• Member
• September 8, 2024

Human Energy to Electrical Energy for Power Surplus Nation by Madhukar Swayambhu

Prime Minister Modi has said that Bharat has three strengths – Democracy, Diversity, and Demographic Dividend (population). We’ve recently witnessed the power of Democracy by holding the largest election ever in the World with 642 million voters exercising their franchise, out of which 312 million were women. A polling station was also set up inside the Gir Forest in Gujarat to cater for a single voter, a priest at a temple. Polling stations were also set up inside a wildlife sanctuary in Kerala, and in a shipping container in Gujarat.

For the power of Diversity, we can proudly say that Bharat is not just home to 17% of the global human population, but also a home to 17% of the global biodiversity. We have all possible religions in the country spread over 30+ states and Union territories, which is home to over 700+ tribes and different ethnic groups, speaking over 100+ languages.

Coming on to the Demographic Dividend, Bharat is the earliest and the only continuously surviving civilization, and we’ve always been living in harmony with nature. Since olden times the people of Bharat have been using the resources of nature but not harming the nature. An example of this can be seen in the old rural settlement plans of mountainous regions. The people used to divert the stream of water in a specific direction and using its kinetic energy they rotated a mill which helped in irrigation, grinding grains and oiling seeds. Thus, from kinetic energy they generated mechanical energy.

We know that mechanical energy can be converted into electricity as done in hydropower plant. Therefore, kinetic energy can also be converted into electrical energy. Bharat is the world’s most populous country and as mentioned above population is one of our strengths. This gives me the idea to use our strength to improve our economy, i.e., using human power to generate electricity. When people walk, there’s a kinetic energy generated, and the same force can be applied on objects to use the force to move a turbine for generation of electricity.

Moreover, we also know the concept of Piezoelectricity, which is the ability of some specific materials to generate electricity when squeezed or pressed, or to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. The word "piezoelectricity" comes from the Greek words “piezein”, which means "to press". Considering the thought that we have places of high footfall amount to thousands of people landing and walking around at the same space of 100-500 meters like metro stations, bus stop, railway station, airport, hospitals etc., if we replace the floor with piezoelectric material, the daily footfall itself can generate enough electricity to power up the whole complex, or may be produce some extra energy too to full fill the energy deficit of the country.

So, let’s do short research on the number of Metro stations / Railway stations / Airports / and Bus terminals etc. spread across the country. Yes, they are increasing every day, but we’ll get some ball park figure to start working.

As per Google there are 7,349 railway stations, 3,945 bus stations and 134 airports in India. There are approximately 693 metro stations in a few cities although this is not the recent data. According to Google, in a day a railway station consumes 3cr units of electricity, an airport consumes 2.21 kWh energy, and a metro station consumes 3 million units of energy, which is a huge need per day.

As per railsaver.gov.in, which is an official website of Indian Railways, “Indian Railways (IR) has one of the world's largest railway network, spread over 117,996 track kilometers (66,030 route km) connecting 8,073 stations and serving people of this glorious nation since 1853. In 2014-’15, Indian Railways transported 8.39 billion passengers to their destinations, i.e. more than 23 million passengers a day”, which is like carrying the whole population of over 85 + countries across the globe, every day.

Just imagine, if these 23 million people have travelled, they must’ve entered and exited a railway station. And if they had to cross a rotating door on the station, while entering and exiting the station, and each rotation generated 1 unit of electricity, we can generate 46 million units of electricity per day, just from railways, i.e., 1.6 cr units more than the need of railways per day.

Adding piezoelectricity to the production, we can easily become energy surplus and start energy exports.