Waynergy people – Human interaction with an emerging pavement energy harvesting technology

Abstract

This paper presents a new pavement energy harvest system that was developed in Portugal by the Waydip Company in collaboration with the Pavement Mechanics Laboratory of the University of Coimbra. After carrying out testing in the laboratory on one Waynergy People prototype module, 25 Waynergy People modules were set up in the entrance to a shopping centre in Lisbon, Portugal. The electrical energy generated by the Waynergy People pilot plant was 15,525.0 J or 4.31 Wh. This energy was harvested from 2,070 people walking over the system, with each person averaging 5 steps, which means that the average energy generated per step was 1.50 J on each module. We recorded a peak value of 4.20 J, which is equal to the energy produced by a person weighing 100 kg jumping. The maximum energy generated during one day was 126,540.0 J, or 35.2 Wh, and the average energy generated per day over the four months of the Waynergy People pilot was 90,417.0 J or 25.1 Wh.