Expect massive tunes only (Picture: Getty)
A nightclub and gig venue in Scotland has become 100% reliant on its punters working up a sweat when they visit – so don’t expect any slow dances.
Why? Well, SWG3 in Glasgow has officially turned on a revolutionary system which turns the body heat of its dancers into renewable energy to power the entire building.
The owners of the club have said that they can now completely turn off their gas boilers, saving a whopping 70 tonnes of CO2 a year and cutting heating costs right in time for the first winter of the cost of living crisis.
Now for the science-y bit: the system, known as Bodyheat, pipes the warmth from people dancing via a carrier fluid to 200m bore holes that can be charged like a thermal battery.
This dance-powered energy then heads back to the heat pumps before being changed to a suitable temperature and emitted back into the venue.
Bodyheat is active across SWG3’s 1250-person capacity event space, its 1000-person event space and the main foyer entrance – meaning there’s a whole lot of opportunity to capture their customers’ heat.
SWG3 plays host to all sorts of gigs and events (Picture: Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns)
Geothermal energy consultancy TownRock Energy created the groundbreaking system and its founder, David Townsend, told BBC News: ‘When you start dancing, medium pace, to the Rolling Stones or something, you might be generating 250W.
‘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.’
According to Townsend, SchwuZ nightclub in Berlin (arguably one of the world’s best places for clubbing) has shown a whole lot of interest in the system: ‘You know they don’t want to be kind of beaten at cool clubbing technology.
‘They’ve seen what we’ve done in Glasgow and really want it in Berlin.’
TownRock Energy are already thinking about where the system could work outside of gigs – so who knows, you might be having your heat harnessed in your local gym sometime soon.
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Don’t expect any slow dances at this venue.
