2) No it is not practical since you would have to ride the bike for about 1,580.6 hours to generate 1 KW of electrical power, (assuming that you are riding at 15 mph and that you are buring 272 calories in 30 minutes) since 544 calories is equal to 0.632672 Watt hours.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/293114...
And since a typical home uses at least 30,000 watts per day, your hour bike ride is enough power to your home for about 2.5 seconds !! ;-)
A better thesis would be to show how solar enegy can power you home with about only (12) 250 watt solar panels, since 12 * 250W * 10 hours = 30,000 watts or 30 KiloWatts (30 KW).
1) Yes.
2) No, because it's terribly inefficient. You won't be spending that much time on the bike, and the bike won't be generating all that much power. It takes solar panels or windmills that run all day long to dramatically reduce energy costs for a house.
Wind turbines, even small residential ones, are better because they are running all the time. If the wind is blowing, they're generating. That's a lot more energy being generated overall. Same for solar panels.
As a school project, I think you would be better off focusing on just one specific use for your bicycle electricity. Like a stationary bike that charges your electronic devices while you're using it during your workout. You could just have plugs on it for charge cords.
You could take a somewhat humorous angle, and make a "junk food safe" that is hooked up to the bike, and that can only be opened by generating sufficient electricity. Thus, exercisers must earn their snacks! It's impractical as a commercial product, but I think very viable as a project to show what can be done with small-scale residential power generation.
Alternatively, think bigger. If feeding power back to the grid is key, then how can a person generate more power than what is possible with a bike?
1. Yes
2. No, unfortunately.
Cyclists sometimes use generators on their bikes to light the road based on how hard they're pedaling. The light is ridiculously dim. Expect almost no contribution unless you can generate over 100% efficiency from your bike (but that violates 1st law of thermodynamics via Carnot cycle).
1) Yes
2) No. In this manner, there's only minimal power generated. Even standard solar panels only provide a portion of energy for a household, not even 50% yet.
I was considering a few ideas for my senior thesis, and this idea popped into my head. I thought it would be interesting to attach a generator to a stationary bike. There are many other things I could do with the generated electricity, but I thought it would be cool to run the generated power to an inverter and feed the generated electricity back to the grid. That way, you can save money on your electric bill while getting in some good exercise!
My question is,
1) is this possible and
2) will it effectively save money on the electric bill?
