Iberdrola turns Paris Métro turnstiles into mini wind turbines powered by commuters

In 2022, with Europe facing an energy crisis, Iberdrola — Europe's leading wind-energy provider — wanted to remind people that clean, local energy can come from daily life. The Paris Métro gave it a stage: 4.5 million commuters push through its turnstiles every day, a movement nobody thinks of as energy.

Rebuild the metro turnstile as a miniature wind turbine, so the push every commuter already makes becomes electricity they can watch being made.

With creative agency Weber Shandwick Paris and 14 engineering students from Lille's JUNIA school, Iberdrola replaced six standard turnstiles at Miromesnil station with turbine-bladed prototypes. A flywheel and epicyclic gear train amplified each passenger's brief push into enough spin to generate power, which fed screens beside the gates for European Wind Day on June 15-16.

In the two-day installation, 27,000 passengers generated more than 2,100 Wh of electricity. The agency reported over 130 million media impressions, shares from the World Economic Forum, and front-page coverage in France's three biggest newspapers.

Europe's 2022 energy crisis was the backdrop for Iberdrola's challenge: the Spanish utility, a leader in wind power, wanted people to feel that renewable energy can come from everyday life, not just distant wind farms. Its answer was to stop explaining and start demonstrating — inside the Paris Métro, where 4.5 million commuters push through turnstiles every day.

With Weber Shandwick Paris and 14 engineering students from Lille's JUNIA school, Iberdrola designed six prototypes that replaced ordinary turnstiles at Miromesnil station. Each gate carried turbine blades and hid a flywheel with an epicyclic gear train, which amplified a passenger's short push into enough rotation to generate electricity. The power ran screens mounted beside the gates, so commuters literally produced the message they were reading.

Installed for European Wind Day on June 15-16, 2022, the six turnstiles drew 27,000 passengers who generated more than 2,100 Wh in two days. Small next to a real turbine, but the point was visibility: the agency reported more than 130 million media impressions, shares from the World Economic Forum, and front-page coverage in France's three biggest newspapers.

It borrowed a gesture people already make — pushing through a turnstile — instead of asking for a new behavior.

The prototype made energy visible: the screens the turbines powered showed the result happening live.

Wind-turbine blades on a metro gate made the analogy to Iberdrola's core business instantly legible.

Partnering with engineering students turned the stunt into a story about the engineers of tomorrow.

To make an abstract promise tangible, put it where the audience already acts: convert an ordinary movement into visible proof of the idea.

The prototypes outlived their two days at Miromesnil as traveling exhibits, with Iberdrola planning to reuse them at events and other European metro stations, and Madrid named as the next stop. The scale-up arithmetic stayed part of the story: the award entry calculated that deployed across the Paris underground, the system could power an entire line and save more than 30,000 tons of CO2 a year. The work won the Best of Discipline Pencil in IP & Product Design at The One Show 2023.