Friday, June 26, 2009

England supermarket is powered by shoppers’ kinetic energy

Now here's a novel way of 'stealing' peoples' power..... by harvesting the kinetic energy of shoppers! A recent article reports that

An English supermarket is deploying a green energy system that allows it to harvest energy from the natural movement of its shoppers.

Sainsbury, England’s third largest supermarket chain, has decided to deploy a road plate technology developed by AEST from California that generates electricity whenever pressure is applied on it, for example, a car running over it.

AEST says that a system of 20 plates can generate about 10,000 to 12,000 kWh of energy per day, and cost $2.5 million. The system generates energy which allows saving of approximately $300,000 a year.

The Sainsbury system will generate 30kW per hour, which is enough to power the store’s lighting and computers.



Read more at 'England supermarket is powered by shoppers’ kinetic energy'

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