Pavegen: Energy Harvesting Paving

“A graduate is stepping into business with a revolutionary way of generating green electricity from ‘people power’. After graduating in June, Laurence Kemball-Cook created Pavegen Systems Ltd to manufacture his design for a paving slab that generates electricity from footsteps.

He said, “Pavegen is a flexible paving slab that generates energy from the kinetic energy of people walking. Energy is generated every time a footstep hits the slab, the slab glows when stepped on indictating that energy has been generated, and in busy areas energy can be harvested to power a variety of low power applications. Testing has shown that five hours of walking at peak time will generate enough power to illuminate a bus stop for over 12 hours.”

Paving stones that generate electricity simply by being stepped on could soon be powering their way on to the high street. The green slabs, which contain a light that gets brighter according to how much energy is stored, are designed to ‘flex’ less that 5mm when walked over. Although this movement cannot be detected by pedestrians, it is enough to generate electricity.

Inventor Laurence Kemball-Cook said the slabs could be used to power anything from lighting at bus stops to ticket machines and automatic shop doors. And he revealed that the average paving stone on a busy street is stepped on around 50,000 times a day – which makes it a huge untapped energy source.

An east London street is now testing the Pavegen technology, which, if successful, could be rolled out across the country. Mr Kemball-Cook, 24, said: ‘Imagine how much energy could be stored from just a single day’s shopping on Oxford Street.’ Commuter Carly harman, 25, who lives in London, said: ‘I walk two miles to work every day and to know that every step I take can help save energy is amazing’.

When people find out where the paving slabs are I dare say they will make a bee-line for them for the novelty of it and that is a very green thing to do!”