The streets aren’t always paved with gold, but we can pave them with energy.

Or, more accurately, we can install them with paving tiles that harvest renewable energy from each step we take.

They work by collecting the kinetic energy from each step – known as a footfall – and either storing that energy in batteries or using it to power devices.

The tiles, which measure 400mm by 600mm and were created by UK-based PaveGen, could represent a simple but reliable way to power the city environments around us.

“The energy is used for things like street lights, advertising, phone charging – anything on the street that needs power can be connected to our technology,” said Laurence Kemball-Cook the founder of the company.

By simply walking around the streets of our cities and homes we can help to power them and cut down on the use of natural resources. Kemball-Cook even anticipates that within three years the tiles will be rolled out en-masse across world, making it possible to produce them for the same price as regular paving tiles.

Spaces with the highest number of footfalls will naturally be the best areas for the technology. These include “train stations, airports, sports stadiums, offices, schools and public spaces,” according to Kemball-Cook. In fact the company has already installed 200 tiles into a football pitch in Rio de Janeiro, 51 tiles at London’s Heathrow Airport and 14 tiles outside a train station in Saint Omer, France.

Power-generating tiles could even be installed along the bustling platform of a New York a subway or London tube, a concept that proved successful during the London 2012 Olympics.

However, the tiles don’t just have the ability to provide power; they can also be integrated into smart city plans, or within businesses to track data.

They are able to track the footfalls on a particular tile, which could be used to map a customer’s movements in a shop, or show when a particular public area, or train platform, is becoming busy.

Lining the roads with power

There are also grander plans in the pipeline.

One of these is a version of the tile that could be used for road surfaces. Any road tile would be much larger and have to be able to consistently deal with heavy loads passing across it at speed.

With the maximum weight for UK lorries being 44 tonnes, this could see a significant increase in the energy that can be produced when the PaveGen tech is activated.

But Kemball-Cook said this technology still has some way to go before a project of that scale can be used in the real world. And, like other potential clean-energy road technologies such as Solar Roadways, it would require significant development and testing.

That vision will allow us to be employing Pavegen on mass across cities in the next two to three years

Nevertheless, this year will see PaveGen’s biggest installation in the US go live.

Sixty of the company’s tiles were recently installed outside the Whitehouse in Washington DC, and, once operational, will function as a perfect example of how the technology can be used in high-footfall public spaces.

“We’re working with the government in Washington and that will be our first installation that will allow us to really start to take it in volume,” Kemball-Cook cook. He said that the energy generated by tourists outside the Whitehouse will be used to help power lighting, and could be a significant amount.

“We’re talking in the kilowatts that are going to be produced, so you’ll get tens of kilowatts per day being produced by a system like this with a high footfall, so it works really well.”

Pavegen is also working on a scaled-down version which can capture energy from a person climbing a staircase.

Conquering the masses

One of the biggest challenges of PaveGen’s development is making the tiles affordable for not only the private but also public sector.

Kemball-Cook said that in the last five years his team have been able to reduce the cost of production by ten times.

“We’ve had a huge decrease in the manufacturing price of the products, our overall aim now is to make the product the same cost as normal flooring.”

“Once it is the same cost as normal flooring not only do people buy a floor from us that looks good, they will find they can actually generate power for their building and data to help them understand how people move through their buildings.

“That vision will allow us to be employing Pavegen on mass across cities in the next two to three years, and that is our vision, to get to the mass market option.”

Under the lid of the tile, which can be opened with a key, the system has developed to be heavily reinforced compared to the early iterations. As well as creating a greater durability for the number of steps that can be made onto each tile, it has helped to reduce price.

Whether or not the company can continue to reduce the cost of the tile and convince those in charge of the biggest public spaces to buy the tiles will be seen in the coming years, but PaveGen are certainly on the right path.

Featured image courtesy of PaveGen