Micro combined-heat-and-power systems

[Doug_Martin]

Interesting article on residential micro combined-heat-and-power systems:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1114/p01s02-usec.html

It's a furnace plus a 1KW generator running off of natural gas.  It's expensive but I think it is an interesting option for an off-grid house.

[Amanda_931]

One set of off-grid friends has a combination generator-hot water heater (I think) running on propane.

I have--and have had--that little Mr. Heater propane heater that is wonderful for the first season, often doesn't work the second.  Although I suspect that it would if somebody ran it for a few minutes every couple of weeks through the summer.

So it makes perfect sense to me to have a generator that doubles for something else--so it runs often enough that, well, come January in Tennessee when we are fairly likely not to see the sun for two weeks, the lights and refrigerator can still be counted on to run off battery power.

But that's not quite what the article is talking about.  Could be, though.

I was just reading (Treehugger mentions it) about a Stirling engine job where the important product is heat--solar concentrator produces heat to run the stirling engine to do almost anything you'd want it to do.  (But I'm still sorry that the old Sunflower Stirling engine generator didn't work--the company decided that grid tied and industrial sized plant, not home power, was the way to go.

SunCone is one of the products here:

http://www.openenergycorp.com/