How much electric can I generate with a bike, and what is it worth.?

Question

I have seen various web-sites that show that someone pedaling a bike that is hooked to a a generator can power various appliances. These web-sites say things like if you pedal for an hour you can power a laptop for three hours. Or they say that you can charge a 12 volt battery. What I want to know is the dollar value of electric that one could generate by pedaling for one hour on a bike that is hooked to some sort of electric generator. An estimate of the cost of each kilowatt hour would be fine.

Answer 1

Pennies. If you peddle your little heart out all day you might make enough for a cup of coffee. Think about it: Lets estimate that you can generate 100 watts per hour (which I believe is a pretty generous estimate). At $.10 (10 cents) per KwH, you will make $.10 (10 cents) for every 10 hours you peddle. Even if we increased our estimated production by ten fold (to 1,000 watts per hour) you would only make a dollar from ten hours of peddling. I think if this was a viable option for producing electricity, some joker in a 3rd world country would already have a warehouse full of people peddling away.

Answer 2

For a 150 lb rider on a good road bike, the power required to maintain 30 mph over relatively flat terrain (like a time trial) is approximately 350 watts. With average speeds in this neighborhood, professional riders complete long distances in the Tour de France (usually in less than 5 hours).

At the low end of the scale, hydroelectric generation 'cost' to the residential user is approximately $0.015 per kilowatt-hour. At the high end, coal/oil generating plants deliver electricity for approximately $0.110 per kilowatt-hour. As a result, a reasonable average cost for a large utility (for electricity generation and transmission, not for all the rest of the stuff they hit you up for on your bill!) is around $0.08 per kilowatt-hour.

Pedalling your bike at 30 mph for an hour will generate 350 watts (= 0.35 kW) ... netting you 2.8 cents for electricity generation (based on the average 8 cents/kWh).

If you're travelling slower, the power generation will be proportionately lower (half the speed = half the kilowatts generated, for example). Which in turn means twice the time required to produce the same 'cost' of electricity.

Answer 3

the dollar value is going to be very low, I cant give you the kilowatt thing you wanted, for one thing, I dont know the size of the generater.
anyhow, if you went and worked for an hour, you'de make enough money to pay for more electricity than you could make pedeling a bike for an hour.