Gravity Powered Floor Lamps – Application of Renewable Energy

Discussions of alternative or renewable energy naturally gravitate to visions of windmills, solar panels, and perhaps even steam geysers. Few, if any, think of humans as a source of renewable energy. Although not a new concept as evidenced by wind-up watches and clocks which have always relied upon humans as energy sources, there is a new application that reinforces this notion: a gravity-powered lamp.

Termed the Gravia lamp, the human element involves the lifting of a series of weights back to a starting point where the power is generated by the motion of those weights falling. Using a seemingly limitless resource, the pull of gravity to generate power, the Gravia lamp is still a developing concept, requiring advances in technology before becoming totally viable.

Gravity – Powered Energy

The brilliance of the Gravia design is its simplicity. It is a standing floor lamp, slightly less than 5 feet in height, and cylindrical in shape. Inside the cylinder are several parts required to create light brass weights. The process can be summarized as follows:

• Five 10-pound brass weights are attached to a ball screw near the top of the lamp.
• The platform starts dropping along with the screw which is aligned along the length of the lamp. As the platform drops, the screw spins, converting the downward motion of gravity into a rotational motion, which spins the gear at the bottom of the lamp.
• The spinning gear spins a generator which, in turn, converts the rotational motion into electricity.
• This electricity powers 10 LED bulbs, illuminating the housing of the lamp.

The cycle for this process is four hours, where the LED bulbs light up within a few seconds after the weights start to drop, emitting light comparable to a 40 watt bulb. As the weights hit the bottom of the lamp, the LED bulbs go out, but the process can restart by merely moving the weights back to the top of the screw.

Benefits and Challenges of Gravity – Powered Floor lamps

Gravity as an energy source is pretty remarkable: it is free, endless in terms of supply, does not have to be imported, require no mining, refining or growing. The lamp itself does not plug into an outlet, is entirely self-contained, relying only on a person to initiate the cycle that creates light. It’s the ultimate green product.

According to preliminary studies, the components will not need to be replaced for over 200 years. But for the LED light bulb which will burn out, there is virtually no maintenance. The state of technology for the LED light bulb is the current constraint to the commercialization of this product. To generate enough power to light up the bulbs, the brass weights have to weigh more than a collective 50 pounds. In fact, they would have to weigh 2 tons which means the LED bulbs will need to become more efficient before this lamp design becomes a real possibility.