HighDro Power Toilet Generates Electric Power With Each Flush

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It used to be that the toilet was strictly a waste disposal operation–but now thanks to a British advance, hitting the restroom can produce power for the rest of the building with the HighDro Power toilet system.

Yes, you’re reading an article about a toilet that makes electricity by flushing.

Basically, every time you flush, you’re firing a stream of pressurized water (or kinetic energy if you want to get really science wonk about it) into the toilet’s systems, moving the contents of the bowl into the septic tank or sewer system. That’s a lot of water moving through a lot of different pipes, so Tom Broadbent, formerly of De Montfort University in Leicester, England got to wondering, why can’t all that water crank a turbine on its way out?

And thus, the HighDro Power toilet system was born.

Obviously, it won’t do too much good in a house, where the toilet is flushed less than thirty or forty times a day, but in, say, a hotel or office complex where hundreds or thousands of flushes are racked up daily, well, that’s another story. Broadbent claims his device would save a seven-story building $1400 a year in electrical costs thanks to the offsets from his toilet generators. And that’s no small achievement!