Frequently Asked Questions

3 things are important, and they are all interlinked.

1. The ability to use the heat, for heating or hot water, most of the year round. For example, an 80 bedroom hotel with a swimming pool would likely be a very successful application; whereas a 10 bedroom guest house would probably not be. Many other successful applications exist in all sorts of industries. Please ask us.
2. Using a reasonable amount of electricity to start with. Savings come mostly from reductions in your electricity bill, so if you aren’t spending much to start with then the potential will be reduced. A decent CHP can save many £1000’s off your energy bill every year, but you need to be spending at least £150,000 - £200,000 on electricity to begin with.
3. The difference in electricity & gas prices. CHP burns gas to produce cheap electricity, so the ratio in these costs is important. This is known as your Spark Ratio.

What is a Spark Ratio? – Sometimes known as the ‘Spark Gap’, this is an industry standard term for the difference between the prices per kWh of your gas and electricity supplies.

Why is a Spark Ratio Important? – CHP's burn natural gas to create very cheap clean electricity and heat. The cost saving comes from using a cheaper fuel (gas) to generate your own electricity on site instead of buying it from the grid. The cheaper your gas and the dearer your electricity, the greater your savings will be on a powertherm CHP.

The best way to determine if CHP is appropriate for your site is to provide us with the last 12 months of gas and electricity bills. We prefer copies of the actual bills, because they tell the whole story. We take these bills and run a Free No Obligation desktop study to determine suitability. Please don’t send these if you only spend a few thousand on electricity every year, because we’d be wasting your time. However, if you have a bigger application (see ‘Will CHP work for Me?’) then we would be very glad to hear from you.

These depend on your spark ratio, and the amount of heating / electricity you are currently using. If you tick all these boxes then on a medium size CHP application savings of £40,000 per year are possible, and on a larger application £100,000 per year is achievable. It all depends on the circumstances.

This is not normally needed, unless your CHP installation is in an area where the public view of your building may be affected. Often the unit can be installed indoors if existing space permits. As always you should check with your local planning department. We provide photographs and CAD drawings to help with this if required.

CHP maintenance has traditionally been an issue 20 years ago, and the upkeep costs could consume all the savings. GOOD NEWS. Powertherm CHPs all come with our unique Infinium24 maintenance package, where we do all the servicing, provide all the parts, all the labour, any call outs all for a guaranteed fixed cost. There is literally nothing else to pay.

We take complete responsibility for all the upkeep, and all the risks are down to us. We even replace critical components on a time life basis to ensure the unit stays as-new throughout its life. We also provide real time remote monitoring and control, which our engineers use to keep the unit in trim. The client has open access to this monitor so that everything is fully visible.

MORE GOOD NEWS – maintenance costs are not hidden away in the pricing. They are factored in at the very first feasibility stage, and are always fully visible to the client, fixed price, and guaranteed. All savings and payback figures quoted include maintenance, so what you see is what you get. The savings are yours to keep.

To have your own CHP generating your own electricity on site requires it to be synchronised with the mains electricity grid. This is so it can run in conjunction with your incoming supply. We take care of this whole process for you, supplying the equipment to harmoniously link up to the grid. Your electricity network operator will require a G59 mains sensing relay to be installed. This protects your CHP from trying to power the whole town in the event of a power cut. We provide this for you, and take care of the application to the network operator, and the subsequent installation and testing.

Powertherm CHP is one of the biggest single steps you can take toward reducing your energy bill. The Use of Capital Employed is impressive, and the Return On Investment (ROI) even more so. For example, a very good site where the electricity was expensive, and the gas cheap, and there was a constant demand for hot water all year round, could see a £40,000 saving pear year on an installed cost of £120,000. Site circumstances vary enormously, but in this real-world example the client had his investment repaid in 3 years. Thereafter the savings continued at circa £40,000 per annum, which is a very respectable improvement to the bottom line.

Installing CHP is one of the biggest single actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint. Electricity is a carbon dirty fuel, and significant losses in the power station/national grid network mean that its supply to you is very inefficient.

