Duh! Powering Restaurants with Waste Oil
Duh! Powering Restaurants with Waste Oil: “
Sometimes I’m shocked that these things aren’t already being done. I mean, almost every restaurant in the world has a dumpster filled with fuel in the back…why not just put a generator there instead! Vegawatt, a Massachusetts-based company, is doing just that. They’ve created a fry-oil generator that deals with the waste while producing energy.
They’ve just turned on their first system at a Boston-area restaurant, and it seems to be working like a charm. The system is smaller than a conventional grease dumpster, and consumes 100% of the waste oil produced by Finz Seafood and Grill. Of course, the maximum 6 kW that it produces reduces the restaurant’s monthly bill by about $800 (or about 15%.)
The system could be scaled up, but then there wouldn’t be any grease to power it, and it wouldn’t save anyone money. Vegawatt is looking into reducing electricity bills further by creating hot water with the device as well.
Finz is leasing the device for about $400, so it saves them a total of $400 a month. As you might expect, Vegawatt is expecting to expand.
They’re about to close their first round of funding and, with that, they’ll be starting up larger operations serving restaurants throughout America.
Via CNet GreenTech
Originally posted by Hank Green from EcoGeek.org, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 10, 2009 at 11:08 AM
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(Via Eyebeam reBlog.)
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