If there’s one thing certain in life, it’s death, taxes and the increasing cost of electricity. Unless you’re lucky enough to be able to afford expensive solar panels (and live in a sunny climate) or you have access to hydro or geo-thermal power, you’re going to keep seeing power price rises for a long time yet.

Which is why this DuetGen is such a clever idea. The new product is basically a human powered generator system which converts rowing motion into electricity which is then stored in batteries for convenient use. The inventors haven’t given very many details as yet, except to say that two 30 minute sessions a day is enough to keep a refrigerator powered up, which sounds like a good bargain.

The heart of the system is a small generator box, which sits underneath the platform, and from the video it looks as though the generating motion is relatively stress free. Simply rock back and forwards with the lever, and out comes power. The big question is whether this can scale up to serious power demands beyond just an appliance or two. The device is available for pre-orders and comes with a price of $1950.00

https://youtu.be/8Ihs7BCZ5n8