Domestic Combined Heat and Power

I am buying a new house, which needs to be refurbished. i am looking at a number of options to try be more energy efficent.
I am planning upgrading insulation levels, looking at solar hot water, and mechanical whole house ventilation.
I have also heard about domestic CHP units. These are boilers which generate electricty while they are providing heat for your house.
A company in the uk www.whispergen.com sell a model which runs on natural gas or lpg.
does anyone know if these are available in Ireland? and if so,
are they any good?
What savings if any are generated?

thanks

Hi Niall

I'm an electrical eng and have looked at this from many different angles and the biggest problem you will have is connecting to the electricity grid. While you will have power when you need heat you don't need heat on a 24/7 basis where as you do need electrical power constantly. So for this to work what you need to do is "sell" the electricity you make to the national grid and take your supply as you need it from a standard connection. Unfortunately the ESB do not support this type of connection unless it is on a very large scale (10MW or something like that). So TBH i think your idea may be a non runner.

It sounds a bit mad but it always comes back to the age old problem of being unable to store electricity like we do with oil/gas and needing it on demand all the time. (well you can get a battery bank but that's an expensive solution, and it won't last the lifetime of the house)

Also when looking at the CHP unit you should investigate all figures and look for people with it installed previously. i.e. look at efficiency when producing electricity on its own and other non ideal situations.

Thanks inchbyinch,

The website i quoted above had a report prepared for the energy saving trust extoling the virtues of the microCHP system. The idea is when you need the heat you get electricity as well,
The report has a number of typical calculations for the return on investment for the CHP which also includes the price paid for electricity exported. if you ignore this figure, the payback period is still in the region of 5 years (depending on heating requirement and esb requirement) and you generate savings in CO2 emmissions as well.

i have emailed the company to see if they are available in Ireland but haven't recieved a response yet.
I was looking to check if anyone else has one and how they found it.

i had a response from Whispergen.
They don't supply into ireland yet, but "hope to undertake field trials during 2007 and then review the situation as these trials develop."