LOCAL POWER PRODUCES SMALLER BILLS

…“The small combined power and heating systems are especially suited to small apartment complexes, schools, nursing homes, hotels and large farms”…

Hotel Fanø Badeland – powered by EC Power

Even in the coldest winter months, a visit to Hotel Fanø Badeland should be a warm and exotic experience. But when electricity is the only energy source, which was the case until 2002, then it was an expensive pleasure for the owner Bjarne Bøgh Jensen. In 2002, he had three XRGI Mikro combined power and heating plants installed, and just one year later he sliced almost EUR 62,000 off his energy bill. Instead of paying EUR 113,000 annually for heat and electricity, the bill was EUR 51,000.

The XRGI systems produce electricity and heat for Hotel Fanø Badeland from diesel engines. They were supplied by EC Power, a company specialising in micro combined power and heating systems. EC Power was established by a group of Danish heating engineers with experience in heat as a byproduct of electric power generation. The aim was to produce systems with as high a level of utilization of the fuel as possible, generating electricity and exploiting the waste heat of production while minimizing energy losses by producing electricity and heat locally.

“In addition to the savings on the energy bill itself, there are large savings on the environment,” says Michael Finderup Jensen, sales and marketing manager at EC Power A/S. “In the case of Hotel Fanø Badeland it saves the environment around 390 tons CO₂ – quite simply because the fuel is exploited to a level as high as 90%. In addition, energy losses are reduced by producing the energy locally.”

The most recent of EC Power’s small combined power and heating systems are based on engines developed in collaboration with Toyota. The engines are driven by natural gas and deliver an output of 13 kW_el and 29 kW_th. EC Power also supplies a 17 kW_el and 26 kWth modified Same-Deutz diesel engine. Both systems can be assembled in series to achieve the desired output.

“The small combined power and heating systems are especially suited to small apartment complexes, schools, nursing homes, hotels and large farms,” says Finderup Jensen. “In Germany in particular and to some extent Great Britain, we are seeing hugely increasing interest because in those countries, it is also possible to sell excess electricity to the national grid. In itself, that provides additional financial gain. In Ger-many alone, we expect the market for XRGI systems to increase from about 5,000 to 20,000 units annually for years to come.” EC Power is a total supplier of the systems. The company develops the systems itself, installs them and provides continuous service in Denmark and Great Britain. In Ger-many, the company is building up a nationwide network of dealers to handle installation and servicing of the systems. Each system comprises an engine, a heat distributor, buffer tanks and a control unit, and is connected via modem to EC Power’s monitoring module, which carefully monitors the operation of the system.