Pedal Powered Billboard (Image courtesy Advertising/Design Goodness)
By Andrew Liszewski

Last week in downtown Vancouver the billboard you see above was exlusively powered by volunteers pedaling a single bicycle over a span of about 5 days. The advertisement was sponsored by DDB/Vancouver and BC Hydro (hydro is a Canadian term for power or electricity) to show off how energy-efficient LED Christmas lights are. While the reindeer used on the billboard was lit with about 1500 LED lights BC Hydro claims that with the traditional type of incandescent lighting there would only be enough electricity to power 120 bulbs.

While this is definitely a very energy-efficient way to power a set of LED Christmas lights the hard part is finding enough volunteers to keep the bike going. The 5 days this billboard was lit up required some 120 volunteers from the ad agency and local organizations so if you’ve got a large family you might want to consider this alternative next Christmas to help keep the electricity bills down.

[ Pedal Powered Billboard @ Advertising/Design Goodness ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

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5 COMMENTS

  1. If each LED runs at 20mA and 2.4V, then 1,500 LEDs consume 72 watts – which is easily created via bicycle. Even those that don’t exercise regularly can generate 72 watts.

    A string of regular Christmas lights takes 2.5V at 170mA, which would require 638 watts. Lance Armstrong can average 400W for hours at a time, and could drive 638 watts for a short period of time. Your average person would be hard pressed to light them dimly.

    Interesting demonstration.

    -Adam
    —–
    Moving in southeast michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/
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  3. (hydro is a Canadian term for power or electricity)…

    Uh, I actually think it’s a short form of Hydroelectric, and isn’t really a Canadian term for anything.

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