Energy harvesting

Jeremy Bickerstaffe

Energy harvesting

Contents
1. What is energy harvesting? ................................................................................ 2 2. Balancing the energy supply and energy demand............................................ 3 2.1 How much energy is available? ....................................................................... 3 2.2 How much energy is needed? ......................................................................... 4 3. When is energy harvesting appropriate? .......................................................... 6 3.1 Energy Harvesting a great solution ............................................................... 6 3.2 Energy Harvesting not a great solution ......................................................... 7 4. How does energy harvesting work? .................................................................. 9 5. What is the future for energy harvesting? ....................................................... 11

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1. What is energy harvesting?

Energy harvesting is commonly defined as the conversion of ambient energy into electrical energy1. This definition is too narrow. We define energy harvesting as the collection and storage of ambient energy for on-demand, off-grid use. The first definition considers only the transducer technology for energy conversion, and assumes that the energy must be converted to electricity. Our definition takes a broader, application centric view, where the transducer is one component of a complete system that provides power for those niche applications where other sources of energy are unavailable or unsuitable. Ambient energy Energy is all around us, in many different forms thermal, chemical, electrical, mechanical and more. To make use of energy harvesting one or more of these energy fields must be present in the environment of interest, and there must be a suitable transducer to convert the energy. Off-grid energy Energy harvesting is used where another supply of energy is not available. Harvesters cost money, so it only makes sense to use them when it is too expensive or physically impossible to use other energy sources such as grid electricity or batteries. On-demand energy An energy harvester has to supply power when it is needed, not simply when it is available, and some form of energy storage is generally required to match the demand with the supply.

Steve Beeby, in Energy Harvesting Systems, published by Springer 2

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2. Balancing the energy supply and energy demand

2.1 How much energy is available?
There are in principle many different energy fields available from which to harvest energy: Radiation (light, solar, cosmic rays, electromagnetic radiation) Thermal Mechanical (potential, kinetic, elastic, fluid) Gravitational Chemical (battery, fuel cell, fossil fuels, phase change) Nuclear Magnetic (Magnetisation, currents etc) Electric

In practice, many have no value for energy harvesting. Sound, cosmic radiation, atmospheric pressure variation and nuclear background radiation are universally present, but have almost no associated energy. Whether the other energy fields are usable depends entirely on the location of the harvester, and the list of useful energy types usually comes down to only one or two that are suitable for a given application in a given location. Outdoors above ground, sunlight is a good source of energy with high energy density, and good predictability. Wind can be suitable for large enough applications that are high up enough to provide clear airpaths. Suitable temperature differences and vibrations are hard to find. Indoors, artificial lighting can provide enough power for low power applications, such as calculators, but most other fields are not present or do not provide enough energy. For vehicles and for industrial applications, machine vibrations and thermal gradients are often practical, since there are high temperatures and strong vibrations at known frequencies. Human motion can be usefully harvested. Commercial products include the wind up radios, torches and phone chargers produced by Freeplay and others, and bicycle powered computing in India.

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Table 1: Availability of different types of energy by location

Radiation

Location Home / Office Roadside Bridge Vehicle Pumping Station Oil Rig Battlefield Remote sensing in Antarctica

Winter Summer

River

Back of the envelope calculations are the starting point for evaluating whether a particular energy type can ever provide enough power to be useful. Table 2: Power available from different energy types Source Cosmic radiation EM radiation Blood pressure Machine vibration Indoor lighting Human power Power 0.1W 0.5 W 15 W 5 mW 20 mW 2W Notes Neglecting conversion inefficiencies 10 x 10cm antenna 10m below a 10kV transmission line Estimate of Southampton University hospital device Perpetuum PP27 5 x 5 cm solar cell Winding a Baygen radio

2.2 How much energy is needed?

Different kinds of devices have very different energy requirements. A pacemaker
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Thermal gradients

Machine vibration

Sunlight

Artificial lighting

Human

Wind

Tidal

Energy Source

Gravitational hydroelectric

Energy harvesting

requires only around five Joules of energy to operate for a day, whereas a desktop computer requires around 5 Megajoules a million times more. Some devices operate continuously, and the average power requirement is the same as the instantaneous power requirement. Other devices only need to operate intermittently something that is on for 1 second, and then off for 9 seconds has a duty cycle of 10%, and the average power requirement is thus only 10% of the maximum power requirement. Whether or not a particular application can make use of energy harvesting depends on understanding its energy usage profile, and matching it with the energy available from harvesting. The table below gives figures for the energy and power requirements of a range of common devices. Table 3: Energy usage requirements for a range of devices Device Pacemaker Wired sensor Wireless sensor Power usage 50 W 100 W 1 mW Energy usage over 24 hours 5J 10 J 10 J Assumptions 70 beats per minute 1 Hz strain sensor Humidity sensor 10% duty cycle Zigbee radio protocol Continuous 23 hours standby 45 minutes talk time 8 kJ 60 kJ 500 kJ 5 MJ Continuous 8 hours on, 16 hours off 8 hours on, 16 hours off 8 hours on, 16 hours standby

