PIEZOELECTRICITY EFFECT
Eleonore de Lusignan
What could be better then harvesting your own wasted energy? Just by walking you
could be generating energy for your cellphone, or the street lights above you: this is the
future of piezoelectricity effect. Discovered in 1880 by Pierre and Paul-Jacques Curie, piezoelectric crystals emit a charge when subjected to sudden mechanical stress. According to
Thad Starner from the MIT Media Lab, 5 to 8 joules could be recovered from each footfall.
“ Claire Price’s team ( Facility Architects London based group) will put devices under such surfaces to collect the energy from footfalls, and use it to power local systems.
“You can convert about 3-6 watts per step,” she says. “Think of Victoria train station (in London). In one rush-hour period there are 34,000 people walking through that space. There are many kilowatts of energy that we could be harvesting and ploughing back into low-power circuits.”
“National Japanese railway network... plans to embed piezo pads in the floor under the ticket gates. As people pass through, vibration and pressure on the pads is converted by piezo crystals into an electrical charge which can then be channeled to highly efficient power storage systems and provide clean, ecologically friendly power to parts of the station. Although the piezo current is apparently a small one, if enough passengers pass through (and bounce a bit as they do), quite respectable amounts of electricity can be accumulated.”
SUSTAINABLE DANCE CLUB
Going out in a hip and trendy club and feel extra happy because you contribute to environmental processes. This idea forms the basis for the Sustainable Dance Club. The Sustainable Dance Club is a creative concept of Rotterdam based organizations Enviu – innovators in sustainability and Döll – Atelier voor Bouwkunst. The idea focuses on integrating sustainable design, technologies and entrepreneurship in a club environment. The goal is to introduce sustainability to a large and young audience by making it sexy and profitable.
Sustainable dances club’s goal is to become a completely carbon neutral club through many forms of technology including the piezoelectricity, rain water harvesting for flushing toilets, organic foods and beverages (recycle restaurant), plus solar and wind power. As promotional exposure, Enviu and Doll have been hosting several events such as Critical Mass in Rotterdam showcasing the technology using modular pieces of the piezoelectric floor. The first Sustainable Dance Club plans on opening its doors in Rotterdam at the old club Mytown in September 2008.
Technology: piazo
BBC Commercial
Interview
The piezoelectric effect is the ability for some materials to generate electrical potential from applied mechanical stress.
-Under the floor panels of the night club there are crystals, minor physical deformations in the crystals can generate a lot of current, this is called piezoelectricity
-The Crystals are linked together in a grid forming a generator which powers the club’s lights, music, and other electricity.
“The club would have a special floor surface made of crystals that generate electricity in response to being stepped on - known as piezoelectricity. “Mainly we are looking at how people are dancing - so it’s about human power, human weight - to try to energise the floor and get electricity out of that,” according to Brezet. “We will also look to other devices which are related to a dance floor, like the lighting and sound systems. A design for efficient acoustics could reduce the power needed on stage even more than using efficient LED-lighting.”
- Han Brezet of Delft University of Technology
Scenario: harvest your energy
Sustainable dances club’s goal is to become a completely carbon neutral club through many forms of technology including the piezoelectricity, rain water harvesting for flushing toilets, organic foods and beverages (recycle restaurant), plus solar and wind power. As promotional exposure, Enviu and Doll have been hosting several events such as Critical Mass in Rotterdam showcasing the technology using modular pieces of the piezoelectric floor. The first Sustainable Dance Club plans on opening its doors in Rotterdam at the old club Mytown in September 2008.
BBC Article
ENVIU
DOLL
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