A brilliant idea to develop pavement tiles that create electricity from footsteps now celebrates a contract for a vast shopping centre on the site of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games.

Go for a walk and help power your town or city. That could happen soon on the streets, according to a UK inventor who says a paving stone in a busy area is stepped on by more than 50,000 pedestrians every day.

To harness that power, young graduate Laurence Kemball-Cook came up with the idea of the energy-harvesting floor tile he calls Pavegen.

It is the first device of its kind to capture this energy and transform it into electricity. When fitted in heavily pedestrianised areas it can power street lights and bus shelters, providing localised energy independence.

Pavegen is celebrating a contract for the massive Westfield shopping centre on the site of the London 2012 Olympic Games & Paralympic Games as well as its first permanent installation in a school walkway. Some seven million people are expected to walk through Westfield in the two weeks of the 2012 Games and all of them will step on Pavegen tiles.

The tiles are made of 100 per cent recycled rubber from old tyres. Every time someone steps on one, it flexes a dynamo technology that stores the kinetic energy produced. The tile glows to show pedestrians they are creating power.

The footfall energy could power street lighting, information signage and other applications that spring into life when people approach them.

The tiles can be used almost anywhere. Pupils at a boys' school in Canterbury, southern England, are now lighting up a corridor simply by walking through it. And the Pavegen tiles will also help the Olympic site's Westfield shopping centre to meet its stringent targets for environmental sustainability, making it one of the greenest shopping arenas.

Laurence Kemball-Cook, a Loughborough University graduate set up a company in 2009 (http://www.pavegen.co.uk/). The product has won awards from the UK's Technology Strategy Board and the Chartered Institute of Builders and has been described by UK Science Minister David Willetts as a "great example of British innovation".

Pavegen has been showcased at London's Science Museum in the Atmosphere Gallery opened in December.

One of the country's leading universities, Loughborough, supported the Pavegen technology in its infancy through its student business plan competition and Kemball-Cook was presented with a graduate enterprise award in 2010.

The device won first place in the Innovation Future Zone competition at Ecobuild 2010, the world's biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment.

Loughborough's pro vice-chancellor for enterprise, Professor Phill Dickens, said: "Pavegen is an excellent example of how our enterprising students can apply their skills to address crucial issues like sustainability. I am delighted to see the company achieve such significant success in just over a year."

Flexing just five millimetres, the Pavegen slabs absorb the kinetic energy produced by every footstep, creating 4-10 watts of electricity. The energy is stored in the slabs in a battery for up to three days or distributed to nearby street lights, information displays and even electrical appliances such as computers and fridges.

The energy generated from five slabs can illuminate a bus-stop throughout the night and, with heavy use, a Pavegen installation could pay for itself within two years, with each slab targeted to have a five-year lifespan. The technology is suitable for indoor use and Pavegen is finalising the design for the outdoor units.

Only five per cent of the footfall energy goes to the low-energy LED lamp to make the tile glow, while the remaining 95 per cent powers the tile's environs.

Constructed from marine grade stainless steel and recycled materials, the rubber surface is available in various colours and the internal components are made from recycled aluminium.

* Each slab generates 2.1 watt per hour when located in an area with high footfall - based on a hit rate of a footstep every 4-10 seconds.

* Testing at trial sites has shown that five hours of walking at peak time will generate enough power to illuminate a bus stop for 12 hours or more.

* Energy is stored within lithium polymer batteries, depending on functionality of system.

After the latest installation in the Olympic shopping centre, Kemball-Cook dreams of going global. He said: "I can imagine Pavegen in more remote areas of India, for instance," he said. "There's huge footfall there, but where there is power it's polluting, fossil-fuel energy. This could be transformative."