Questions Re Emergency Backup Generator Options

optimusgrime

Hello,

We live in a house in Dublin with mains electricity and gas supply.

I'm interested in installing some sort of backup generator, so our house can still be powered if the electric supply goes off. Most likely I'd look to be covering shortages of up to a few days and ideally I'm looking to do it relatively inexpensively.

From what I gather a diesel generator and tank might possibly be the most efficient option but it's possibly also the most expensive. We also have quite narrow access to our house down a laneway so I'm thinking getting a big diesel tanker down it to refill a tank might be tricky also.

I was looking at gas generators also, seeing as we have mains gas, and thought somthing like this might be useful: http://www.generators.ie/Generators/Detail/SDMO_RES_A_14EC

Plus side of this is (from what I can see) it wont need a big tank with fuel but the downside is it's reliant on mains gas, ie in some scenario where gas and electricity are both out, you have no power. I'm not sure if you could also use cylinder gas with this, ie if I had a few big cylinders of propane I could switch to them if mains gas was off.

Finally I'd seen these gas generators from calor: https://shop.calorgas.ie/greengear-ge7000-7kva-lpg-generator.html

This uses cylinders only as opposed to mains gas and is cheaper (but less powerful). Once thing I'm not clear on is whether this could easily be connecting up to our supply, ie to power the whole house as opposed to it being somthing you'd just plug an extension cord into and run devices from it directly. If anyone knew about this I'd appreciate it.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Michelinextra.

Why do you need it

Unless you're having outages

optimusgrime

Thanks, it's important that we have an uninterrupted power supply and we've had a few (thankfully brief) outages in the last year or two.

Michelinextra.

Is it for a specific piece of equipment or the whole house

optimusgrime

Michelinextra. wrote: »

Is it for a specific piece of equipment or the whole house

Ideally to power the whole house, though we could probably keep the power usage down a bit while on the generator, ie I'm thinking we could live with a 7-8 kwh power supply and not use energy intensive equipment when running on the generator.

Thanks

deckie27

optimusgrime wrote: »

Thanks, it's important that we have an uninterrupted power supply and we've had a few (thankfully brief) outages in the last year or two.

For an uninterrupted supply you will need batteries and a bit of technology to take the load before the generator kicks in

optimusgrime

deckie27 wrote: »

For an uninterrupted supply you will need batteries and a bit of technology to take the load before the generator kicks in

Thanks, I think the gas one above will switch over in a few seconds.

I used the wrong term when I said uninterrupted, it would be fine to just switch over manually if/when the power goes out.

I'm thinking this one might be simpler: https://shop.calorgas.ie/greengear-ge7000-7kva-lpg-generator.html

But I'm wondering if somthing like that can be easily wired up to power the whole house or could only be used to power a device/socket?

2011

I'm interested in the gas cylinder generators too, but have never used one. One of the reasons is that diesel can not be stored for protected periods without suffering from fuel degradation but a gas cylinder can. It would be disappointing if the generator was not available to to fuel issues when really needed.

It would be best to start with:
1) What is you budget.
2) What loads to you need it to supply.
3) What is the total electrical load in kW.
4) What is the nature of the loads, for example do any have large starting currents (such as motors)? ...and do any of the loads contain sensitive electronics?
5) Would a portable generator that you wheel out and plug in when required be acceptable?

0lddog

optimusgrime wrote: »

Hello,

We live in a house in Dublin with mains electricity and gas supply........

Why consider bottled gas ?

Are you expecting a situation where both the electricity and natural gas supplies fail at the same time ?

Have you considered a CHP plant ?

Generators tend to be a bit noisy ... what will your neighbours say ?

2011

I should add that my interest is for an elderly relative that lives in a very isolated area. In the past they have experienced power cuts lasting for more than a week. The OP lives in Dublin so I would expect power cuts to be very infrequent and of short duration. A lot of money could be spent resulting in little or no benefit.

Then again if we end up in a Mad Max situation.......