Light up Your Nightlife with Sustainable Dance Floors
We all know the traditional renewable energy sources: solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal and biomass. But have you heard of renewable energy from people?
People seem to be a great source of energy. Every time we take a step, we leave energy behind. A person of average size stores as much energy in fat as a 1000 kg battery. People use muscles to convert the stored chemical energy into mechanical work. Many devices take advantage of human power capacity to produce electricity such as wind-up flashlights, radios and mobile phone chargers.
Nowadays, energy researchers focus their attention on generating electrical power from the show sole, i.e. from the steps we take or the jumps we make. An example of using this type of energy is the WATT Club in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, which uses a Sustainable Dance Floor to generate electricity and light up the dance club. The Sustainable Dance Floor is with a surface of about 30 square metres and is made up of modules measuring 65×65 cm that move slightly on the vertical plane (max. 1 cm) when a person is dancing on the surface. This dance floor is the first floor that actually harvests the energy generated by the people dancing on it.
But how does a Sustainable Dance Floor work?
Certain materials produced energy when squeezed. This method of energy generation is based on the concept of piezoelectricity aka producing electrical energy as a result of certain mechanical pressure (like walking, running, jumping or dancing). When pressure is applied to the piezoelectric elements, a negative charge is produced on the expanded side and on the compressed side a positive charge is produced. Let’s see how this works with dance floors.
The dance floor is covered with piezo elements underneath. With that, the dance floor can become one big generator, turning every movement into new power. The pressure applied to the dance floor is captured by sensors presented in the floor and the charge produced is stored and can be used as a power source for lighting the dance floor or other appliances.
The more energetically you dance, the more energy is produced. So, in order to harness viable energy through this method, it is very important that there be more people on the floor who are in a state of movement at the same time. To put it another way, you should be looking for a crowd. One footstep doesn’t provide enough pressure, but when more people are dancing, walking or running at the same time, it sure makes a difference.
The dance floor at the WATT Club can generate power up to a maximum of 20 W per person. There is also an energy meter in the club that encourages you to achieve the maximum possible energy level. This means that the dancers are constantly reminded of the relationship between them and the dance floor.
We mentioned the WATT Club as an example of using smart floors but there are a number of places and companies that have also tried the piezoelectric floors. Another example of a green night club is Club Surya in London.
This is a step forward in creating new solutions for new renewable energy sources. And who knows, in the following years, we may form better technologies to support this method of energy generation.
