Bulgarian people made over 200 000 steps on the interactive floor tiles developed by Pavegen. This technology was presented for the first time in our country by Johnnie Walker for the finale of the “Keep Walking” project in Sofia. The tile installation converts the kinetic energy of people's footsteps into electrical energy.
The installation was opened on March 5th by the director Yavor Gurdev, who is an ambassador of the “Keep Walking” project for Bulgaria, and Traycho Traykov, the Minister of Economy and Energy. It remained available for people in the space in front of the "Ivan Vazov" National Theater until March 17th. Each step on the Pavegen tile installation generates an average of 6W of electricity. Thus, in less than two weeks, people produced over 1200KW of electricity, which would be enough to power an energy-saving light bulb for 61 135 hours which equals almost 7 years.
This technological invention was the one Bulgarian people chose among the total of three contestants in the “Keep Walking” project. With over 40 million steps collected on Facebook and through the specially developed iPhone application, the Bulgarians selected one project which Johnnie Walker should realize in our country. An interesting fact is that every European country in which the “Keep Walking” project was held, chose the innovative Pavegen technology.
Pavegen is a system of tiles which converts people's footsteps into a source of electricity. It can be placed on the pavement of busy pedestrian areas. The technology was invented by the 25-year-old Laurence Kemball-Cook from England. He created the prototype while studying at the university. 100% of the surface of the tiles is made of recycled rubber, and the base is made of over 80% recycled materials. Pavegen's technology has won many awards and has been nominated for UK Product of the Year alongside developments such as Apple's iPad.
