Aboutcleggsan Expertise All technical areas of Electronics Engineering.
Experience BSEE, MBA, Design, R&D, University Research.
Senior Life Member of IEEE. Life Fellow of AES.
Organizations IEEE, Consumer Electronics Society, Audio Engineering Society.
Broad teaching experience; work experience mostly in consumer electronics and conversion from analog to digital technologies. Pioneer in digital audio at all levels.
Question Is it possible to have a weight driven electric generator to power and average home? I'm long on ideas but very short on math skills. From what I have been able to determine, with a low rpm generator, it looks possible. Thank you for your time.
Answer If your house during the peak of usage which is normally in the early evening with some lights on the stove is cooking and the tvs are on, etc. might be drawing 10,000 watts.
One HP is 746 watts.
So, 10KW would require 13.4 HP of mechanical power into the generator.
One HP is equal to 550 ft.lb/sec or you must lift a 550 pound weight up one foot in one second.
So, now, to get 13.4 HP you need 7,370 pound weight to move one foot every second. Or, you could have half the weight go twice the distance every second.
If you want continuous power out you would need to take the weight very high. For example, you could take the weight up 100 feet and it would fall for 100 seconds or about 2 minutes, then you would have to heft it up quickly and start over every 2 seconds. The weight is about 3 tons; how do you get it back up 100 feet every two seconds?
Enough?
c
PS: Speed of the generator has nothing to do with the basic problem. In the above calculations I am assuming a 100% conversion of the mechanical power to electrical; in a practical situation you will have some losses. A typical generator might achieve 90% or more efficiency.
