Something caught my eye when I walked by the empty Raleigh Convention Center last night: every escalator in the place was chugging along though there was no one in the building.
What a bunch of wasted electricity! These are hefty machines and they’re left running? And though it would be an improvement if someone would come by and manually shut them off, what would be even better would be to give the escalators the ability to turn themselves on when needed.
Why is this so hard? When escalators were first invented in the late 1800s, this on-demand use would’ve been science fiction. However, sensor-activated doors have been around for decades, whether they use pressure mats, infrared, or radar. Escalators seem especially ideal for sensor-activation as they funnel people from a known spot to another known spot. When people are put into known positions they are easy to track.
On the other hand, the motors used in escalators draw a lot of amperage when starting, which could wipe out any potential energy savings an on-demand solution might provide if not done properly. Perhaps an adjustable timeout could be used so that the escalator runs an hour after the last rider uses it. At any rate, an idle escalator is still perfectly usable!
With all of the hype about the Convention Center’s energy-efficiency LEED ratings, I’m surprised no one looked at how the escalators could be more efficient.