ENERGY: The Floor That Knows You’ve Been There

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Dancing in a club may generate electricity – in more ways than one – and now data, too. Image: “How to Moonwalk like Michael Jackson” by Allan Watson, 2020. Creative Commons 4.0; included with appreciation.

Dancing in a club? Strolling to class? Hurrying across a hospital lobby? Running an indoor track at your gym? Entering a transit station on your commute? You could be generating electricity – and data.

Boston’s South Station circa 1900. From a postcard, artist unknown: courtesy of South Station. Public Domain.

Boston’s transport nexus, venerable South Station, has seen many a commuter step across its hallowed floors since opening in 1899. Terminus of public transportation on the Central Artery, South Station lit up when MIT students James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk demonstrated a piezoelectric floor with kinetic tiles generating both electricity and data in the transport hub welcoming 75,000 T-riders daily.

Pavegen installed kinetic floors in the West Ham Tube Station during the London 2012 Olympics: visitors’ footsteps generated electricity to light the station. Image: “Olympic stadium and The Orbit: Opening Ceremony” by Alexander Kachkaev, 2020. Creative Commons 2.0. Included with appreciation.

During London’s 2012 Olympics, some visitors marveled at London Bridge, and then headed for the Games, accessed via the West Ham Tube Station. There, a piezoelectric floor designed by Laurence Kemball-Cook, then a student at Loughborough University, generated electricity from footfalls of arriving visitors to illuminate the station. Kemball-Cook soon started a company called Pavegen Systems that designs floors for high traffic environments like sports stadiums.

In Rotterdam, dancers can generate electricity in some clubs. Will the transit station, pictured here, follow suit? Photo: “Rotterdam Centraal Station” by Spoorjan, 2014. Creative Commons. Included with appreciation.

In the Netherlands‘ shipping hub of Rotterdam, Club Watt commissioned Energy Floors to install kinetic flooring in its dance club. Result? Electricity bills decreased by 30%. Will the transport station (pictured above) install piezoelectric floors, too?

Marie and Pierre Curie used piezoelectricity in their Nobel Prize work. The electric phenomenon had just been discovered by Pierre and brother Jacques. Image: “Marie et Pierre Curie” in 1900 in their Paris lab. Public Domain.

Piezoelectricity (a term coined by Wilhelm Gottlieb Hankel in 1881 from the Greek “to squeeze or press”) refers to release of an electric charge found in materials such as crystals or ceramics. A year before, Jacques and Pierre Curie discovered the effect using cane sugar, Rochelle salt, quartz, topaz, and tourmaline. Marie and Pierre Curie, Nobel Laureates (and the first married couple to win the prize jointly) used piezoelectricity in their work on radium with Henri Becquerel.

What if you could charge your phone by walking? University of Birmingham, UK, installed a kinetic floor that powers students’ phones and computers. Image: “Charging smartphone” by Santeri Viinamāki, 2016. Creative Commons 4.0. Included with appreciation.

Uses for electricity generated by kinetic flooring are varied. UK’s University of Birmingham found students were constantly having to charge their phones. When they installed a floor (designed by Pavegen), the steps students walked generated enough power for phone charging.  Pavegen also developed a digital app with “redeem or donate” options for energy currency: users can claim benefits to special events or support causes. Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour (MOTS: 2022-2025) now travels with a portable dance floor composed of 44 kinetic tiles made from recycled plastic.

Chris Martin of Coldplay during MOTS World Tour that also features a kinetic piezoelectric dancefloor. Photo: Stevie Rae Gibbs, 2022. Creative Commons 4.0. Included with appreciation.

Best installed during initial or refurbished construction, kinetic floors may provide a new source of energy for high traffic environments like schools, sports and entertainment venues, office buildings, hospitals, and – of course – dance floors.

Floors that generate electricity and data may see you, know you were there – and why. Image: Rapidreflex, 2023. Creative Commons 4.0. Included with appreciation.

Another option? Tracking. Adding wireless communication devices uses only 1% of the power generated to transmit collected data. Floors of the future may see you, know you were there – and why.

Brooke, K. Lusk. “Dancing (and Walking) in the Light.” 23 October 2015. Building the World Blog. https://blogs.umb.edu/buildingtheworld/2015/10/23/dancing-and-walking-in-the-light/

Energy Floors. https://energy-floors.com/coldplay/

Hopkins, Emily. “Kinetic Flooring.” 1 October 2024. National Energy Foundation. https://nef.org.uk/kinetic-flooring-steps-in-the-right-direction/

Kemball-Cook, Laurence. “Pavegen CEO Laurence Kemball-Cook speaks with BBC London News about the importance of climate technologies at London Tech Week.” 15 June 2023. https://www.pavegen.com/blog/pavegen-ceo-on-bbc-news-at-london-tech-week

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “People-powered ‘Crowd Farm?’ Plan Would Harvest Energy of Human Movement.” 1 August 2007. ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070731085144.htm

Pavegen. https://www.pavegen.com

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 U

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