Michel Smit is the CEO of Energy Floors, a Dutch company that makes kinetic floors - floors that transfer human energy (dancing! playing! walking) into use-able energy. Their simple branding says exactly what their products do : The Dancer. The Gamer. The Walker.
Kinetic energy flooring? Please explain!
I owned a very large nightclub in Rotterdam in 2000. In 2006, a group of students and entrepreneurs and creatives from Erasmus University in Rotterdam asked me: ‘How can we make a nightclub sustainable?’ The idea touched my own ambition to make the city and the world better while still having a good time.
Billie Eilish, Drake, Harry Styles are among many musicians doing eco-friendly tours now. Coldplay just announced a sustainable tour that would use kinetic dance floors powered by the crowd. Are you providing the floors for the Coldplay tour?
We can neither deny or confirm at the moment about Coldplay (he laughs!) But I will say every project we do, we look for energy balance. So, depending on the specifics of an event, we estimate how much energy is needed for the total show. What % age of the show will be powered by human energy? Everybody wants to hear you can power a whole event or country, but physically it’s not possible…..yet.
We love your approach - it’s fun. When is sustainability ever FUN?!
Yes, our approach was to keep doing what we are already doing - we want to keep dancing, keep playing and keep walking. So why not do it in a smart and sustainable way and feel better about it.
How do you make the tiles?
Ha. How to make the tiles! When we started, we thought it would be simple and we could integrate our idea using existing tech. That was not the case. It was so new. We had to invent it.
We worked with local technical universities here in Rotterdam. And developed the first prototype with local manufacturers who saw the same opportunity for smart flooring. We are still working with most of the people who made the first floors.
We launched with a dance floor in 2007. Our original effort— to make nightlife more sustainable —launched with the whole nightclub jumping and dancing and converting that energy into electricity.
How does the floor work?
There is movement in the floor, so when people shift their weight, the floor moves with them. We built a special gear system driving a dynamo. The dynamo converts this movement into electricity. Then we capture electricity and gather it from all the modules and we can decide whereto feed it— either back into the floor to power lights , to charge cell phones or charge part of a show at a festival.
Could the floors ever power an entire concert?
It’s doable but you would need so many modules and people. We have made an off-grid container club where it’s possible to power an event totally by the dance floor.
Ooh that sounds fun…?
We took a shipping container, built a dance floor inside, put solar panels on the roof and smart equipment inside (headphones, sound systems.) That container club is able to run powered by the dance floor and roof panels.
How do the panels work outside - for walking?
For fixed installations or floors outdoors or in public spaces, we convert solar to energy to charge electric vehicles or e-bikes. Bicycles in Holland are a big thing, so we power whatever needs to be powered in a public location.
How would these floor panels work for gaming?
By gaming we are referring to schoolyards and playgrounds!
For this we use an interactive walkable solar panel - it does not contain a kinetic element. Instead, it has integrated solar panels and gets energy from the sun so you can play sustainably. The floor has LED lights for games like: tic tac toes, dyno jump, snake, turn off the light. We integrate the floor into sustainable lessons. For fixed installation and outdoors the sun is a much more efficient and reliable source of energy with way less maintenance.
I want to be a kid in Holland! Can you describe how the walking panels work?
Walking uses the same tech as the kinetic panels in the nightclub. We use these kinetic panels for shopping mall entrances or if you have a sustainable building, then we use kinetic walkers indoors. For outdoor sidewalks or public squares, we use solar tiles.
We operate at 60 schools in the Netherlands and a couple in Germany.
Then we have four or five installations in Smart cities. In Utrecht, 2 in Rotterdam, Malta, a smart building installation in Turin (they have a sustainable shopping mall with a smart sustainable floor at the entrance. Malta has an outdoor area that is a showcase for new ways of applying solar technology
Final question: are the floor materials sustainable? Recyclable?
The goal with our products is that they are sustainable, carbon negative over their lifetime. Kinetic tiles are a challenge because mostly they are used for temporary installations. But for solar tiles, it’s not difficult because once they are installed, within 2-3 years, they are carbon positive- meaning they produce more energy than it took to make them.
Also in the design process we’ve created that all components can be exchanged. Plus we try to use as many recycled components while making the tiles already.