Green Health Club Members Are Electric

Harvesting A Member’s Caloric Expenditure
Will health clubs of the future be able to convert a member’s fat into energy to light their clubs?  Inventors are hard at work creating technology that can turn a person’s exercise output (fueled by their caloric expenditure) into electricity.

Many commercial grade exercise bikes already use a member’s energy to power their electronic display panels. In this simple system, the machine loses power when the member stops pedaling.

But what if your member’s energy output could be stored and used to provide electric power for your club?  Imagine the reduction to your fixed costs and the benefits to the environment.  Now a company called MotorWave is getting closer to making this dream a reality.

The “Powered By You” Concept
MotorWave is working with California Fitness to capture, store and use the energy exercisers produce by working out.  From their website:

In December we connected 5 elliptical machines and 8 steppers .We found that the elliptical machines are the most suitable for electricity production .The system uses the full body weight of the user and due to the high torque generated the output power and the output voltage a strong user can quite easily produce 80 to 100 watts .

The steppers are different because in the design of the machine the energy is converted into mechanical energy (through a powerful spring ) the generator delivers low voltage output in the range of 10 to 12 volts with a low current. To become efficient ,the steppers have to be structurally modified.

Out of the 16 hours of gym opening hours the machines are being used in average 6 to 8 hours a day . We therefore save approx. 50% of the lighting cost and we save the other 50% by producing the electricity needed.

The Technology Breaks Even in One To Three Years
According to the company it will “take approx. 3 years to pay back the installation in $$ terms with actual machines.  If we exclude the lighting installation cost and if machines are modified at the manufacturer level then the payback time can be of less than a year.”

See video of Lucien Gambarota explaining the invention.