Prodrive joins Disenco Energy to bring "micro combined heat and power" units to homeowners

In case you were wondering, yes, you did read that headline right. Britain's Prodrive, designer of some of the coolest vehicles across the pond, is working on a new type of home heater, which also collects some power for the home which can also be sold back to the grid. Why? According to this article, the automotive sector is the only place where some of the highest-tech materials can be found, so if you would like to incorporate any of those materials into a design you may need to talk to an automotive company. Interesting to be sure.
Details of how the unit generates power were quite interesting to me. I have always found the Sterling engines to be fascinating pieces, some of which are able to run solely on the difference between the heat from your hand and the surrounding air. By the way, if you have not already read the article or deduced from my comments thus far, the MCHP, as they are referring to it as, uses a Sterling external combustion engine for power generation. I don't see any reason the same type of technology couldn't be used to charge your electric car using your home furnace in the future. Supercharge your home furnace anybody?

[Source: Gizmag]