If used frying oil can run a Mercedes, why can't it power the restaurant it came from?
That's the idea behind Owl Power Company's Vegawatt power system, a machine that converts a restaurant's waste oil into electricity and hot water.
The company now has a prototype of the Vegawatt power system which it will begin beta testing with restaurants in the fall and release next year.
For restaurant owners, the generator shouldn't be a big change. They just dump their used fry grease into the Vegawatt system rather than their existing dumpsters.
Owl Power System intends to lease the machine, which is about 6 feet high and 2 feet deep, to restaurants for $400 a month. It's appropriate for restaurants that have two or three fryers--that covers a lot of McDonalds and donut shops, said Peret.
The electricity and hot water the machine generates won't cover all a restaurant's energy usage, but it could be used during peak times when electricity is most expensive.
