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"Piezoelectricity," writes Maria Colenso at HowStuffWorks.com, "is electrical energy produced from mechanical pressure (including motions such as walking). When pressure is applied to an object, a negative charge is produced on the expanded side and a positive charge on the compressed side. Once the pressure is relieved, electrical current flows across the material."
Colenso goes on to examine the piezoelectric principle as it pertains to walking: "A single footstep causes pressure when the foot hits the floor. When the flooring is engineered with piezoelectric technology, the electrical charge produced by that pressure is captured by floor sensors, converted to an electrical charge by piezo materials (usually in the form of crystals or ceramics), then stored and used as a power source."
While walking can produce 163 watts of power, sprinting can generate more than 1,600 watts. Thus, asks Colenso: "What if this wattage could be turned into usable energy?" After all, if a human consumes about 3,300 watt-hours of energy every day but has the potential to produce more than 3 times that amount, are we on the verge of dancing until the planet cools. Don't laugh, says Colenso: "Special dance floors, known as piezoelectric floors, turn the power from clubbers' feet into electricity used to power the club."
