May 28 2009
Glen Luckman Electricity Information
Human Power to Generate Electricity?
By Michael L Leigh
There are a variety of ways that human mechanical movement can be converted into electricity. If you think about the motions you make every day you’ll probably be able to think of a few ways electrical generators could be attached. Simply opening and closing doors, walking up stairs, riding a bike, lifting weights, etc can all be harnessed to produce useful electricity. Let’s go over some of the more common ways that human power has be used in this way.
The most useful in my opinion is bike generators or bicycle generators. These simple devices consist of a bicycle wheel connected to a generator which either powers devices directly or charges batteries for later use. Output can be around 75-100W an hour for the average person. Athletes will be able to do more like 125-200W with bursts up to 300W but not sustainable. Once batteries have been charged they can hold that charge for months in some cases and used during emergency situations.
Another common use is self charging flash lights. You might have seen these before. You shake the flashlight and it charges a battery. Simply a magnet passing through coiled copper wire which creates a charge to store in the battery. A LED light instead of a bulb results in extremely efficient use of the energy stored in the battery.
There are literally thousands of ways that wasteful human motion could be recaptured to power our lives. Another interesting and somewhat related topic is recapturing automobile energy using things like speed bump generators, etc but that is for another article.
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Glen Luckman Electricity Information