back through the power grid. What type of electric circuit would I need to do this. At the very least I need a electric power kill to have it hooked up, so that if the grid went down my generator feed to the grid would have to go offline also, for line safety. I know these boxes could be purchased but are expensive. I think the boxes mainly consist of electric locking switching.

If anyone has knowledge here I could use some help. Thanks

[Tiger]

I don't know about the USA but over here you would have to go through your energy supplier as they are the only people who can work on there side of the electrics, Also they would buy the electric of you. But i don't think there would be much left over from 6KVA

[JC]

Tom,
There's a couple of pretty good electrical guys that post on Yesterday's Tractors. One of them is kind of a #&!%*, but he seems to know his stuff.

[Grani]

First of all, you can´t produce electrical power with that generator to a price that gives you any profit if you sell it to a powercompany.

[Dandy Dave]

To run an entire house it is recomended that you have a unit no less than 10 KVA. I have a 12 KVA unit that is 110/220. Single phase. I would not even dream of selling power back to the power company. In a power outage situation, you would burn out your generator trying to supply the neighborhood let alone the fact that you could kill a linemen trying to restore power of the same. Your unit is not large enough for the power company to even be interested in buying the power from. With only 6 KVA, you will need to pick and choose what you will need to run in an outage. Also, if it is a single 120 line alone, you will not be able to combine for 220 - 240 and you will not beable to run something like a submersible water pump. Dandy Dave!

[Grani]

I have a 27kW 3 phase generator just in case of a powerfailure, but to produce power for own use is not cheap.

The only way it could be worth trying is to use the Lister a few hours a day to power equipment that needs the most power and simultaneously charge some large batterys with a 12 or 24V generator to use for lights and inverters for the rest of power needed. And of cource totally offgrid and using some cheap fuel. Do not forget service costs.

[Tmac]

Grani you come closest to what I want to do. Except that I dont want any battery system.

My plan is to only power the Lister gen for a few hours a day in the summer when using the most power. My highest use then is well pump during irrigation. I should have asked the question a little differently in that I want to keep my utility hooked in and the generator connected in parallel with the domestic power.

The constant biggest user of electric power at my place is the well pump and the electric water heater. Which both cycle on and off. The Lister gen set is actually an industrial size unit rated at 6.6KW 100% duty cycle and up to 11.5 Kw for 20 minutes. This is no, put in the back of your pickup unit, it has its own trailer and weighs in with trailer at a ton and a half with enclosure .

A friend of mine has one of these Listers that he runs his whole farm on and it runs continuously. He is not hooked up to any utility. He does also have the large bank of batteries system and high output inverters. He bought his Lister from another farmer that used it the same way for a couple of decades.

I have a portable gasoline 3.5 genset that I use for power outages and around the farm for tools and lights sometimes. It does not connect to the domestic power. Just use some extension cords for lights and refer.

I have been looking for the Lister set for a while, as these are the old style engines. They will run on nearly free fuel, as they will burn cleaned used motor oil with no problems. Which for now I have an unlimited supply of if I want it. My friend uses straight motor oil for fueling his Lister in the summer and 50/50 mix with diesel in the coldest part of the winter just to keep the oil flowing. These engines run at a constant 1250 rpm . I have heard that these engines may run as long as 50,000 hrs or more between OH.

I was thinking that while the heater and few electrics that I use kick in and out it is a waste to just run the gen set. That is when I was thinking that the excess of the genset be fed into the grid link. And while these are mostly just thoughts of mine for now, I may just figure on running during peak use as Grani says.

Still any info I get will help me. Thanks

[Aussie Frank]

Hi Tmac,

Unless your gen set has an inverter output stage that can be syncronised with the incoming mains power it will be impossible to connect it to your house while the mains is still connected. even a slight frequency miss match will cause a major melt down. Some sort of inverter is a must and it must be able to syncronise with the mains.

Regards, Frank.

P.S. If you do end up running your house on the generator, you might consider using the coolant water through a heat exchanger to heat your hot water. It is free heat after all.