Chapter 447 - 204: Self-Sustaining (2)

Chapter 447: Chapter 204: Self-Sustaining (2)

The power generation capacity of this room was specially designed for the Yangcheng Warehousing Center, capable of sustaining the full electrical load of the warehousing center, the warehouse supermarket, the office building, the employee dormitories, and the parking lot’s charging stations.

The powdered material for the battery fluid was, of course, produced at headquarters and distributed from there. The Yangcheng Warehousing Center only consumed an average of about 40 kilograms of the powder per day to maintain the ten-acre warehousing center, in addition to a fifty-room residential building.

Yang Lingyu and his party stayed for another two days, waiting until the entire system was generating power normally.

The Yangcheng Warehousing Center was now running on its own power, saving the facility at least 300,000 kWh in annual electricity purchasing costs.

While the initial construction cost for the system was between 480,000 and 550,000, this investment could be recouped in about two years. The system had a designed service life of 30 years, which, when amortized, came to an annual equipment depreciation cost of 16,000 to 18,300. Including maintenance, powdered material, water, and part replacements, the average comprehensive operating cost was around 30,000 per year.

This translated to a cost of 0.1 yuan per kWh.

As for the labor cost of the electrician, Old Fang, it couldn’t be entirely attributed to the power generation room. The warehousing center had always required a resident electrician, so this was simply a matter of making full use of his labor.

If not for the large size of the microbial fuel cells and their need for various supporting facilities, their applications would certainly extend beyond stationary power plants.

However, the company was already planning to purchase a large fleet of electric vans and small electric trucks for the warehousing center to use for deliveries to specialty stores and customers.

Properties with ample space—such as warehousing centers, factories, livestock farms, and crop farms—would gradually be slated for the construction of power plants or power generation rooms. The goal was to achieve electrical self-sufficiency and even generate additional revenue through on-site charging stations.

Shortly after the power generation room at the Yangcheng Warehousing Center went into operation, the local Yangcheng power company dispatched a team of electrical engineers. They came mainly to remove the electric meter, but also to inspect the warehousing center’s new power setup.

The lead engineer, Du Guobao, met with Li Haitao and asked curiously, "Manager Li, are you sure you want the meter removed? If we take it out now, it’ll be a hassle to reapply for service later. Wouldn’t it be better to just keep it as a backup?"

However, Li Haitao shook his head. "Our internal power system is already running stably. We also have a backup diesel generator and a large-scale energy storage room. We don’t anticipate any supply issues."

This was one of the unique advantages of the improved microbial fuel cells. While their total energy output wasn’t massive, their power output was highly controllable, and they operated under low-risk conditions.

For a small power generation room building an independent grid, highly controllable output and low-risk operating conditions were critical advantages.

Take wind, solar, or tidal power, for example. What processing plant or residential area would dare build an internal power grid relying solely on those? The inherent instability of their generation process could easily crash an entire network.

This was why grid operators like State Grid and Southern Power had a love-hate relationship with wind and solar; the fluctuations they produced were nothing short of grid-killers.

The microbial fuel cell technology, as improved by Jiang Miao, lacked the drastic fluctuations of solar and wind power. Furthermore, its low-cost and highly adjustable nature gave it an edge over thermal power stations.

After all, the gas turbines in thermal power plants have a relatively narrow range for cost-effective power adjustment during operation.

For a 50-megawatt gas turbine, the more its power output is reduced during operation, the higher its operating cost per kilowatt-hour becomes.

If a gas turbine is shut down, restarting it incurs a significant cost.

Once running, many types of equipment cannot be stopped casually, as doing so adds significant costs.

The new microbial fuel cell technology, however, was different. Its power output, regulated by ambient temperature and light intensity, was far easier to control than that of a gas turbine.

For instance, to halt the operation of a microbial fuel cell, one only needed to lower the room temperature to 16 degrees Celsius and switch off the artificial light sources. This would cause the power-generating bacteria inside to rapidly enter a semi-dormant state, ceasing all current production.

Operating under mild conditions, the microbial fuel cells weren’t dangerous like thermal or nuclear power plants. In case of an earthquake, the ceiling of the cell room was equipped with a special disinfectant. If the room were to collapse, this targeted disinfectant would be released to quickly neutralize the power-generating bacteria and Gram-positive bacteria in the battery fluid.

In reality, neither of these two types of bacteria could spread widely in a natural environment anyway. Outdoor ultraviolet light, temperature fluctuations, and other microorganisms would easily inhibit their proliferation.

This was especially true for the power-generating bacteria, which Jiang Miao had painstakingly selected. Its conditions for large-scale reproduction were extremely specific; even in the event of a leak, it would be impossible for those conditions to be met in the wild.

While these conditions were easy to create in an artificial setting, it was virtually impossible for them to all occur simultaneously in nature.

...

Faced with Li Haitao’s determination, the power company’s team lead, Du Guobao, could only comply. "Ah Qiang, Dongzi, go check the circuits, then remove the electric meter."