By contrast, a CHP making your own heat and electricity on site is very efficient, and one of the biggest indicators of this is the amount of Carbon saved. The Carbon Trust like this so much that there are substantial funding offers available for powertherm CHP installations. See Carbon Trust Funding.

The Climate Change Levy appears on your bill as CCL. One of the uses of this tax money is lending it to people to finance carbon reduction energy schemes such as installing a powertherm. The Carbon trust is the body responsible for managing this fund, and a simple process is available to see if you qualify for a loan. If you do, the rewards are significant. The load can be for up to 100% of the whole project cost. It is interest free, and un-secured. Repayments are funded by the energy savings the scheme gives. The government collects a levy on uses of fossil fuels, this is known as the Climate Change Levy, so there is no cash flow penalty to the client. This is a real win-win situation where the scheme effectively pays for itself, and once the Carbon Trust loan is repaid, the savings are all your to keep. Powertherm CHP installations have been very successfully funded by the Carbon Trust, and they are very keen to continue to do so.

This clearly depends on how much power your building is using and what your plans are for the future. If you have an electricity meter that gives you a maximum demand reading in kilowatts (kw) add 60% to it and look for the next Powerhouse® model up from that figure as a minimum. For example, if your maximum demand is shown as 150kw add 60% (240) and consider the DV275 model. Or, if you measure your mains incoming power in amps per phase, take the highest amp reading and, again, look for the next model up as a guide. Always allow for any future expansion and always ask for a Scorpion engineer to check the calculations on site, free of charge.

Your Powerhouse® Generator can go almost anywhere, on the roof, in the basement or in the car park. The only critical thing is that it can breathe cold air and exhale hot air without suffocating, and that a service engineer has room to safely work on it. Scorpion produce a wide range of standard and bespoke housings and duct systems which can go indoors or outdoors and we will happily discuss all the options with you. UPS systems need a dry, dust free environment around 20°C such as your server room.

At one time huge oversizing was needed to run early UPS systems. Now we use a factor of about 1.6 times the UPS rating when calculating the size of Generator you need. But remember you will also want to run air conditioning and essential lighting etc from the Generator, so always ask a Scorpion expert to help you. The main lesson is, always buy a complete system, not a rag-tag collection of components.

Certainly, just like modern cars, good Generators have improved dramatically in recent years and you can run the most advanced equipment on a properly designed Scorpion power system. Even the approach radar at Heathrow Airport runs on a Powerhouse® Generator, so don’t worry about a power cut next time you land there.

In a word, very! Just like cars, though, your Powerhouse® Generators and UPS systems need good servicing just like any other piece of critical equipment. Scorpion offer a whole range of fixed cost service options with 24/7 emergency cover as well as routine maintenance. We can even give you the first year free!

It all depends what you are expecting, actually. There is no such thing as a silent diesel Generator but we can make them very quiet indeed. A lot depends where you put it, a small courtyard is going to create more reverberation than an open field. Rather than baffle you with complex logarithmic formulae just ask us to show you a comparable installation and see what you think. In any event your Powerhouse® Generators will only run during a power cut so a little common sense needs to be applied.

As long as you like! We provide very generously sized fuel tanks on all our Generators giving a typical 24 hours running time on most installations. However, some of our clients specify 5 days running or more without refuel, and, in these cases, we provide double-skinned bulk fuel storage permanently connected to the Generator. Our group also offers 6, 12 & 24 hours response refuelling contracts, so there’s no need to run out of fuel. Or should you consider a gas Generator running straight off the mains gas supply?

Certainly. Hundreds of our high-specification military Generators have been shipped all around the world, fitted with accessories to combat the most adverse conditions. Remember to allow for very high altitude and/or high ambient temperatures when calculating the power outputs in extreme conditions. Allow 4% per 5°C derate above 40°C for temperature and 5% for every 100 metres over 150 metres above sea level for altitude, as a guide. Or ask us to build the most cost-effective solution to meet your special requirements.

Certainly not. Powerhouse® Generators are available on lease, hire purchase, with or without maintenance as well as outright purchase. Tell us how you would like to do it and we will find a way.