Piezoelectrics. The tongue twister that may save the planet!

Most of us are looking towards solar and wind power as the best way to harvest reusable energy in order to save the planet but there is another contender in this race that many people may not know about. Piezoelectricity is where certain substances such as quartz and crystal generate electric charges when put under stress such as vibrations. This technology has been used for years and years in things such as watches and microphones but people are starting to finally notice the green implications of piezoelectricity and using it to create self sustaining buildings.        

Many of you may have heard of Club Watt which was a dance club in Rotterdam, Netherlands that uses piezoelectric dance floors so that the dancers literally powers the club as they dance. This is a big step because Rotterdam is known as the electronic music capital of Europe so once entrepreneurs see how popular green dance clubs are they will start appearing all over the place.

After the craze of Club Watt, many new implementations piezoelectric technology has appeared. Japan has installed this technology into the floors of one of their railways stations and they manage to generate over 1400 kilowatts of electricity per day! That’s enough to power all their ticket booths and information screens. Toulouse, France became the first city to put the piezoelectric technology in their sidewalks. They manage to generate enough energy to power all their streetlamps along the sidewalk. And the United Kingdom plans to install power-generating tiles on London streets to light up bus stops and pedestrian crossings.

To make piezoelectric more accessible, Elizabeth Redmond has started a company called POWERleap which specializes in creating piezoelectric surfaces. At the moment the company is still finalizing its business plans but soon they will be able to start making sidewalks and floors for whoever wants them. Another company called Innowattech has started installing strips of asphalt embedded with piezoelectric materials. According to the company, the generators could produce 1 MWh of electricity from a four lane highway, or enough to power 2,500 homes.

As with any technology, it is being constantly improved on and this is no exception. Princeton University recently created a new type of piezoelectric material called PZT. It is made up of silicone and nanoribbons of lead zirconate titanate and is essentially an ultra-efficient piezoelectric substance. IT can convert about 80% of the mechanical input it is fed to electricity which is almost 100 times more efficient than quartz. Because it is so efficient it can harness energy from even the smallest vibrations including the vibrations that reach your shirt as you move or walk. This means that due to the fact that piezoelectric technology is so versatile it could potentially be sewn in with your shirt. So by the end of the day enough charge would have built up to charge your phone, iPod or other device.

Unfortunately piezoelectric technology still hasn’t really kicked off but I believe that once people realize how many places it could be implemented such as subways stations, tourist spots and dance clubs, it will be apparent how easy it will be to become green.