Baxi Ecogen

[KenB]

Erm, why did he have his gas heating on in the first week of May?

Perhaps he ran it solely without the heat boost burner.  But that's still 420kWh of gas burned - using the known efficiency of the Sunpower FPSE generator.

I note that the unit was installed in the garage.  Perhaps the package is a bit bulkier than the average wall hung boiler - or could it be that they still have resonance issues, like back in the days of Microgen.

Only time will tell whether these units gain market acceptance.  It's taken nearly 200 years but perhaps the Stirling engine may finally have found it's commercial niche.


Ken

[martin W]

Considering this unit is availble from 1st april (a week away), there still doesnt seem to be much info availible?

Does it really use 6kwh of gas to product 1kwh of electricity (oh and around 5kwh of heat). I am wondering if it will modulated that 6kw down and also the electricity, or does it only modulate the 24kw down when heating DHW?

For what I read it seems like it only makes 1kwh of electricity when when the central heating is on, when the hot water 24kw burner is on it does not generate any electricity. IE does it only work in the winter?

I would like to install it plumbed as a system boiler for my thermal store. Anyone think this is viable,or would you have to have water going though the DHW circuit to stop it breaking due to heat?


ANYone know a price yet? Supplier?

Seems very quite for a launch of a 'ground breaking product'.

[siarad]

KenB
That's interesting 16%
Back in the 1970's power companies had to show the cost of energy & I noticed they charged me about 6 times their price, 16% efficiency!

[KenB]

Siarad,

At first the Sunpower 1.1kWe engine looked very efficient  33% - according to this paper  pages 3/4

http://www.sunpower.com/lib/sitefiles/pdf/publications/Doc0098.pdf

However, this was where the engine alone was tested using an electric resistance heater buried within the hot pressure space of the engine to supply the heat.  Whilst this does measure the absolute conversion efficiency of the engine and alternator module, it is somewhat divorced from the realities of embedding this engine hot-end inside the pressurised gas burner of a modern condensing boiler.

There are combustion and flue losses, and also the temperature gradient set up across the hot space, means that the working gas within the engine is significantly cooler than the temperature of the gas flame.

The efficiency tests were done with cooling water at 50C, which is too cool for a conventional hydronic heating system, so as the cold end temperature increases, the efficiency of the engine reduces further.

Then if you live in a well insulated modern house,  your heating will fire for a few minutes at a time and have long off periods.  This stop/start behaviour is not nearly ideal for any heat engine - which is best run at constant temperature, constant speed and constant power.

However in an older house (like mine) where you need about 6kW constant just to match the heatlosses - or when used in conjunction with a large thermal store - one of these systems would fair much better.

However - as I can now turn wood waste into electricity and heat with an efficiency of close to 20%, and expensive Stirling burning costly natural gas seems an unnecessary expense.



Ken

[J0015]

Anyone with Ecogen experience yet?

[martin W]

Just had another ferret around for ecogen prices. The baxi website has a payback calculator, and someone on another site has talked to baxi and BG about it.

Looks like it is £3000 or so on top of normal combi boiler price. If you want BG to fit it (only choice at the moment I believe) it is probably going to be around £6000

One thing that seems to be contradictory is that it has be mounted on a downstairs floor - seems like it is wall and floor mounted at the same time! maybe vibration from the sterling engine?

[jango]

i have been running tests on the wispergen unit in a 4bed semi useing it just at night for heating and hot water gas bill went up and elcetric went down to £40 for 3 months saving around £160 gas up by £110 

[MiMo]

I have been trying to see one of these boilers since their release to the market on April 5. Visits from British Gas produced a disinterested response from them when I wanted to have a demonstration.  They couldn't understand why I would want to see one in action. I told them I wouldn't buy a car if I couldn't see it and sit in it.  It appears that they do not want to sell this boiler at present as it just appears to be offered to demonstrate how eco-wise British Gas are. 

So for BRITISH GAS - NIL POINTS!

I also had direct contact with BAXI who offered to show me a boiler in situ; twice but this too petered out and I am still no nearer to seeing this new boiler.  BAXI - NIL POINTS

It may be of course that the boiler is selling so fast that they can't keep up with the demand.

So I now await -December 2010? the launch of the Whispergen through EON.  Will they do any better?

Can anyone enlighten me from the inside track?  Or even better, has a real actually had one installed?

