Energy Flash: How Two Companies Are Making Clubs Sustainable Through The Power Of Dance

Energy Floors and TownRock Energy are redefining how we think about energy and heat generation at clubs by capturing it from the punters themselves.

There’s a growing awareness that we need to do more environmentally when it comes to parties. It’s not enough to just take public transportation to the event and recycle your bottles at the venue. Case in point: Massive Attack’s recent ACT 1.5 event set a new record as the cleanest and greenest festival ever held. “Clean technology is ready – it just needs to be facilitated,” said Mark Donne, the event’s lead producer, to the BBC. “Fans want clean shows, that’s very clear. The challenge for promoters and government now is to meet that need.”

Two companies, Energy Floors in the Netherlands and TownRock Energy in Scotland, are meeting that need by pioneering new forms of green energy in clubs and event spaces. Their unique twist, however, is that they generate power and climate control not with electricity but through the exertions of the punters themselves. 

Energy Floors: Power Through Movement

Think back to your school science class and the lecture about different kinds of energy. Remember potential? That’s energy that lies in wait, ready to be released. An extended spring is a common example, but a punter stepping onto the dance floor is just as full of potential energy – especially when there’s a mechanism in place to capture the kinetic energy that’s released when they start to dance.

Meet that mechanism: Kinetic Dancefloor from Energy Floors. Although it may look like a regular tiled floor, Kinetic Dancefloor is actually an ingenious device that captures the movement of dancers and turns it into energy. Groups of eight tiles can generate up to 160 watts-peak (a unit of measurement used with solar panels) of sustainable output. The more tiles on the dance floor, the more power you can generate.

Kinetic Dancefloor functions much the same as the light on your bicycle that illuminates when you pedal. “You’re pedaling and the movement is converted to a dynamo, and the dynamo moves and power comes out,” explains Michel Smit, CEO of Energy Floors. “What we’re doing with the dance floor, the dance floor goes up and down by one centimeter. There’s vertical movement in the surface of the tile, and that’s translated internally into a linear movement, and that goes through a dynamo, and then energy comes out. That’s the simple version.”

Turning Dancing Into Electricity

It seems like a no-brainer. People are already dancing; why not harness their movements and turn it into juice? “I think it is indeed a no-brainer because it’s such a logical idea to capture the energy of the people to make a positive impact,” agrees Michel. “And that is already what’s happening in clubs, of course. People are joining forces. People are aligning. People are experiencing new music, new social experiences.”

While it could be technically possible to power an entire club with Kinetic Dancefloor tiles, Michel intends it more as a personal experience, a way to raise environmental awareness. “Of course, the floor converts human movement into electricity. But it’s not so substantial that you’re going to see it in your energy bill, or that the club can (turn off) the other power. That’s not the goal.”

The Eye Catcher And The Motivator

Better to think of Kinetic Dancefloor as part of a broader system of green solutions for power. “We call it the sustainable eye catcher of your location. If you want to make a location sustainable, you have to look at many, many factors. You have to look at waste, use of materials, how people are behaving. But a lot of that is behind the scenes. What gets everybody together is something that’s visible and creates a unique experience. That’s what the floor does. It’s like the eye catcher and the motivator for all the sustainable behavior around it.”

And it really does motivate the people who have experienced it. “They say, ‘Wow, movement is energy,’” Michel states, noting conversations that they’ve had with punters at events. “Something happens in their brain, and they go, ‘Oh, we could do this. We could use the movement of people (in other ways)!’ And that’s the real awareness creator.”

Right now, Michel and his team primarily supply events, like Coldplay’s Music of Spheres World Tour, but they’re also looking for forever club homes for their dance floor tiles. “We’re still looking for a club that wants a more permanent purpose for energy as a topic in the club instead of a topic for an event,” says Michel. They do apparently get a lot of requests for Ibiza, though.

“The real power of the dance floor is making people aware of their energy and what they can accomplish if they turn it in the right direction, and how big that force is,” sums up Michel. 

TownRock Energy: Power Through BODYHEAT

Up in Edinburgh, there’s a multi-disciplinary art space called SWG3 with an unusual climate control system. Dubbed BODYHEAT, it uses purpose-installed boreholes in the ground to capture the heat given off by dancing punters. This cools the air at the time and sequesters the heat away, to be reused when necessary, for example, to warm up the venue in the cold winter months.

According to the BODYHEAT fact sheet, excess punter power is captured into a carrier fluid in a closed network of pipes and then deposited into the 12 boreholes on the event grounds. The system can heat and cool two different parts of the space simultaneously. For example, cooling an event space while a party is on, while also providing heat to the foyer. And if you’re concerned about smell or sweat, don’t be: “There is no body odor, sweat or other bodily fluids otherwise transferred, stored, or re-used,” the fact sheet reassures. It’s a marvelous system – and it’s all the work of TownRock Energy, a pioneer in geothermal energy.

Two Main Barriers

So what’s preventing other venues from setting up a similar system? “There are two main barriers to clubs and venues installing one,” explains TownRock Energy Founder and CEO, David Townsend. The first is cash flow. “Many venues don’t have a lot of money in the bank and are not in a position to invest six figures in infrastructure, even if it will pay back from energy savings,” says David. The other is ownership. You have to own the property to drill into the ground.

Thankfully, as long as your venue has some outdoor space to access, like a beer garden, car park or street, you can benefit from the system. “Also, the financial attractiveness increases and the complexity decreases if the system is installed in a new build at the same time as the building is being constructed,” adds David.” It also works best for buildings that require both heating and cooling.

The other good news is that there’s no upper limit to its usefulness. “You could absolutely use a BODYHEAT geothermal heat pump to heat and cool an indoor sports stadium,” says David. “Volvo has used it to heat and cool their manufacturing plant in Sweden.”

You Are A Key Part Of The System

As with the Kinetic Dancefloor, part of the benefit is the impact that it makes on people directly experiencing the benefits – and the knowledge that they’re the ones creating the energy. “I love seeing people’s surprise and excitement when they find out how BODYHEAT actually works,” relays Bob Javaheri, Operations Director at SWG3. “What really captures their imagination is the realization that they are the key part of the system – just by doing something they already love, dancing to music.”

He continues: “That’s what makes BODYHEAT so easy to connect with. The idea that the heat you and everyone around you create can be harnessed in such a creative and impactful way is genuinely inspiring. It makes our journey of sustainability at SWG3 feel accessible and empowering for everyone involved.”

TownRock Energy is involved in all kinds of geothermal projects, and there are plenty of spaces where the capture of excess heat can be used in sustainable ways. David is hoping to see the BODYHEAT story inspire, “the elimination of waste from our energy sector so we capture and reuse all types of waste heat, including data centers, energy from waste, air-conditioning systems, waste water and sewage, and the list goes on.”

Summing up, he says, “We can all be a part of the solution to climate change and sometimes all you need to do is crank the tunes and dance more.”

Feature image Honey Dijon by Michael Hunter.

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