When we walk, the muscles of our arms and legs propel us forward. This energy of movement is called kinetic energy. Some of the kinetic energy produced in walking can be used to generate electricity.

A clever young English inventor, Laurence Kemball-Cook, has developed an ingenious way of harvesting the kinetic energy of walking. He has invented the PAVEGEN paving slab which produces and stores electricity when stepped on. These paving stones are made of rubber from recycled truck tyres. A green light mounted in the paving stone glows as energy is stored in the paver.

Laurence has calculated that a paving stone on a busy street is stepped on more than 50,000 times a day. This is a huge untapped energy source. A street in East London is being used to test Pavegen technology.

In the future, Pavegen paving stones could be used to power street lights, computers, automatic doors, and ticket machines at train stations. And people will be saving energy without even thinking about it. This is a brilliant invention by Laurence Kemball-Cook. It deserves to be called the Energy Efficiency Product of the Week.