Can dancing save the planet? A Scottish nightclub is turning body heat into energy

Dancers at Glasgow's SWG3 are doing more than work up a sweat. They're helping drive a world-first power system.

A Glasgow arts venue, SWG3, became the first in the world to switch to a power system that turns dancers’ body heat into renewable energy. Credit: SBS Dateline. This image has been digitally altered.

Cutting down on red meat. Switching to energy-saving light bulbs. Flying less. There are many choices we can make to help fight climate change.

A Glasgow arts venue that doubles as a nightclub, SWG3, tells its patrons to dance.

In October 2022, after three years of development, the venue became the first in the world to switch to a power system that turns dancers’ body heat into renewable energy. Initially, SWG3 aimed to launch the new system in time for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow in 2021, the Scotsman reported.

The inventor of the system, called Bodyheat, is geothermal entrepreneur David Townsend. Townsend also happens to be a regular nightclub-goer. He says heating and cooling, in particular, eat up a lot of fossil energy. To reduce energy waste, he came up with the idea of storing the heat generated by human bodies on the dancefloor and using it as a source of thermal power for heating and cooling the buildings.

“When you’re not doing anything, you might generate 50 watts for heat, but when you’re full pelt you can generate 500 watts of heat,” he told Dateline.

“If you have a thousand people in here, that’s enough to heat 65 homes, and a lot of gas that isn’t being burnt.”

Geothermal entrepreneur David Townsend created the Bodyheat system that turns dancers’ body heat into thermal energy.

How does the system work?

It starts with a unit mounted above the dancefloor that sucks up hot air. The heat from that air is extracted and transferred into a fluid using the same technology as refrigerators.

That heat travels through copper pipes to a room where it is transferred again, but this time into water.

The water is pumped down 200 metres through a series of pipe loops into 12 boreholes underneath the club’s community garden. As it travels, the heat is transferred into the ground where it is stored for future use.

If you have a thousand people in here, that’s enough to heat 65 homes, and a lot of gas that isn’t being burnt.

David Townsend

The project cost £600,000 ($1.1 million) but Townsend estimates the savings it makes in energy bills means it will pay for itself over five years.

A crowd at Glasgow’s SWG3. Credit: SBS Dateline.

SW3G manager Andrew Fleming-Brown says the innovation struck a chord with the nightclub’s audience because everyone can “contribute to the net zero heating and cooling system” just by dancing and enjoying themselves.

“I think the first time you mention it to anyone, it's just like, ‘That's absolutely ridiculous,” he told Dateline.

“The next thing people ask is, ‘Does it smell?’ And you're like, ‘No. It doesn't. It doesn't at all."