A Helpful Piece of Equipment
A ReRev system is an individual unit that connects to a piece of self-powered exercise equipment. The system reroutes the kinetic energy that is normally emitted as a heat by-product by these pieces of equipment. The unit converts human power into utility grade electricity. Specifically, a controller box is attached to the machine where energy feeds through a processor to a grid-tied inverter. Once there the energy is sent to the buildings electricity system in a usable form (What is ReRev?). According to the ReRev company, these systems start at $10,000. There is a large initial cost for any amount of units, but as more units are installed, the price per unit decreases (Johansen). These units can add up quickly and get costly. They also can take up a lot of space in the gym. However, they are good systems because they create energy that can be used to power the lights, televisions, and fans in a gym. In addition, they can power other pieces of exercise equipment that are not self-powered, such as the treadmills and stair masters in the Wake Forest gym. Each unit of ReRev creates 50 Wh per thirty minutes of use of the piece of exercise equipment (Johansen). That is equal to 0.1 kWh per hour of use.