ELECTRAGE Electrage 2013-14 | Page 27

When the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) decided to invest in alternative energy sources, it only had to look to its users for the perfect source of energy. Recently the company decided to update their Tokyo Station with a revolutionary new piezoelectric energy generating floor. The system will harvest the kinetic energy generated by crowds to power ticket gates and display systems! Piezoelectric flooring is a technology with a wide range of applications that is slowly being adopted in the race to develop alternative energy sources.JR East has been trialing these systems. They have improved and expand