Generator running costs

[Highashgrange]

Not sure whether this should be in the machinery forum As it’s about electricity really.

Anyway we luckily fixed into a 3 yr elec contract in March at 15p day and 11p night but we still spend around £15,000/year at those rates. However with what’s going on in the energy industry I’m wondering about a generator for the future but I’ve never used one so no idea on running costs. We have a high site usage with industrial units
and are 3 - phase. I’d need to do some homework on generator size required but what are they like fuel wise? Red diesel now at 65p/litre and is it going to disappear ? So we’re paying for white at £1.15/litre (both prices plus vat).

How does that compare to say renewing our elec contract at maybe towards 30p/kwh?

Is it a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

We’ve got a 70kw solar array and are utilising that quite well at around 85% efficiency so not much spare capacity to store via batteries and we’d never store enough for the whole site anyway.

 

[Dukes Fit]

You'll have to run it on white diesel anyway if you're powering industrial units.

1st of April the axe drops

 

[Doing it for the kids]

I’d forgot about batteries for now.

You need to work out your usage and when it’s used over 24 hrs.

Can you turn Genny off at night?

I need a temp supply for similar, 200 kva was something like 30 litres an hr from memory

 

[Oscar]

Sorry no real use to you but I have worked for two engineering/ fabrication companys over the years and both were running their sites from big generators rather than mains as they had worked out they would be cheaper . No idea of size in terms of kw but they were like 20 ft containers full of sound proofing and you could talk normally even stood next to them .
One of these was 20 years ago when diesel was very cheap but it still payed him . They clock up big hours over time but its constant revs and apart from servicing have been very reliable . It was only two years ago that he swapped the one from 20 years ago and he bought it second hand then so no idea how old it was. Must ask him how many hours it did , would think over 100,000 !

 

[upnortheast]

Last week when our 50kva genny (110hp cummins engine ) ran for 24 hours it used about 7 litres an hour

Daily use is about 450 kw - so 170 litres = 2.5 kw / 1 litre

All very roughl calc .

 

[Nearly]

@Spud

 

[Spud]

@upnortheast is about right. Our most used Genny is 95kva, powered by a Perkins 1006t. Not often at max load, running our washer it'll use about a gallon an hour.

Have you scope to double your solar capacity?

We have 48kw, what we earn from export covers the electric we have to buy at peak times and dark hours running. I have timers on pig feeders & potato sheds so they either use own generated or off peak power.

Bear in mind that generators do break down and need to be switched off to service them