Energy paving slabs to power Westfield

[Jazzy]

Visitors to the new enormous Westfield Stratford City shopping centre will help create the energy needed to power the store’s lights by walking on ‘energy paving slabs’.

From early next year, 20 large energy harvesting paving slabs will be installed in two of the main entrance plazas within the large complex.



Every time anyone walks on the green rubber paving ‘stones’, kinetic energy is generated and captured; a small part of which is used to light up the slab after contact has been made and the rest of which is channelled into the store’s energy system.



Laurence Kemball-Cook, the chief executive of Pavegen, the company behind the floor tiles, has estimated that the units will be able to power half of the shopping centre’s outdoor LED lighting.



“Based on the estimate that the site will have a 30 million footfall next year, we think that level of footfall can power 50 per cent of the site’s outdoor lighting… As a new range of eco- efficient technologies have proven as a key way to save carbon both in industrial and residential settings- The Pavegen System is a way to power off grid lighting.”



Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8799743/Energy-paving-slabs-to-power-Westfield.html

 

[Evil Eye]

Now that's a good idea.