Football pitch lights powered by footballers thanks to Pavegen

UK company Pavegen installed their first order three years ago and their tiles make use of the kinetic energy generated by pedestrians. Since that first installation they have gone on to install their tiles in schools and at the Paris Marathon. Now. the company have teamed up with Shell on one of their biggest projects to date. They have helped rejuvenate a run-down community football field in Rio de Janerio by setting up its own off grid power supply which will benefit the entire community.

[Image Source: Pavagen]

The project is one part of the “Make the Future” program of Shell in which they want to inspire the engineers and scientists of the future and the Morro da Mineira project is the first of its kind. It involved installing 200 kinetic energy harvesting tiles from Pavegen under AstroTurf on the recently redeveloped community football pitch. Panels were also installed around the perimeter of the football pitch.

[Image Source: Pavagen]

The idea behind the tiles is that they will harvest the kinetic energy of those playing football on the pitch and convert it into useful electricity. This, teamed with solar power, is stored on site and used to power the floodlights of the pitch.

[Image Source: Pavagen]

The founder and CEO of Pavegen, 28 year old Laurence Kemball-Cook said "We have taken this idea from a bedroom in London to a football pitch in Brazil through our partnership with Shell, encouraging young innovators of the future to make a real difference in their community. In the two weeks on site in the community, children helped complete the installation. It was a real life science experiment that didn’t stop when school ended for the day."

[Image Source: Pavagen]

The company believe that the community of Brazil can enjoy as many as 10 hours of light from a full battery, which means that children and teens have somewhere to go to play football at whatever time of the day they want.

[Image Source: Pavagen]

Along with being able to harvest energy, the tiles have an API interface which collects data in real-time. The data can then be transmitted to a web address and be analysed.

[Image Source: Pavagen]