Economic potential of human motion for electricity production in gymnasiums

With the continuous rise of energy demand at a global scale and, the significant environmental impacts that the current energy sector causes, political decision-makers feel the need to increasingly invest in renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, and find new ways to produce electricity with minimal environmental impact. The use of human movement to produce energy has already been a study subject, but with very few applications in the current market. This is mainly due to the relation between the investment costs and the electric output that current generators are able to produce. A scarcity of studies about the economic potential of these technologies is noted, which contributes to the weak interest of potential investors in their implementation. In this work an attempt is made to synthesize the results related to the analysis of the economic aspects associated to the technologies that use human motion, which already have real-life applications and have been extensively studied. Simultaneously the concept is developed, and a prototype is constructed of a system capable of using linear human movement, of which the performance is evaluated. As such, it becomes possible to compare the electric output of the rotational system, based on existing literature, with the output of the linear system based on the results acquired during the preliminary tests of a developed prototype. These values are used to calculate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that these systems enable. The experiments with the prototype were developed in a gymnasium, because these establishments concentrate a considerable amount of daily human motion. Currently, that movement is wasted in the machine’s resistance. Meanwhile, the economic analysis and potential GHG savings of these systems are studied in four different gymnasiums with varying characteristics. It was determined that the use of rotational human motion to produce electric energy has a considerable economic potential in the current market, which is supported by the fact that a few establishments have already incorporated equipment that permit their exploitation. However, linear human movement is incapable of reaching an acceptable return period in almost all scenarios. Only large-scale gymnasium, such as Be-Fit Setúbal, possess the capacity to adopt this technology and reach a return period with economic viability