Power-Harvesting High Street Turns Footsteps Into Electricity

A North London-based company has been working on an ingenious new type of pavement that will quite literally harvest your window shopping and turn it into clean, free electricity.

To show off its rather impressive tech Pavegen have transformed a street in central London, using their smart-flooring to harvest people’s footsteps and also collect meaningful data on shopping habits.

So how does it work? Well the tiles are remarkably simple. As each person steps on the tile their bodyweight turns three generators at each corner.

Thanks to the tile’s triangular design just one footstep has the potential to move three successive generators.

According to Pavegen their latest version now produces 200x more electricity than their first model.

It will need to as well, the current installation in London might not be big but it can still generate and store enough electricity to then power the lights and a series of soundscape speakers up and down the street.

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It’s not just electricity the tiles can harvest as well. Sensors built into the tiles detect how often people are treading on them while harvesting the data together lets you see actual ‘hotspots’ where people are congregating or getting held up.

So not only are you helping to generate clean energy but you’re also helping local councils clear up the pavements so you’re not always stuck in a human traffic jam.

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