It took a year of 80-hour weeks before the prototype was ready. But now that it works, the Vegawatt generator can process about 80 gallons of used deep-fryer oil a week and produce five kilowatts of energy per hour, or about 10% of the typical restaurants power usage ...
James Peret, spent approximately $300,000 to develop the Vegawatt and was recently awarded one of Popular Sciences 2009 Invention Awards.
The first Vegawatt was installed last December in a place that served loads of fried seafood. The Vegawatt generator works by first filtering the batter filled oil with a multi-stage cleaning, treatment and filtration process. The oil is then prepared for combustion with a method that draws heat from the exhaust system. The grease then moves into a tank that feeds a modified 15-horsepower diesel generator and produces power.
Peter is now selling the machine through the start-up company Owl Power, pitching it as a green, money saving investment.
Vegawatt: How It Works: Dirty grease passes through a series of tanks and filters that scrub, heat, and refine it into fuel that burns clean in a diesel generator.
Invention Awards: A Generator That Runs on Kitchen Grease via Popular Science.
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
This sounds terrific. I think I read that it also extracts what would be wasted heat from the generator to heat water for the building too.
view RCJ's profile