by Annalisa Audino
What can you make for a dinner for free? In Copenhagen, at the luxury hotel Crowne Plaza, is necessary to simply cycling for 15 minutes to taste a supper cooked by the best chefs of the structure. It is not a joke but the original initiative of the owners of the hotel to produce energy and above all to communicate that it is possible to create new sources of energy through new forms of sensitization and to show that it is possible to conjugate services of luxury and efficiency with an energetic waste equal to zero. The volunteers, pedaling on cyclette able to produce electricity, have the possibility to win a meal from 200 crowns (around 27 Euro) if they succeed in producing at least 10 Whs of energy.
It works like this: you go cycling in the covered terrace where some cyclettes that, to an average speed of 30 kilometers per hour, are able to produce around 100 Whs of electric energy in an arc of time of 60 minutes. Every time that a guest reaches 10 Whs he is rewarded with the free meal and the produced power, calculated as thanks to an iPhone climbed on on the handlebar, is preserved in a battery and inserted again in the principal feeding of the hotel.
Obviously there is need for a lot of energy, since the building is composed of 25 plans and 366 rooms: the goal is to verify, by June 2010, if this type of electricity generation is able to compete against the system solar panels system already installed on the structure. Furthermore, in a few months, the use of stationary bikes will be open to all and therefore also fitness enthusiasts can pedaling and produce energy, without necessarily having to book a room.
«The project was born to answer to the meeting of Copenhagen - Frederikke Tømmergaard explains, press office of the hotel - and to make possible that the city becomes one of the greenest of the world with one of the greenest hotels to the world, ours. All we can contribute to an ecological politics: this is the demonstration».
«Last week 15 people won the supper in our restaurant. These electric bikes - Allan Agerholm explains, general manager of the hotel - offer the possibility to keep fit and at the same time to produce energy to our clients. It will be interesting to see how much they will stick in the future and how much energy will be produced». The hotel is part of the UN Global Compact, the program of social responsibilities of the United Nation to which the enterprises, engaged to respect some principles in theme of human rights, job and care of the environment adhere. As ecological building it is also certified according to the European normative, using exclusively lamps to energetic saving, air towels and solar panels, and it is the first hotel of the whole Denmark to have energy entirely produced by renewable sources.
If the ecological pedaling is successful, the initiative will be exported to all Hotels Crowne Plaza chain worldwide: obviously it is unlikely that the entire hotel system is totally stoked with the bicycles of its customers (100 Wh energy are just enough to keep a 100-watt light bulb for one hour), but it's definitely a good start to show that you can improve and change. I’ve already wanted to pedal ... and you?
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