Baby You Can Park My Car

and turn me on. The Guardian reports that Sainsbury’s, a UK retailer, is opening a store where the checkout will be powered by the parking lot. Story here.

Actually, that sounds pretty creative. Here’s a snippet:

Energy will be captured every time a vehicle drives over “kinetic road plates” in the car park and then channelled back into the store.

The kinetic road plates are expected to produce 30 kWh of green energy every hour — more than enough energy to power the store’s checkouts. The system, pioneered for Sainsbury’s by Peter Hughes of Highway Energy Systems, does not affect the car or fuel efficiency, and drivers feel no disturbance as they drive over the plates.

Follow the link for a picture of one of the “kinetic road plates,” which look for all the world like flat pieces of steel lying in the road.