Hearing aid Mobile phone

0.4 mW 15 mW 1.5 W standby transmit

70 J 5 kJ

GPS receiver Low power computer Laptop computer Desktop computer

100 mW 2W 15 25 W 50 150 W

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3. When is energy harvesting appropriate?

3.1 Energy harvesting a great solution
Energy harvesting is useful when: There is a match between the available energy and the energy needed Energy harvesting provides a benefit that is not achievable using batteries or grid electricity Industrial condition monitoring At a large oil pumping station, there are thousands of pieces of vibrating machinery. Knowing the operating conditions prevents failures and downtime, increases performance, and reduces costs. Wired sensor networks with miles of cabling can be expensive to install, and regular battery replacement for thousands of sensors is possibly even more expensive. A network of autonomous vibration powered, wireless sensors provides a fit and forget solution to the problem of data collection. Powering remote infrastructure A bus stop becomes more useful with an electronic bus information display. In remote areas, the information is even more useful, but grid electricity is expensive to install because of the distance, and single use batteries wouldnt last very long. A generator would be noisy and need to be maintained. The most economical way to power the display and associated electronics is a solar panel and / or small wind turbine, together with a rechargeable battery and power management electronics. Wireless sensor networks Sensors rarely need much energy, so that readings of flow rate, temperature, humidity and pressure can be taken with small amounts of harvested energy. Transmitting those readings with newly developed efficient wireless communication protocols then allows that information to be used to save money by early diagnosis of problems and planned maintenance. Wireless tyre pressure sensors Monitoring tyre pressure allows for reduced fuel consumption and safer driving, but theres no route for power cables from the battery to the tyres. Battery powered sensors with wireless data transmission dont last long enough, so introduce a maintenance overhead for battery changing. Vibration energy harvesting from the regular impacts as the wheel rotates provides the best solution for powering the sensors. Pipeline actuators In an industrial gas pipeline, or a steam pipe distribution system, plenty of energy is available. Thermal energy can be harvested using maintenance free solid state thermoelectric transducers. The energy can be used to open and close valves without the need to run cabling to the actuators. Other suitable applications Road / rail side traffic signs and monitoring using solar panels and wind turbines
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Remote environmental sensing Wind scoop on a lorry to provide autonomous container tracking Self powered wireless light switch for retrofit dimming without rewiring or battery replacement Solar powered mobile phone base station in Africa Keeping batteries topped up on small boats

3.2 Energy harvesting not a great solution

Free energy often comes at a cost, and thinking through the complete system is key to determining whether energy harvesting is going to solve your power needs. Green energy A myth that keeps cropping up is that energy harvesting is a small scale demonstration of how we can collect freely available energy in the environment, and that in the future these same technologies will be scaled up and used to power our homes and businesses. This is false. With the exception of photovoltaic cells for collecting sunlight, the technologies are completely different. Energy harvesting Scale Typical power Where is the power used? Small Microwatts to Watts Power is used by the same device that collects the energy. Reduced total cost Safety Autonomous power Sunlight Temperature differences Vibration Green energy Large Kilowatts to Megawatts Power is connected to a grid for use by many different devices. Reduced carbon emissions Energy independence Sunlight Wind Tides Waves Gravity (hydroelectricity)

Key drivers

Most suitable energy fields

Collecting wasted energy Its easy to do calculations showing how much energy is wasted by the footsteps of a thousand people, but theres no business sense in powering ticket machines from the footsteps of commuters at underground stations. The harvesters will be expensive, and the amount of energy that can be collected is trivial in comparison to the energy used in lighting, heating, and ventilation. If cost savings are the goal, then optimising the operation of the existing building infrastructure and replacing old plant will pay back much sooner. Self-charging consumer electronics A mobile phone that does not need charging would be wonderful, but were unlikely to see one any time soon, despite increasingly common press releases to the contrary. Existing pocket sized solar chargers will take a day to charge a standard phone, and you cant keep your phone in your pocket while its charging. Vibration energy harvesters that exploit energy from walking can provide enough power for charging, but
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only while walking, and are not small enough to be integrated within the phone. Couple these limitations with the increased power consumption of smartphones compared to older phones, and the gap between the energy needed and the energy available is only increasing. Extending device operating time Our batteries dont last long enough. How about using energy harvesting to keep them topped up when the power runs out? In our experience this rarely works out. For an application where you can harvest energy faster than you use it, you dont need the battery in the first place and can rely entirely on energy harvesting. For an application where you use energy faster than you can harvest it, adding a harvester will only increase the lifetime of your device by a small fraction, e.g. 10% rather than the factor of two or more that youre looking for. Drop in battery replacement A battery powered device works wherever it is. Harvesters can only provide power when theres an appropriate energy field. Batteries are mature, low cost commodity items available from a large number of suppliers. Energy harvesters currently are immature, high cost, often bespoke, power solutions available from a small number of suppliers.

