Africa's first football pitch lit solely by the players' movements has been inaugurated in Lagos, the economic hub of power-starved Nigeria, at a ceremony attended by US-Senegalese rapper Akon.
The technology, invented by a young British engineer, consists of placing electronic tiles under the artificial turf, which is converted into power by kinetic energy.
Each time a player steps on a tile, seven watts of electricity are generated and sent to a battery.
The stored power helps to feed six powerful but low consumption LED floodlights that shine on the pitch. Solar panels around the pitch complement the technology, stocking electricity throughout the
day.
The system has already been installed at a football pitch in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, in football-mad Brazil, which hosted the 2014 World Cup.
An 18-year-old sports student, Kusagba Oluwadamilola, who plays for the football team at the Federal College of Education (Technical), where the pitch has been set up, told AFP:
"It's brilliant. It's going to be really useful. Until now we couldn't play at night.''
The man behind the technology, Laurence Kemball-Cook, 30, launched his own company, Pavegen, four years ago. Since then, the invention has been installed in 150 locations across the globe from parks and airports to shops and even dance floors.
No comments:
Post a Comment