ReRev Gym Gear Turns Exercise Into Electricity

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A Florida-based company has built a business helping gyms and health clubs turn the kinetic energy of exercise into a valuable electrical current. ReRev provides retrofit devices that harness the power generated in a human workout and turns that energy into reusable electricity.

Traditionally, electricity has been generated by processes dependent on transducing kinetic energy into an electrical signal.  Heat, wind and water have all been used to spin a turbine that generates electricity– but ReRev harnesses the energy of a human workout.  Think about it– at your local gym, scores of elliptical workout machines, treadmills, and stationary bikes are constantly spinning, wasting watts that could otherwise be harnessed for good.  ReRev retrofits these machines with systems that collect this energy to be used by the facility itself or even sold back to the grid.

To date, ReRev has installed their devices in more than 12 facilities, mostly universities.  In these environments, a 30-minute workout on a ReRev-equipped machine can produce 50 watts of energy, enough to power a CFL bulb for two-and-a-half hours or a laptop for one hour.  If your facility has 20 machines, like the University of Ohio, this could produce enough energy in an 8 hour day to power that same CFL bulb for more than 3 months.

ReRev is continually working to install more of its devices in Universities and public facilities throughout the U.S.  While the concept is not new, it is refreshing to see a private enterprise working to make this technology a reality.