Dive Summary:
- Flexible tiles made from recycled truck tires will harvest energy from runners' footsteps during Sunday's Paris Marathon.
- The tiles will be installed over a 25 meter stretch of the Champs Elysees and will use runners' footsteps, each of which generates as much as 8 watts of kinetic energy, to power display screens and electronic signs during the race.
- Pavegen Systems, the creator of the tiles, hopes the tiles will be implemented worldwide to create clean energy and boost efficiency while Schneider Electric, sponsor of the Paris Marathon, hopes the Paris Marathon will one day generate more energy than it consumes.
From the article:
"... Pavegen declined to say how much energy the tiles will produce because there is a competition for the public to guess. Schneider Electric will donate an extra 10,000 euros ($12,850) to charity if generation tops 7 kilowatt hours. That’s enough to run a light bulb for about five days, according to Pavegen.
A spokesman for Pavegen declined to say how much the tiles cost. He said that after cutting the cost in half over the past year, the goal is to get their cost down to about 50 pounds ($76) per tile, equivalent to other high-specification flooring products. ..."