Honda Enters Home Co-gen Market

Holy sweet mother of Jesus, the Engineer-Poet's gonna cream his jeans when he reads this Green Car Congress story about Honda entering the home microgeneration market.

The new MCHP system uses natural gas to provide residential heat efficiently, with the added benefit of producing electric power for residential use.

Honda will supply its compact home-use co-generation unit to Climate Energy who will combine it with a furnace or boiler, and market the entire system as an alternative to conventional space heating and electric power in new and existing homes. Working in coordination with state and local authorities as well as energy utilities, limited in-home field test installations will occur by late 2005, with more widespread distribution planned from fall 2006.

Honda bills the GE160V as the world’s smallest reciprocating gas engine. A three-way catalyst and oxygen feedback control reduce NO_x emissions, resulting in cleaner exhaust gas emissions than those of conventional domestic water heaters.

These are exactly the kind of efficiency measures we need during winter months when heating applications draw down natural gas reserves. As the E-P put it in his post, "Some people have been asking if we can afford to adopt measures like cogeneration. Unless I'm terribly wrong, it looks like we can't afford not to."