I’ve had a thought, although it probably won’t work due to some of the features of Natural Gas. We have a surplus of Natural Gas in this country, how about if a house that has gas already hooked up were to install a generator powered by Natural Gas, ready to power up as soon as the power goes out. Would that work? If not an internal combustion engine, how about a gas fired steam engine run off of Natural Gas, would this be feasible?
Generac is a widely available unit and have nat gas or propane versions.
http://www.generac.com/Residential/HomeBackupSystems/
Natural gas fired generators are quite common....you can buy them at any Home Depot...Propane as well.
Home Depot will even install them for you with the proper automatic transfer switching so power is never interrupted...
Natural gas lines require electricity to run the compressors that ‘push’ the gas through the lines. For many situations natural gas generators are ideal, but not all, for instance in earthquake zone a serve earthquake will rupture gas lines and so the gas will be shut off.
My house is not set up for natural gas, so I bought a gasoline fired generator and converted it to propane. Propane is much safer to store and does not go bad.
I then bought the necessary equipment to plug the generator into the house. This equipment takes the house wiring completely off the grid, so I do not have to be concerned with electocuting a lineman.
If you’re going to buy a whole house generator, look at the warranty before you buy. Do yourself another favor and google the brand name along with “problems”. At least one of the well known brands sold at a lot of big box stores has Chinese engines in some if not all models.
Familiarize yourself with the terms standby and prime. Most whole house units are not built for long continuous running. In fact running more than a specific number of hours within a period voids the warranty.
There’s at least one brand with a diesel converted to run on naturals gas that can be run for 2,000 hours before requiring maintenance. Typical life of the unit before rebuild is in excess of 30,000 hours.
Like anything else you get what to pay for. READ THE WARRANTY BEFORE YOU BUY. There are some gotchas out there.
We use natural gas Generators in our business all the time they are ‘spensive though.
Propane or Natural gas both kinds.