Greener energy
September 9, 2009
The generators would run off natural gas-powered engines similar to the ones that currently drive some Volkswagen Golf cars. Exhaust heat from the engines would warm up water for showers and central heating in the homes.
"It's a true revolution in the electricity business, said Christian Friege," chief executive of the Hamburg-based Lichtblick, which already supplies "green" energy to homes and offices.
The plan is a challenge to bigger utility companies that generate power with huge steam turbines driven by coal or nuclear heat.
Germany is well suited to the task of producing this kind of energy, many believe, because it has the infrastructure to support it. Gas, mostly drilled in Siberia, is already piped to most city streets in Germany.
Volkswagen said that the "green" internal combustion engines it has developed for cars are quiet enough to operate in residential buildings' basements and emit 60 percent less carbon dioxide than thermal power plants.
Some German homeowners already generate electricity at home using solar panels. Power companies buy the energy at a fixed price.
cs/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Nancy Isenson