A new Sainsbury’s store to open in Gloucester is to have its checkouts powered by its customers.

Kinetic road plates in the car park are expected to produce 30kW/h of clean electricity that will be directed into the store every time a vehicle passes over them. This energy will be more than enough to power the checkouts in use.

Sainsbury’s motto – try something new today – is particularly apt as it is thought to be the first store in Europe to use this technology.

The new supermarket also has other green methods in place including using rainfall to flush the toilets, solar panels to heat the hot water and more than 90% of the construction waste of the new Sainsbury’s was recycled.

Alison Austin, Sainsbury’s environment manager, said: “This is revolutionary. Not only are we the first to use such cutting-edge technology with our shoppers, but customers can now play a very active role in helping make their local shop greener, without extra effort or cost.

“We want to continue offering great value but we also want to make the weekly shop sustainable. Using amazing technology like this helps us reduce our use of carbon and makes Sainsbury’s a leading energy-efficient business.”