[Robl]

I notice the Whispergen is being sold by Powergen:
http://www.greenconsumerguide.com/powergenminisite/whispergenunit.htm
£3000 inc VAT and installation the website says. 
Anybody got one of these floor mounted chp units, or one of the baxi ecogen wall mounted ones ?  And are the baxi ones really £6000-£8000 ?

[Justme]

What about this one?

http://www.cerespower.com/InvestorRelations/PresentationsandVideos/CHPProductDemonstration/

[rogeriko]

I have 2 of these here in Greece in a villa they are not being used and have run only about 100 hours if that. They weigh about 500 kilos each and are gas powered. New they were about 15000 euros each and the villa owners want to get rid of them. Any suggestions??


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250748185763&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[thegreenman]

According to the MCS website the Baxi EcoGen is the only micro-CP unit that is MCS certified and thus eligible for the FITs payments.

Can anyone confirm the price and who installs it?

 

[GrahamE]

I had a Baxi Ecogen 24 installed on 2 February 2011 by British Gas.  Total cost was £5,977. The Ecogen unit itself is priced at £3,743 and then there is the additional cost of electrical installation that you don't have with a standard boiler.

Based on the results of the 9 days of operation it has generated an average of 8kWh/day of power and reduced normal electricity consumption by 4kWh/day. Based on my marginal electricity costs and the FIT rate of 10p/kWh for generation and 3p/kWh for export (which is assumed to be 50% of the quantity of electricity generated) I'm currently forecasting a total economic benefit of around £35 per month during the winter months, plus some smaller benefit during the summer when it's only going to be heating the hot water.  Gas usage so far is about 10% lower than the previous boiler but that was SEDBUK D rated, and of course is complicated by the external temperatures being different, i.e. warmer weather means lower gas usage.

When I have had it going for a month I'll up date this post with more operating data.

[martin W]

Thanks for the information graham, please keep us posted on this 1st step in the chp market....

big  from me for taking the plunge and having this equipment

[SusiBiker]

I had a Baxi Ecogen 24 installed on 2 February 2011 by British Gas.  Total cost was £5,977. The Ecogen unit itself is priced at £3,743

Here's a run-down of what BG are proposing for my installation that I was hoping would take place any day now. My Ecogen seems a little dearer...

Ecogen - £5593.64

2 years complimentary Homecare 200 - Free
Condensate Trace Heater - £203.23
System Water treatment and powercleanse - £82.54
22mm Magnetic system filter - £199.28
Energy saving hot water and heating controls - £399.14
Update heating system to fully pumped - £366.84
Central heating pump - £68.28
Install central heating pump valves - £56.12

GROSS PRICE INC VAT £6,969.07

Less point of sale discount - £100.00
20,000 Nectar points - £0.01

NET CONTRACT PRICE INC VAT £6,869.06

The current system is a solar water installation with a Gledhill Torrent T130 RE-Solar-SP heat storage tank as a combi-preheat/bypass system

I am rather concerned that the BG engineer that did the survey was unfamiliar with this arrangement and that I had to explain to him how it worked. He just couldn't get his head round preheating water to a combi. I wouldn't mind, but BG sell a kit that goes on a flu to preheat combis by further extracting heat from the flu gases!

All in all, I'm not impressed with BG so far. A week has gone by since signing the contract...
1. I knew more about solar heating systems and combi pre-heating than the BG engineer that professed to be an "Expert" in solar water heating and Ecogens (btw, training for Ecogens is a 1-day course!)
2. The electrician that was supposed to come yesterday lunchtime, Friday, a week after signing up, never arrived. No call, no apology, no nothing.
3. About 2:30pm I phoned BG to ask where the electrician was. They didn't know. He wasn't answering emails or text messages. She would call me back to let me know what was going on.
4. She didn't.

I don't know if I'm just being silly, but the BG intstaller/plumber/expert really was having difficulties working out how things worked. It does not inspire me that this guy is going to mess with my system AND insisted that the boiler pipes should be run in 28mm copper, when the Ecogen specs call for 22mm. The Ecogen fittings are 22mm and the tank fittings are 22mm. He wants to run these huge 28mm pipes up my bedroom wall instead of running them under the floor. I got the feeling that my installation was all too much trouble for him as he kept trying to find ways of not installing the boiler. "The kitchen is too small." "The bedroom floor isn't deep enough to run 28mm(?) piping." "You know you can't put your fridge underneath it! NOTHING can go underneath it." - In the brochure it shows a shoe rack under it."
Sorry to have a moan, but although I'm paying nearly £7k for this system, it seems that it is all just too much trouble.

Regards and "Hi" to all, Susi xx