Paul Ridden writes: Following a successful trial at its depot in Northampton, a Sainsbury's store car park in Gloucester is getting ready to start producing enough energy to power the store's tills. The power will be generated by the action of cars rolling over kinetic plates, which have been positioned underneath road surfaces. The impressive 30kW per hour of energy produced by the plates should be more than enough to keep the tills running.
As a car rolls over the road surface, the plates produce a sort of pumping action (similar to that used by Formula 1 racing cars to turn braking energy into speed) which then drives a generator. The store in Gloucester also benefits from rainwater recycling to flush the lavs, solar panels and the cold air from the fridges is used to keep customers cool while they pay for their goods at the checkouts.
With Tesco about to install electric car charging ports at its stores in Kensington and Vauxhall, it looks like being eco-friendly will feature heavily in future trips to the supermarket!
that would be marvelous if it was done in conjunction with facing the REALLY important issues rather than instead of them as a greenwashing marketing scam.
This is dandy, but remember that the energy has to come from the car. If it is on a flat bit of road where cars are not required to slow down, Sainsbury's is using customers' fuel to power its store. This technology is best applied on downhill stretches of road where drivers would otherwise use their brakes or use a lower gear to slow down.
Well I think this is brilliant - the energy from the car would be there anyway so why not use it to power the tills? It's not like the customers are getting charged to power the tills by running their cars over it. I love it! Hope they roll it out across the whole Uk.
This is robbery. Sainsburys are stealing energy from the driver to power the tills. If I asked you to bring your own hot water when I asked you over for a cupper you might not be so impressed. Rachael the energy is in the car but only if you press the accelerator pedal and burn fuel that you have paid for.
This is outrageous! The energy has to come from somewhere, it can't be created (the first law of thermodynamics), so it comes from the cars. The cars have to burn extra fuel to drive over the 'bumps', so in effect the cars are powering the tills. This is not green! Sure, the electricity bills of the shop go down, but the bills of the drivers go up. This is being billed as environmentally friendly, but it's like putting a dynamo or windmill on an electric car. It doesn't make it go any faster or further, but quite the opposite. The friction from the dynamo or wind turbine will just slow the car down even more!
A better idea would be a similar system, where instead of cars driving over, it, people walk over it. how about that, eh? Make fat people thinner for the good of the environment?
In addition to my first post, I just noticed that 'The cold air from the fridges is used to keep the customers cool while paying'
WHAT? Making the fridges work harder, so using MORE electricity, is not green. Installing a ground sourced air conditioner (where cold water is pumped out of the ground and used in the air conditioner instead of chilled refrigerant) would be much more efficient.
It's bad science like this that is damaging our environment.