Turning Footsteps Energy into Green Electricity

We already know that by walking instead of riding a car, we contribute to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gas, while improving our health. The UK startup PaveGen have introduced an extra reason to encourage people walk: generate electricity! The secret? Tiles that harvest the kinectic energy we produce while walking and turn it into electricity (see Video 2). This is achieved through a hybrid solution that combines the piezoelectric effect and induction. Each step pushes down the tile by few millimeters, which produces about 5 Watts. Multiply this by hundreds of thousands, or even millions in some public places such as shopping malls, and we get a mini-renewable energy power plant.

PaveGen tiles is an interesting alternative to solar and wind generated electricity. This is true not only in streets where buildings shade makes solar panels of little use, but also indoors where solar panels and windmills are not an option. Over 100 projects, developed between 2009 and 2016, showed the viability of this solution in very different places, such as: school corridors, subways, sidewalks, sport fields and festival dance floors.