The much-anticipated Pavegen product upgrade was announced this week to a packed audience at BAFTA and many watching via live stream. The company, which uses high-tech floor tiles to convert footsteps into electricity, raised £1.9m from the support of the crowd last year. Pavegen says the new triangulated design produces 20 times more power per footstep than the previous square tiles, capturing every bit of energy, so not a step will be wasted.
Pavegen plan to implement its 
revolutionary technology to energise the people-powered, smart cities of the future. The energy generated from Pavegen tiles can be utilised to power advertising campaigns, along with improving safety by generating energy to illuminate your pathway.
Pavegen CEO and founder, Laurence Kemball-Cook, commented: “This is the biggest moment in Pavegen’s history. We’ve created a product that can reshape the way people move in our cities, and with current digitisation our ability to connect physical and digital worlds through a single footstep, places us at the forefront of the footfall energy-harvesting market.”
The company has also announced its collaboration with Tribal Planet, a brand advocate creating mobile platform, which formed through the merging of Tribal Technologies and Tribal Brands in 2014. Jeff Martin, founder of Tribal Planet and former Apple executive, is now an instrumental advisor on Pavegen’s board. The two companies will create an app using public venues and access points around the world to monitor the energy generated on each Pavegen tile. The app will follow a ‘redeem and donate’ scheme, where energy generated by an individual’s footsteps rewards them with an energy currency. This can then be redeemed for exclusive experiences and events access, or can be donated to social causes in deprived areas.
Of the revolutionary collaboration, Kemball-Cook said: “we’re thrilled to propel the launch forward with our long-term strategy alongside Tribal Planet. Jeff Martin has been instrumental in helping identify the space in which we’re positioned, using the data aspect of our technology to integrate in the city environment. Everyone gets excited about how much progress has been made in energy generated from footsteps, but this is more than just kinetic energy. With this partnership we are moving Pavegen from kinetic flooring and sustainable energy into smart floors and the business of data.”
To try out these energy generating tiles for yourself head to one of the first installations at the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London. After which the tiles will be taken to Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, and Oxford Street in London.
If you would like to find out more about Pavegen and its raise on Crowdcube, read the guest blog from Laurence Kemball-Cook, here.