Pressroom

Boon Edam Inc. press release

11/06/2008

Boon Edam introduces the world’s first energy generating revolving door

Royal Boon Edam Group Holding has proved, once again, to be the world leader in entrance technology with their latest feature in revolving doors. Boon Edam developed an energy generating revolving door for the Driebergen-Zeist railway station in The Netherlands, which not only saves energy but also generates energy with every person passing through the door.

Boon Edam introduces the world’s first energy generating revolving door

A sustainable railway station

The refurbishment of the station was done by RAU, an architect firm specializing in ecological buildings, together with various environmental conscious companies. The innovative and characteristic concept contains of many sustainable technologies to contribute to the central theme of energy conservation. The station holds a daily capacity of 8500 commuters and was converted into a multifunctional area with a restaurant, tourist information and a visitor center.

The human powered energy revolving door

The Boon Edam revolving door plays a very important part in achieving and maintaining the sustainability of the building. The TQM revolving door will help primarily to save the carefully generated and conserved energy. A calculation was made for this particular situation that indicated an energy saving of around 4600 kWh per year, a considerable saving compared to a conventional sliding entrance.

For this very special project, Boon Edam has gone one step further to become the first manufacturer in the world to develop an energy generating manual revolving door, which will not only save energy but also generate energy with every person passing through the door. The revolving door is equipped with a special generator that is driven by the human energy applied to the door whilst the generator controls the rotating speed of the door and makes it safer. The ceiling of the revolving door is made of safety class and gives a clear view of the technology. A set of super capacitors stores the generated energy as a buffer and provides a consistent supply for the low energy LED lights in the ceiling. In case the LED lights have used-up all the stored energy, the highly efficient control unit will switch to the alternative mains supply of the building. This ensures that the door is illuminated at all times, even when the passenger flow is minimal.

Interaction with the user

LED scales inside the door indicates the amount of energy that is generated. When passing through the door at a slow speed, the scale will end up in the red or orange zone, whereas a normal or fast pace pushes the scale into the green zone, indicating that significant electric energy is generated. Another LED indicator at the control unit shows when the illumination of the revolving door is powered by human energy, or by the mains supply. "Human Powered Energy" stickers were applied to the revolving door to make users aware of their contribution to this green building. The total amount of energy that is generated by the revolving door is accumulated and shown on a large display inside the building.

Royal Boon Edam Group Holding B.V. has manufacturing subsidiaries in the Netherlands, the USA and China with sales subsidiaries in Belgium, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, the USA and now India