SWG3, a nightclub in Glasgow, Scotland, has launched an operating system that produces renewable energy from body heat provided by dancers on the dance floor.
SWG3 Director Andrew Fleming-Brown teamed up with inventor David Townsend and his company TownRock Energy to build Bodyheat, a system that provides carbon-neutral climate control by storing heat from nightclub visitors.
You’ve no doubt heard of solar and wind, but dance energy? @shionamc checked out the new #bodyheat system at @SWG3glasgow. On @BBCScotlandNews tonight and on @BBCClick soon… #itsgettinghotinhere pic.twitter.com/AG8mhXZR4K
— Marc Ellison (@marceellison) October 6, 2022
“Bodyheat is a crazy dream born of being in a lot of hot clubs, working in geothermal energy, and combining the two,” Townsend says. “This dream is now an efficient and complex energy system that we hope will inspire a lot of companies and other places to go net zero. carbon”.
Although accurate estimates will not be available for 6 to 12 months, Townsend says the system should reduce about 70 tons of CO2 emissions per year once fully operational (on average, SWG3 currently emits 138.5 tons of CO2 per year), and is capable of On providing net heating and cooling.
Officially launched on October 6, Bodyheat is installed across two of the largest event spaces in the SWG3 complex – Galvanizers and TV Studio – as well as in the foyer.
A party at Galvanizers – which has a capacity of 1,250 people – can generate about 800 kilowatt-hours of heat.
For cooling, ceiling-mounted units transfer that heat from the air into a specialized fluid. The tubes then transport the liquid to the factory room located in a shipping container behind the scene. Here, electricity from renewables is used to transfer heat to another set of pipes connected to the 12 geothermal wells in the SWG3 park.
The system works to absorb the heat that comes out of the human body by geothermal heat pumps, and it is transferred to wells located at a depth of 200 meters, which is charged “like a thermal battery” to be supplied inside heat pumps. The heat is stored until there is a need to heat the less densely populated areas of the place.
And if heating is needed right away, for example in the hallway at the end of winter, a secondary system can transfer heat directly from one place to another.
Townsend told BBC News that when you start dancing at a moderate pace, it can generate 250 watts, while when you start jumping and dancing at a stronger pace, it can generate between 500 and 600 watts of thermal energy.
