Quote:
Originally Posted by S Keith
The d!ck in me hates to side with the OP just on principle, BUT electric power produced by the ICE motor is likely to be brutally inefficient, especially at idle. He's talking about powering household/workshop type items, and a generator is the right choice.
Pulling 2000W out of a V8 idling is going to burn WAY more gas than pulling 2000W out of a 4000W generator.
A typical 4000W generator has a ~200cc engine vs. 5000cc of a 5.0L truck ICE (are there any that small? Mine is 7.4L). LOTS of fuel goes into just keeping the 5.0L mass moving, and it's going to have very high mass flow through it.
The most sensible way to make power using a generator is to size the generator such that the typical continuous run load is 70-80% of the maximum.
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Well if you have say a 10kwh battery you don't pull just 2000watts out of a generator. You pull as much as possible and charge the battery, then shut off the ICE and use the battery, repeat. Normally you would want to size the generator to the load, but with the battery you can make that the big load and then bleed that with the usage.