There were many articles about grandmothers in Serbia who had always warned their children to keep their woodburning stoves. There were a great many in use during the 1990s.

Don't make fun of me for getting my information from a comic book but, in Joe Sacco's "Safe Area Gorazde," Sacco goes to great lengths to write on some of the contraptions built to keep energy flowing. The people of Gorazde, surrounded on all sides, used jerry-rigged hydroelectric barges that were each connected to individual homes. Sacco drew a river full of them.

You can see the pictures here of the mini-centrales:

http://thefunambulist.net/2012/04/18/bosnia-gorazdes-mini-centrales-self-sufficiency-in-war-time/