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People-powered Sainsbury's opens
green#topic 
Sainsbury's is opening its first "people-powered" supermarket in Gloucester, capturing the energy from customers` vehicles to power its checkouts.
It is the first store in Europe to use the technology which uses kinetic road plates positioned in the car park.
As cars move over the plates energy, which would otherwise be wasted, will be stored and channelled back into the store, saving money and cutting its CO2 emissions.
The plates are expected to produce 30kW of green energy an hour, which is more than enough to power the shop's checkouts.
The technology, developed by Peter Hughes of Highway Energy Systems, does not affect the car or fuel consumption and customers will not even know they are driving over the plates.
Alison Austin, Sainsbury's environment manager, said: "This is revolutionary. Not only are we the first to use such cutting-edge technology with our shoppers, but customers can now play a very active role in helping make their local shop greener, without extra effort or cost."
Other green features at the shop, which re-used or recycled 90% of the construction waste, include harvesting rainwater and using solar thermal panels to heat up the store's water supply.
Copyright © Press Association 2009
What a great idea!
Maybe Sainbury's could fit the shopping trolleys with little dynamos. That way people could shop, get fit and save the environment all in one go.
Posted by: MikeyC | 06/16/2009 at 12:19 PM