UK-based startup Pavegen is harnessing the power of footsteps, engineering special flooring and embedded generators to recover kinetic energy from walking and running.
The Pavegen floor tiles, now in their third iteration, depresses up to one centimetre when they are trod upon. The energy from the current-generation triangular tiles are ferried to their corners, where small generators transform the downward kinetic energy into rotational force by spinning a flywheel.
In the current version of the product, the flywheel spins at 1500rpm, and converts the energy into electrical energy through electromagnetic induction. It is currently able to generate 5 continuous watts of power when one walks across the tile.
Pavegen CEO and founder Laurence Kemball-Cook has a background in industrial design engineering. According to him, lighting accounts for nearly 20 percent of all electricity consumed worldwide, and Pavegen falls in the nexus between a number of major trends, including smart cities, decentralised energy sources, renewables, wellness and big data. It is well positioned to make use of the fact that city-bound populations are rapidly growing — and with it, foot traffic in areas like shopping centres, city plazas, offices and public transport hubs.
As an additional sustainable power source to wind and solar, Pavegen is able to make use of floor space, which is more widely available than roof space, and generates electricity from the movement of people, rather than being dependent on the availability of sunlight.
According to Kemball-Cook, the flooring is engineered to be durable and to stand up to the rigours of the outside environment, water, and vandalism. The ultimate aim is to make Pavegen flooring the same price as normal flooring.
Pavegen also promises to generate data during operation, with the ability to track footfall and generate heatmaps of foot traffic.
Of course, this method of generating energy is not very efficient: material deformation impacts the amount of energy actually getting to the generators, and solar panels can generate 100 watts per square metre during the day, so it’ll take a lot of steps for Pavegen to compete with solar panels in terms of area-to-power efficiency.
That said, Pavegen’s leadership hopes the solution will make people more personally aware of the concepts of energy production and consumption, by making energy generation more tactile and local: the electricity generated by Pavegen installations, like a football field, are used for immediate purposes, like lighting said field.
Pavegen is already deployed in over 150 sites around the world, including airport corridors, and shopping centres.
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