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Exercise bikes to help power Danish hotel |
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14 Apr 2010, 7:52 PM
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A Danish hotel is creating a world first by giving guests the chance to help power the building whilst getting fit at the same time. The 366-room Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, which claims to be one of the world’s greenest hotels, is taking energy efficiency one step further by installing electricity generating bicycles in its gym for guests to use. Anyone producing 10 watt hours of electricity or more for the hotel will be given a locally produced complimentary meal.
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The management believes that by encouraging guests to get fit they will also reduce the building's carbon footprint and save electricity and money. Guests using the new electric bicycles will be able to monitor how much electricity they’re producing via a meter mounted on the handle bars. Avid fitness fans can also, from June, race against the hotel’s solar panel system in a bid to produce the most electricity.
The hotel is a member of the UN Global Compact. It has EU Green Building and Green Key certification and is on a mission to drastically reduce its carbon footprint. Environmentally responsible technology is used throughout the hotel, including:
The first groundwater-based cooling and heating system in Denmark, expected to reduce the energy used in the hotel for heating and cooling by almost 90%. Low energy lighting and hand dryers, and the largest building mounted photovoltaic solar array in Northern Europe, covering all the hotel’s sunny facades
"I believe that green thinking is not just good for the environment but is also good for the bottom line. I have no doubt that businesses that take an environmentally responsible approach have the edge over their competitors as leisure and business guests alike are increasingly choosing hotels based on their environmental credentials. This makes the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers a welcome addition to our city." said Lene Espersen, Deputy Prime Minister of Denmark, at the launch of the hotel.
Allan Agerholm, general manager, commented: " The electric bikes offer our guests the chance to get fit and help power the hotel at the same time using environmentally responsible technology. It will be interesting to see how many guests take part and how much electricity we generate.” see calculations below.
The electric bikes will be installed on 19 April 2010 and will run for a year. If successful, the new electric bicycle initiative will be offered to all the group's hotels in the UK.
One guest cycling at 30 kilometres per hour (average speed) for 60 minutes will produce approximately 100 watt hours of electricity. Power generated by guests through this initiative is stored in a battery and fed back into the main power supply of the hotel.
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| Positive review of this story |
shockware  |
19 Aug 2010, 9:26 AM |
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used stationary bikes that is great, I keep on seeing articles about this all around the world. In fact a summary of about the different concepts in using this is found in this article http://www.dogengine.com/us/used-stationary-bikes.php (go at the bottom of the page and read "Stationary Bikes Used For Generating Energy") I am very much impressed.
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