By Keith Howard

Advocates promoting a new green power device claim their product can lower carbon dioxide emissions while saving homeowners hundreds on gas and electric bills by spinning electric meters backwards. 

Honda Motor Company has teamed up with Climate Energy, a Medfield based manufacturing company, to develop a generator that reuses energy from home heating systems.

Climate Energy’s freewatt system recycles heat from Honda’s natural gas engine-generator back into the heating system, allowing homeowners to use fuel twice, once to produce power and then a second time to heat homes.

This process of combining heat and power to generate electricity and useful heat is known as cogeneration, or commonly called combined heat and power (CHP).

It features advanced and highly efficient energy management technologies, said Todd Kaplan, a community advisor for freewatt, who showed a video of the hybrid generator at a Somerville Climate Action meeting on Tuesday.

“The whole point is to try and get the word out and when somebody actually needs it they know about it and they can take advantage of it,” he said.

“We can save energy; be more efficient; and do more positive things for our environment by helping [to create] a plan of action for the city in reducing our energy consumption and reducing our carbon footprint.”

The Somerville Climate Action committee gave Kaplan favorable responses after a series of question and answers, including the subject of carbon footprints, (the measurement of carbon dioxide released by corporations or individuals who use fossil fuels).

‚ÄúIt’s important in terms of the whole climate change issue. Utilities are incentives to do energy conservation. Utilities need to become part of helping customers both residential and business to reduce [natural resource] consumption,‚Äù said Eric Becker, a member of the Somerville Climate Action Committee.

City spokeswoman Lesley Delaney Hawkins said the committee shares a number of priorities with Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, especially their goal in raising awareness in the community about green initiatives.

‚ÄúThis is a group that we partner with regularly, and we certainly support their efforts. We’re looking forward to working with them on more green initiatives,‚Äù she said.

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are at roughly 380 parts per million, which is higher than any time in the past 650,000 years. There are about 20,000 parts per million of water vapor in the air.

According to freewatt officials, their system produces 30 percent less carbon dioxide emissions than a conventional heating system with electricity provided from utility companies. And average power plants burn 285 watts of fuel to heat a home, wasting almost two-thirds of fuel energy.

‚ÄúIt seems like an interesting application and as a city we’re always open to look at new technologies [that] heat effectively for homeowners,‚Äù said Peter Mills, environment program manager, in the office of sustainability and environment.

According to a Honda motor press release, 50,000 similar generators have been sold throughout Japan, since its introduction about five years ago.

The Honda module connects to the Internet to allow homeowners to check on their savings by logging on to the freewatt web page. And through the process of net metering, homeowners can sell unused electric power back to power grid administrators like N-Star.

“N-Star by law has to allow you to run your meter backwards so to speak. When power plant is working if it has generated more electricity than currently using it turns meter backwards. It effectively reduces N-Star bill,” said Kaplan.

Although the electric power produced displaces electricity that consumers would otherwise purchase from the local electric utility, the equipment may be impractical for many consumers.

The generator costs roughly two to three times more than an efficient furnace or boiler and doesn’t have the capabilities to cut costs on air conditioning.

‚ÄúThe system may make sense in a lot of places and it may not in a lot of other places,‚Äù said Kaplan. ‚ÄúIt really only makes sense if you have a very old or ineffective system to save money or lower fuel and reduce your carbon footprint. It really doesn’t have the capabilities to be used for A/C which is a different process.‚Äù

For the past three months, Kaplan has been spreading the word about the freewatt system, and he gets a commission from selling their product. He has not yet sold a generator, he said.

When the engine is up and running it produces 1.2 kilowatts of power, roughly the same amount of power to turn on about twenty 60-watt light bulbs. The entire system is about the same size as an average boiler or furnace, producing the same amount of noise as new refrigerator.

‚ÄúIt’s not as smooth and as sexy as something from a big corporation. It’s something that does what you want. It provides the functions that you want without being super-sleek,‚Äù said Andrea Danger, a member of the Somerville Climate Committee.