These insoles would let wearers produce electricity and feed it into the grid.
That’s the idea behind “Step,” a shoe conceived by 22-year-old Vancouver design student Taylor Ward. Inspired by his city’s goal to become the greenest urban area on the planet by 2020, Ward has drafted an ambitious blueprint for kicks that could help support the grid. The key ingredient: newfangled insoles that would produce electricity via tiny piezoelectric generators and capacitors (the same pressure-reliant tech that could let your butt power an office desk).