An arts venue in Glasgow, Scotland has an innovative dance floor that creates renewable energy from the body heat of dancers.
SWG3 conducts massive dance parties, with thousands of people getting together to dance the night away throughout the year. The dance floor is called “Bodyheat.” This is the result of a joint project of SWG3 and geothermal energy startup TownRock Energy.
“When you start dancing, medium pace, to the Rolling Stones or something, you might be generating 250W,” David Townsend, founder of TownRock Energy said. “But if you’ve got a big DJ, absolutely slamming basslines and making everyone jump up and down, you could be generating 500-600W of thermal energy.”
Bodyheat has 12 boreholes almost 500 feet deep. The boreholes lead to a large underground rock cube that functions as a battery. It stores the energy to supply heat and hot water to the venue.
A traditional heating or cooling system would have cost about 90 percent less than the £600,000 ($670,000) invested into Bodyheat.
“Trying to do a geothermal well would have been millions of pounds,” TownRock Energy’s David Townsend added. “Instead, we thought, why not collect the heat you’ve already got in your customers and then use the ground to store it?”
“If we can make it work here in this environment, there’s no reason why we can’t take it to other venues, not just here in Scotland and the UK, across Europe and further afield,” Mr. Fleming-Brown said.