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4. How does energy harvesting work?

Energy Fields Energy Harvester

Transducers Conditioning Storage

Energy Use

An energy harvester comprises one or more transducers, power conditioning, and energy storage. These technologies work together to collect energy and deliver power to the device. The transducer converts energy from one energy type to a second energy type, usually electricity. Energy Field Light Transducer Photovoltaic cells Notes Efficiency is typically 5 to 15%. Its not always best to have the highest efficiency, as a larger lower efficiency device may provide the power at lower cost. Harvesters can only harvest at a single frequency, and vibrations must be high amplitude. Power harvested is proportional to the vibrating mass in the harvester, so bigger is better. Power produced is proportional to the square of the temperature difference across the Peltier module, so big temperature differences (50C) are much more useful than small ones (5C).

Vibration

Linear electromagnetic generator

Heat / Temperature

Peltier thermoelectric module

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Power conditioning is necessary because the natural output of the transducer can be intermittent, and at the wrong frequency, voltage and current to directly drive the device. A specialised DC-DC converter microchip takes in power from the transducer and outputs typically 3 to 5V, which can then be stored or used. The converter is an integral part of the system and requires careful electronic design to minimise power losses. Energy storage is needed to balance the energy supply and energy demand. For applications where energy is used as soon it is collected (e.g. RFID and wireless light switches), no storage is needed. Usually however a rechargeable battery, capacitor, or supercapacitor is used. Batteries degrade over time, and so the lifetime of the storage device can often be the limiting factor in the overall lifetime of the harvester. The device which uses the energy needs to be designed to work with energy harvesting as the power source. This entails reducing the power requirement to the absolute minimum necessary.

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5. What is the future for energy harvesting?

Much of the effort in energy harvesting has focused on the transducer, to determine how to obtain as much energy as possible from a given energy field. As the technology matures the focus will shift to the new applications enabled by energy harvesters. System integration Plug and play energy harvesting will become the norm. In place of buying each component of the harvester and having to integrate them for each application, we are beginning to see manufacturers and consortia such the EnOcean group designing complete systems which allow a range of different harvesters (solar, vibration, heat) to be connected to common energy conditioning and storage units. Low power electronics New low power electronics will enable applications that were previously out of bounds. Large microelectronics companies such as Texas Instruments are developing specialised power conditioning chips that minimise power losses and make it easier for energy harvesting to be used as a source of power. Low power wireless communications Communications protocols that are explicitly designed to minimise the energy required to transmit data are being developed. Their deployment is hindered by the understandable nervousness in committing to technologies which may fall by the wayside in the competition for the best protocols. In time a consensus will emerge. Smart cities Energy harvesting powered wireless sensors will become ubiquitous, providing ever more valuable information that is used to enable improvements to transport, health, and infrastructure. Biological systems Power from breathing or blood pressure could power ultra low power medical implants. Researchers at Southampton University hospital have developed an experimental pace maker that is able to draw 1/3 of the power it requires from blood flow. Falling costs The cost of energy harvesting will fall dramatically if it makes its way into mass market consumer applications. Then it will be possible for industry applications to make wider use of energy harvesting enabled devices by piggy backing on the development work of others.

Jeremy Bickerstaffe is a Consultant in Sagentias Science & Technology Group. Contact Jeremy.Bickerstaffe@sagentia.com

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Sagentia
Sagentia is a global innovation, technology and product development company. We provide outsourced R&D consultancy services to start ups through to global market leaders in the medical, industrial and consumer sectors. With global headquarters in Cambridge, UK, and US headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sagentia works with clients from front end market needs analysis through to transfer to manufacture. We deliver innovation around new technologies and new generation products and services that provide commercial value and market advantage. The company also assists business leaders to create strategies for technology, innovation and growth. www.sagentia.com info@sagentia.com

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