Another "first" for science and technology: Kinetic energy from footballers' feet power floodlights

Pele ... the one name wonder of the Football world (his actual name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento) was on hand to unveil an invention spearheaded and funded by Shell.

From BleacherReport:
Brazilian legend Pele unveiled a revolutionary football concept this week, as Shell launched the very first "player-powered community pitch" in a Rio de Janeiro favela.
The pitch has 200 specially designed tiles beneath it, which are charged by the kinetic energy of the players above to power floodlights when the sun goes down.



Donna Bowater writing at Telegraph
Brazilian football legend Pelé    has unveiled the first football pitch to use players’ energy to produce electricity in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.
The so-called King of Football visited Morro da Mineira favela in the city to launch the revolutionary artificial field, which is installed with 200 kinetic tiles to capture the energy of players’ movement and generate power.
Combined with energy from solar panels, the electricity produced by players can power the six LED floodlights so children from the neighbourhood can play safely into the evening.
The new pitch, which was refurbished by Shell, uses technology developed by British company Pavegen.
Laurence Kemball-Cook, Pavegen founder and CEO, said he hoped it would change the way people viewed energy.

“It’s really exciting to see it installed today. It took less than a week to install,” he said.
“We’ve effectively turned this community into a real life science experiment. It’s never been done before on this scale or on a football pitch.”
Morro da Mineira, which is part of the São Carlos complex of favelas in the north of Rio, was pacified or occupied by police in 2011 and is home to more than 15,000.
Community leaders said before the pitch was redeveloped by Shell, children were left to play football on the street.
Speaking at the pitch-side, Pelé said: “I thought we were inaugurating another artificial pitch but I didn’t expect that this field could produce energy. It’s the first in the world.......