Witt looks to Crowdcube to help fund production of renewable energy technology

The WITT, or Whatever Input to Torsion Transfer device (The Engineer, January 2014), being developed by Plymouth-based WITT Energy, uses two pendulums connected to a flywheel to generate electricity from movement in any direction.

This means it is capable of generating electricity from sea, river, tidal, or wind energy, as well as human or animal motion, according to Mairi Wickett, chief executive officer and co-founder of WITT.

“It is based on a transmission that has two pendulums underneath, and it will harvest all movement, whether it is clockwise, anti-clockwise, up and down, or back and forth, and turn it into electricity,” she said.

The principle behind the technology is similar to that of the self-winding watch, in which a rotor on a pivot generates energy from the movement of its wearer.

Motion in any direction causes the two pendulums in the WITT to swing. The pendulums are attached to a shaft which then turns a flywheel in one direction. The flywheel is in turn connected to a generator, which produces electricity.