Ok, this got me thinking. I live in an apartment complex where utilities are included in the rent. I’d say there are 50 or so apartment buildings in the community at six per unit and averaging $75 a month in electricity, that’s $22,500 a month. Is it possible for the apartment people to build their own power plant for us to use rather than use the one and only local gas and electric company?
I work at an airport and they have their own power plant, so why not here? Am I totally crazy for thinking like this?
Its all about the economy of scale. The power companies have the advantage of building multiple very large powerplants, and the designs for these powerplants come from westinghouse or GE and are identical. Parts can be had for reasonably cheap compared to the type of money you’re bringing in. If any of the plants go offline for some reason, they can buy power from other plants to supply to their customers.
To my knowledge there is no company that manufactures a small scale powerplant for residential areas, obviously you could by diesel generators and provide power that way. Could you run a generator for a month for less than 75 dollars? I don’t know, depends on the efficiency of the generator. But now you have diesel engines running outside your buildings at all times. Not the best environmental option.
As far as custom building some sort of small scale nuclear/coal/natural gas powerplant, you’d be on your own. You’d have to find companies to manufacture all the parts you needed (which would be a lot). All these custom built parts would cost a fortune. In addition you can’t just have the maintenance guys who mow the lawn monitor this thing. You’re gonna need engineers, welders, boilermakers etc.
Lets say your apartment complex’s power plant breaks? what happens then? parts will cost you a fortune because they’re all custom made and very small. During the time while your replacement parts are being manufactured, which could be monthes. You have no power for your entire complex. In my apartment complex if people can’t take a hot shower for more than 4 hours there’s hell to pay. Your other option is to keep replacement parts for EVERYTHING on hand, and then you’ve essentially doubled the size of your powerplant.
Also the airport is not held to the same regulatory standards that your apartment complex is. So even if you could by a small scale powerplant the government probably wouldn’t let you operate it anywhere near where you live.
So in short, yes you are crazy for thinking this way. Its possible you could provide a power alternative for your complex for less than 22 grand a month. The real question is would you really want to? My advice, pay your 75 bucks a month and let the powercompany deal with this mess.
One more thing, did I mention that the salary for ONE ENTRY LEVEL ENGINEER with NO EXPERIENCE is about 3500-4500 a month. The salary for one union welder is about 2000-3500 a month.
There’s no one single technical reason you couldn’t do it, but the devil is in all those details - pollution control - reliability - management.
A minimal power plant (not for your apartment example) would probably be a lawnmower engine turning an induction motor connected to the mains. This system will deliver power into the grid in phase with what’s already there, and will run an electric meter backwards, which I think the power company has to accept (though with limitations). Practically, it could lower your total bill by running the meter backwards part of the time, or at least making it run forwards more slowly.
One thing to add to excellent preceeding posts - certainly there are companies that build small power plants. Small islands often have power plants of scales you might like. So do isolated spots like mountaintops or maybe resorts. I lived on Nantucket Island for a while and made friends with the night shift at their plant, which used several deisel engines that were the size of an airport shuttle bus (not the bus engine, mind you, the whole bus). Neat place - nice crew.
Granted, the initial outlay would be pretty high, and it’d be impossible to be completely self-reliant, but as some sort of supplemental system…
50 buildings is 50 roofs covered in unknown numbers of solar panels each pumping X watts into (through batteries) the apartment’s power grid.
How long until it pays for itself? Anything after that is ‘profit’ (in the form of power-you-don’t-buy-from-the-big-companies). Maintainance would be relatively easy; it doesn’t take a genius to replace a solar panel… only to figure out which one to replace, if it’s not smashed or otherwise obvious.
Also, depending on the location, covering the roofs with panels will (may?) reduce the cooling costs of the same apartments during the summer, saving even more energy.
It gets economical when ya have a need for a lot of hot water.
Showers, laundry, swimming pool ect.
Heat is a by product of generation, and if ya make good use of it, then ya have economy.
Several apartment building in the Los Angeles area do generate their own power.
They use the old Ford 460 gas engine, running off natural gas.
Ford no longer builds this engine like GM builds “crate motors” for replacement.
So a local speed shop rebuilds the motors, and what was the old Honeywell Company still maintains them. This is where the real cost kicks in, that is, rebuilding them.
South Coast Air management has to approve the annual permit, and they are a hassle to deal with too.
If you bought a stand alone diesel generator, expect to use at least 3 times more for fuel than what the power company burns for the same KwH.
The big GE gas Turbines at their LADWP Harbor generating station, and Valley generating run at about 94% efficent. Your Home Depot Generac would burn at about 33%.
The waste heat from the jet engines heat water to steam, and that steam runs one of the old 1940’s era steam turbine generators in what is called "combined cycle. This is where it pays.
Generators are classed two ways:
Stand by service,
Continous service.
Well to be honest I didn’t consider a small scale solar setup because I didn’t really think of it as a powerplant. The bottom line is people who live in apartments generally rent. Solar requires a massive initial investment and then it pays for itself over several years. I don’t know how you’re going to get renters to cough up the dough to pay for the initial installation. The apartment management company has no incentive to go solar, because they’re not the ones paying the electric bills anyway.
Its a nice concept, but I don’t consider it realistic.
Please no one mention wind power, because then I’ll have to explain why thats uneconomical, ugly, and lame.
The bottom line with wind is it would only produce 600 MW in optimal conditions, in an optimal location. I don’t where the Original Poster lives, but in oregon we have what are known as trees everywhere.
I guess the point I’m trying to get across is even though it seems like the electric company is ripping you off (and don’t get me wrong they make a hefty profit). You’d be hardpressed to find cheaper electricity on your own.
Notice the OP said the apartment management pays for the electricity. So they’d definitely be able to at least consider the invest-now-save-later equation inherent in any alternate power.
I agree that at last year’s oil prices of 20-ish a barrel, alternative is a long way short of economical. Bump oil to $50-$75/barrel for the next 15 years and the equations change even ignoring technologiclal progress.
I’ve also wondered this. There is a small reservoir above our community. The sure must be a lot of energy in the water that shoots out (what do you call that?). I can hear it from about 1.5 miles away. Ought to harness that, hydro-electric, but it must be fiscally unsound.
In general, one requires one’s own generating system, a means of distributing that power to the recipients, and an agreement for provision of power across the grid in the event that the generating system must be taken off line (through breakdown or maintenance).
Well, there are always small nuclear plants though this design would be better suited for a small town than just an apartment building. The estimated cost for this reactor would be $10 million, so at $22,000 a month utility bill wouldn’t be enough to pay this off during the reactors lifetime, but 3 or 4 similiarly sized apartment buildings could afford one of these.
I assume that you mean 600KW. A 600 megawatt facility is about typical for a coal or gas fired plant. My company has a wind farm and each unit can produce around 1.6 MW.
Sorry, I meant kWt. I speant 6 months or so creating budgets for a small power company that specialized in renewable energy. The $30,000 is about 1/3 of the total operating expenses for a facility with 3 Mitsubishi MHI600 turbines.
Since many of these plants are owned by small companies like the one I worked for and most of the day to day maintenace is handled through agreements with the manufacturer or subcontractors, you could theoretically do this.
Under ideal conditions, a 50kw solar PC system could be installed for about $240,000. So if each of the renters would kick in about $5,000 each, they could get about 40 cents worth of free power a day.
California and some of others states have renewable energy subsidy/rebate programs that under just the right situation could make the idea financially possible.