Have you read about the Whisper Gen heat and power system from New Zealand? I'd love to have one in the USA.

Question

The unit provides water heating, space heating, and converts the waste heat into electricity through a small sterling engine. Take a look. Kudos to New Zealand.

http://www.whispergen.com/main/residential/

Answer 1

Actually that makes perfect sense, especially coming from NZ which has a strong anti-nuclear history. Our houses aren’t fully insulated and it is rare to have central heating. Added to that the high use of fossil fuels and  recent changes (as in yesterday) to how we generate power it seems quite interesting.

Answer 2

It might be good as a backup generator where the grid uses fossil fuels, but in Ontario where 50% of electrical production is nuclear I really cannot see tiny in home gas burning cogen plants being a cleaner source of electricity.  There are better ways to increase your homes efficiency than that.

Maybe it's just ahead of its time.  If H2 generated by wave and tidal energy becomes a viable energy source to fuel it then maybe it will be a great in home generator.  Until then it pollutes more than getting your power off the grid.