Power back to the Grif /Power Company

[vaaoc1425]

One of our client is interested in a experimental combined heat and power project. The primary objective of this project is to generate continuous power through micro turbines to provide enough heat to produce up to 40 tones of absorption chiller cooling. There is the potential for as much as 150 kW to be generated. The client would like to send the excess power (above the building electrical load) back to the Power Company/Grid.

If there is any on-line reference or/and information available on similar or/and typical projects that addresses and illustrates giving power back to the Power Company/Grid, I would like to review and research them towards a project that is coming up.

Your assistance and reference to any information in this regard will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

 

[dpc]

Technically this is certainly possible, but there will be many codes and regulations to deal with. If you tell us where the project will be located, maybe someone can help you.

A Google search on cogeneration interconnection should provide a good start.

Also see IEEE 1547.

I hope your client is getting a good tax incentive for this, or has a lot of money. Or both.

David Castor

http://www.cvoes.com

 

[jraef]

Usually, each local power utility has very stringent rules and regulations regarding grid connected systems. You should always start there. I know of one MDF plant that installed a cogen/CHP system only to discover that the rules for feeding back to the grid were so onerous that they would be waiting for approvals for upwards of 10 years. They opted to get the system on-line quicker and forget about feeding to the grid.


"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
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[waross]

Hi jraef; A similar story, but the customer connected and then went for approvals. The standard electronic meter configuration in his area is to sum both incoming and outgoing power so that the old trick of inverting the meter to steal power will no longer work.
The power company demanded that he disconnect and in the meantime, he was billed for all the power that he returned as if he had used it.
Then he was faced with a 3 to 10 year process followed by an act of congress.
BTW not in the US or Canada.
I know where there is a 75 KVA wind turbine available, cheap.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[AusLee]

I recommend Australian Standard 4777 (3 parts) regarding connecting inverters to the public grid.

The key note is: the system you install must be smart enough to know that the normal power supply has failed and in this case it should withhold electricity. The purpose is not to protect your small system from supplying the whole neighborhood, because the breaker will trip straight away, it is rather to protect the personnel of the supply authority: once they disconnect power at the substation, no lurking generator will electrocute them as they do their work.