UK based Veggie Fueled Co-Gen (CHP)

CHP - Combined Heat & Power
Co-Gen - Cogeneration

The Fuel Facts:

Vegetable oil contains between 3392 kJ and 3700 kJ per 100ml - as read off the side of the bottle. This approximates to about 9 or 10kWh per litre.

A litre of vegetable oil will generate about 2kWh of electricity and about 6kWh of recoverable heat. Unfortunately some of the fuel energy will be inevitabley lost as waste heat.

Fuel consumption from waste vegetable oil will be approximately 1 litre per hour when running a 2kW electrical load.

New vegetable oil can be bought from supermarkets for around 45p per litre - almost half the cost of diesel.

However the real economies are achieved by using waste vegetable oil available for less than £0.10 per litre.

Waste vegetable oil should be first strained through a perforated metal screen to remove the burnt crispy bits (BCB's).

Then it is filtered using a 10um cartridge filter. Allow the oil to stand for some time so that debris and water can settle to the bottom of the can. Decant only the top 75% of the oil from the top.

The oil should be pre-heated before it enters the injector pump. This can be done by making a coil of 6mm copper tubing around the hot exhaust and passing the fuel through this, before it enters the injector pump.

Waste vegetable oil is widely available from pubs and restaurants, they will be glad to let you have it. Tell the chef or publican what you want it for and offer him/her a couple of quid (or a pint) per 20 litre drum!

Read more at http://www.powercubes.com/listers_2.html