The view
Cars as power plants
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Paid parking, who doesn’t hate it? Nevertheless, it will soon be a fact of life at TU Delft, too. Perhaps the only person who cannot wait for this is Professor Ad van Wijk. The newly endowed professor of Future Energy Systems predicts that the familiar scenario will be turned on its head and instead he will be paid to park his car.
Professor Ad van Wijk, who is also the director of the Green Campus Company, is seeking investors and bright minds to transform the campus into an icon of sustainable technology. One of his hobbyhorses is an idea for multi-storey car parks that pay out.
“Multi-storey car parks are our future power plants,” the professor says. “It might take another ten or 15 years but sooner or later many cars will be fitted with fuel cells. These cars generate electricity more efficiently than large power plants. And that electricity can easily be tapped in car parks which have the appropriate fuel supply, such as natural gas, biodiesel or hydrogen. Paid parking suddenly takes on a whole new meaning; that is, you get paid to park your car.”
Prof. Van Wijk beams, and then makes a quick calculation: “A car generates an average capacity of 80 kilowatts, so 500 cars with fuel cells would generate 40 megawatts. Suppose those cars are parked for eight hours a day, 300 days a year: this would generate a total of nearly 100 million kilowatt hours, which is twice the campus’ power consumption.”
The green entrepreneur also hopes to realise plans for a hotel on campus in the foreseeable future. “I always say within five years,” jokes the professor, before continuing. “If you want to realise sustainable projects with companies, it’s important to create an environment in which you can negotiate with the CEOs. Every university abroad has its own hotel where meetings are held. You cannot treat commercial contacts to lunch in the canteen – they’re not students, after all.” Naturally, the campus hotel will be sustainable, with an electricitygenerating dance floor and gym where the people exercising can convert their hard work into electricity. The fitness equipment registers the amount of generated electricity on a card, which the owner can then use to pay for a coffee, for instance. All the artificial lighting will be from LEDs, fitted in the walls, furniture and even the glasses. Prof. Van Wijk also foresees an enormous harp-shaped windmill situated at the motorway exit to Delft Zuid and a sound barrier along Kruithuisweg, full of little wind turbines and solar panels. And the people who earn a little extra money by parking their cars in a car park on the outskirts of the campus can then travel to their offices via a monorail suspended from the sound barrier. (TvD)
