Now this is a good example of energy conservation: in effect using the water pressure to generate electricity.
"this is the first sensor faucet to use a power source that is completely self-sufficient--a hydro-powered turbine that charges the power supply during usage, eliminating the need to replace batteries or use external electricity"Treehugger: Toto's EcoPower Auto-Sensor Faucet:
2 comments:
Andii, don't take this the wrong way, because I find your posts informative and interesting. This isn't really energy conservation, its simply moving the energy source (to the pumping station). That isn't to say it isn't a good idea. What you would have to look at is whether the additional cost (and energy consumed in its creation) of the mini-generator there must be inside the tap, outweighs the cost and energy of other options (batteries, mains powered etc).
I quite agree, though I was assuming that the unit costs of installation [certainly with units manufactured integrally] would be pretty low and so the power, essentially, was reclaiming some of the energy used to prime the water pressure in the first place -in a sense 'free energy' because at present it is simply being asked to do one task and this gets it to do two. You are quite right to be suspicious that the other costs might make it unviable [either economically or in energy terms]. I suspect that this is not the case but the question should be asked and you're quite right to pick it up.
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