An idea I've been talking about for at least a decade is for a hotel or a health club to hook up their exercise machines to generators and capture the energy being produced by users and giving rebates to them. The BBC reported earlier this week that the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen is about to launch the world's first version of such a program by offering meal vouchers to guests who produce energy on an exercise bike. The bikes are using iPhones to monitor and display usage. The program launches this weekend and will continue for at least a year. If a guest generates 10 watt-hours of energy, which should take only about 15 minutes, she gets a $36 meal voucher. The initiative makes perfect sense to me. This hotel already has solar panels on its facade so they are pretty eco-friendly. Over 36% of the city's residents bike to work and treehugger.com just named Copenhagen the most bike-friendly city in the world. Copenhagen is one of the most bike-centric cities in the world, it makes perfect sense. What I like best is that they are saying this is a pilot program and if it is successful, they will roll it out to at least 21 UK Crowne Plazas soon.
Leave a comment