Energym - turning workouts into clean, useable, electrical power

by Startacus Admin

The lowdown on Energym, the innovative clean energy startup that's on a mission to harness human power into low carbon, electricity that you can use.

No matter how much governments say that they are dedicated to solving climate change, reducing carbon emissions, adopting cleaner energy sources, etc., these promises and declarations can’t really be taken with any less than a handful of salt. Not in an anarchist, the Man can’t be trusted kind of way, but in a demonstrable, the next elected official may well walk back every bit of progress kind of way. The US swan dived straight out of the Paris Accords, Germany wants the G7 nations to walkback a commitment that would halt the financing of overseas fossil fuel projects, the UK has lifted the ban on fracking, and now there are whispers that the Net Zero efforts may be abandoned. In short, it’s up to individuals and businesses to do the grownup work that our governments are incapable of. Which is where gyms come in, obviously.

Birmingham-based clean energy startup Energym wants to harness the power of human struggle. The energy produced by someone using an exercise bike in an average workout is sufficient to charge 12 iPhones, so the obvious question is: who needs 12 iPhones? And also, what kind of output could a gym full of people on exercise bikes generate if those bikes were connected to batteries? According to the highly reliable statistics we Googled, this is potentially over 10 million people across the UK. 

We picture them in some kind of enclosed pens in exercise bike energy farms, but Energym has different ideas. By partnering with gyms, hotels, and businesses with offices full of people, the startup can install their RE:GEN bikes for people to use as they would any exercise bike, and the removable battery packs are charged with clean energy. 

To put it in context, they say that a 1-hour session of 30 bikes would generate enough energy to power a house for one day. So we won’t be putting one bike in the corner of our living room and hopping on every evening to avoid those soaring energy bills, but partnering with these clients stands to make a pretty big difference at scale.

And as extra incentive for the users, they can earn ‘Sweatcoins’ by using the bikes, which can be redeemed for offers such as discounts on gym membership. What more can you ask for from a bike that doesn’t take you anywhere?

 

 

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• #
• #cleantech
• #innovation
• #birmingham
• #power
• #energy
• #low carbon

Published on: 5th October 2022