A Sainsbury’s supermarket here in the UK has installed a power-generating parking lot, that aims to use kinetic energy produced from the motion of customers’ cars to power the store’s checkouts.
The car park’s road surface has been embedded with kinetic plates, which when pressed down from the weight of a vehicle, produce power via a hydraulic pumping action. The technology resembles similar initiatives like the Piezoelectric Road and Japan’s power-producing pedestrian mat, only a little less high-tech.
The Gloucester supermarket’s parking lot is estimated to produce 30kW of energy per hour, which is apparently enough to power all checkouts with energy to spare. I wonder if they’ll start issuing Nectar points as a reward for using your car? Probably send the wrong message, huh.
Source:
Daily Mail
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