SVO for generator installations

[veggieoilboy Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close veggieoilboy]

Greetings all, new guy here from the bottom of the top of the world (south side of the US).

I've been lurking here for some time, and have read darn near every thread with interest..

I'm in the early stages of a venture into power generation using virgin SVO (peanut oil).

Anybody got experience with generator installations running SVO?

This will be run in fairly hot climate (think near tropical year round - temps 30-38C year round)..

I've got two generators currently (a 20ka and a 25kva) and am in process of converting to 2 tank systems (start up on petro then flip over to SVO after warm-up).

Am interested in anyones' experience in the field with this - any long-term issues I should be warned about??


Thx!

[Captaincademan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captaincademan]

Re: SVO for generator installations

Vegeoilboy,

Theres a fella on the forum here - Gene is his name, his tag is silverfox. He has been running WVo in his gensets for some time now. I havent spoken to him for ages, so I am not sure if he is contactable, but send him a message and see what you get back. Other than that there are several others here I am sure who can help.

[Grampiansmerc Member Find all posts View Profile Close Grampiansmerc]

Re: SVO for generator installations

Did you say start up on Petrol?

SVO would only work on diesel gen sets!

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: SVO for generator installations

Grampiansmerc,
the poster wrote

petro

In this, I believe he refers to petroleum Diesel, not Petrol, Gasoline or ULP.
It is easy for our minds to add missing letters in familiar words.
Much harder to recognise that they are not supposed to be there.

Regards,
Tony

[veggieoilboy Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close veggieoilboy]

Re: SVO for generator installations

Did you say start up on Petrol?

SVO would only work on diesel gen sets!

HA!

yeah, sorry--caught my mistake a bit late there.. These are diesel (IDI).. I meant petro-diesel (as in, "dinofuel" not veggie), (for startup/warm-up, and purge at shut-down).

My main concerns are:
1. stability of SVO sitting at 80-90F (35-37C) for days/weeks on end, as the gensets run 6-8hrs/day, 5 days/week.
- are there any issues with keeping the SVO hot in this manner? I'm planning to do the startups on dinofuel diesel, purge at shutdown.
- As the Genset runs for hours on end, i was considering actually warming the entire tank (not just warming the feeder line) as this would lead to a faster start up time (less time to warm up in the mornings), since the entire 100+ gallons wouldn't cool down entirely at night (ambient temps are 80-85F at night), and also (i'm theorizing here) a lesser chance of cool fuel not vaporizing properly (assuming the entire tank of fuel is brought to 160F).

Is this a bad idea? Should I just stick with the standard heating system and not attempt a totally warm SVO tank??

2. From my research, the SVO long-term will not have any issues on the IDI diesels, as long as it's kept hot enough at injection and purged properly.

3. What is typical purge time? anybody know a definitive way of knowing WHEN you've properly purged?


Also, SVO/peanut oil prep. Anybody else run peanut oil for fuel? I happen to have an abundance of the stuff in near-food grade, close to where the gens are, so it's really a matter of prepping and cleaning..

I am planning to pick up a large centrifuge for filtering.

Has anybody else done post-centrifuge filtering/contaminate measurements, to see how much (if any) junk gets passed by the centrifuge system?

thanks for any recommendations... I've got a lot of considerations to cover here:

The gensets are in a remote location, without any real technical expertise nearby. So any issues are not going to be rapidly solved if there are problems. I'm looking for a more 'foolproof" setup, considering that the two persons operating the gensets are not technically minded and liable to NOT follow instructions well.

Because of the "help", I'm leaning toward one of the automated process systems, with an automated purge/shutdown process, and an automatic startup/switch process. The SVO tank would be pretty large as well (100-200gallon), in order to prevent/lessen issue with running out of fuel.

In many ways the move to genset SVO seems a bit easier (in my mind) because by nature it faces far fewer start/purge cycles per hour of run than say an automobile.

[craigcurtin Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close craigcurtin]

Re: SVO for generator installations

OK a couple of things to think about

1) Put in some form of bypass oil filtering for the engine oil to make sure you keep the sump etc clean and lengthen your duty cycles
2) Do not heat all the oil - have a small sealed tank (like a surge tank on a car) - between your main fuel tank and your motor - have this heated with electrical heat (on a thermostat) in the first instance, and with a heat exchanger straight after it (assuming your diesels are water cooled) - circulating pump with a bypass to the heat exchanger - heat your catch can to say 40c - once the coolant temp is above that - turn off the heating element and turn on the solenoid to enable water to flow through the heat exchange and let it take over heating the oil.
3) have a large storage tank for hot water/coolant - make sure it is well insulated - use this to keep the engine upto temp when not running i.e. circulate the water around through the heads - this will make it easier to start the engine and much gentler on it when running to get upto temp.


Craig

[surfie Member Find all posts View Profile Close surfie]

Re: SVO for generator installations

One important aspect of WVO storage that is not often addressed here is oxidization.

If you check cooking SVO, it always has antioxidants in it. However, WVO has most of it gone, so it is best to replace it. If you are going to keep SVO/WVO at high temperatures or keep it for a long time, you will need to keep topping antioxidants up.

Surfie