Brilliant Paris Marathon race organizers laid out 82-feet worth of rubber tiles along the route. These cushiony tiles weren’t meant to ease the pain on runners but rather are a special electricity-generating tile made by Pavegen Systems that convert kinetic energy from the runners’ footfalls into electricity. The manufacturer claims the tiles generate up to 8 watts per footstep and with 40,000 runners in the event, enough electricity was generated to power screens and signs located throughout the race course.

According to Pavegen:

“The technology is best suited to high-footfall urban environments. The top surface of the flooring unit is made from 100% recycled rubber and the base of the slab is constructed from over 80% recycled materials. The system can be simply retrofitted in place of existing flooring systems as well as specified for new developments.”

At $76 bucks per tile, it’s still not cost effective but hey, we said the same thing about solar generation a few years back and look where it’s at now. Pavegen continues to work on getting its tiles embedded along other race routes and has been demonstrating them around the world, recently in Chile and Houston.