How hard would it be to start your own power plant?

[Una_Persson]

First off, you can forget about a coal plant of any size. The environmental, siting, and other regulations you would need to comply with would bankrupt you.

There are several over-generalizations here I feel it’s not appropriate to nitpick. However, this point made:

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.

is not IMO correct by a long-shot. I would like a cite for a heat rate of 94% for any gas turbine in the entire world. The best ones I know of are at Tokyo General Electric, and only about 55-60% efficient. Perhaps you are thinking of some other measure of efficiency, such as efficiency of the HRSG, but that’s not even close to the total NPHR.

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.

In the US, the price of oil has almost nothing to do with power generation prices because, as I’ve posted non-stop for 4+ years now, very little electric power in the US is generated by oil (between 2-3%, and much of that is only used by coal plants for startup/supplemental firing to accont for a derate).

Small scale generation does use oil (as well as diesel, and even gasoline) but it’s woefully expensive relative to coal, or even large-scale natural gas.

[ursawind]

@King Friday

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?

They have apartment buildings in Germany that are net energy exporters. They use solar technology to make it happen. I work in the business of wind power, and you might already know, the new World Trade Center is going to have wind turbines on it.

You are thinking ahead of the usual-and-customary American “wait until it quits working” approach.

[missbunny]

@DougC

• • • In the USA, actually building a powerplant is easy–it’s getting all the government permits correct that’s the trick.
      ~

My company owns a hydroelectric power plant. We filed for the license in 1980 and were granted it in 2000. That is the normal course of events. It then took another 4 years to get the permissions to actually turn on the turbines and start generating.

[ursawind]

@missbunny

My company owns a hydroelectric power plant. We filed for the license in 1980 and were granted it in 2000. That is the normal course of events. It then took another 4 years to get the permissions to actually turn on the turbines and start generating.

Yup, that’s typical FERC monkey business…(Federal Energy Regulatory Commission). For the hypothetical “self-powered apartment building”, they wouldn’t have jurisdiction, as the power plant would be less than 20 MW and it wouldn’t be an interstate transmission of power. Hooray for distributed generation!

[Trailer_Park_Casanova]

I stand corrected.

LADWP’s Harbor Facility and Valley Generating combined cycle Facilities run at 64% effeciency.
At 61% the turbines and generator sets are torn down for S.I.R (overhaul).
My source is an engineer with the Power operating and maint section, LADWP.

The 94% comes from for every 94 cents spent in generation, a dollar is billed.
That sounds good to the polititians that approve these projects.