Energy harvesting in IoT Sustainable energy harvesting: The eco-friendly alternative to batteries

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Energy harvesting is beneficial when the power sources for small devices, such as in the Internet of Things (IoT), need to be sustainable, durable, and cost-efficient. The Belgian company e-peas combines several harvesting methods in its integrated circuits (PMIC), among other things.

Energy harvesting refers to the process of capturing small amounts of energy from the environment and converting it into electrical energy. Energy harvesting focuses on sustainability and environmental friendliness by utilizing natural, often inexhaustible sources of energy such as sunlight, heat, motion, or vibrations. For small devices such as sensors, remote controls, or medical implants, this solution eliminates the need for power sources like batteries.

This is not only safer but also reduces the demand for finite resources because fewer batteries need to be produced, thus decreasing the amount of waste after their lifespan. Additionally, energy harvesting offers significant potential for reducing maintenance costs. Consequently, energy harvesting is already of great interest in areas such as IoT and consumer electronics.

With this technology, devices can be operated autonomously and maintenance-free over long periods, which is beneficial in hard-to-reach or remote locations. It also promotes the miniaturization and integration of energy-efficient devices, thereby opening up new application possibilities in agriculture, disaster relief, and space exploration.

Given the assumption that up to 150,000 new devices are added to the IoT every minute, it's time to think about the sustainability of IoT. For those of you who haven't considered energy harvesting for your applications so far, the solutions from e-peas might be of interest.

Energy harvesting on the rise

Founded in 2014 by CEO Geoffroy Gosset and CTO Julien De Vos, the company e-peas now offers numerous PMICs (Power Management Integrated Circuits) that harvest energy in various ways. This is also the unique selling point of e-peas, as explained by Dan Harper, Senior Vice President Global Sales, in a talk during electronica 2024. "We are not limited to a specific energy source; it can be light, it can be heat, it can be RF or kinetic energy. Or vibrations and motions. With our PMICs, we provide a way to convert and store this often freely available energy."

Harper expects that energy harvesting will predominantly gain traction in the consumer sector in the coming years, for example with remote controls or wireless keyboards. The incentive is clear in our times: using ambient energy is more environmentally friendly than relying on a power source like a battery.

Harvest from multiple sources

In addition to PMICs that harvest energy from a single source and convert it for storage, e-peas offers the AEM13920, which collects and converts energy from two different sources, providing greater flexibility in application design. If an ambient energy source, such as heat, fails, power can be supplied by a PV module.

According to Harper, this is useful for inventory storage and tracking. When a crate reaches a location that is dark, such as when it is loaded onto a truck, there is little energy available from sunlight. At this point, kinetic energy harvesting comes into play, generated by the movement and vibrations of the vehicle. Thus, a transmitter can continue to regularly send the crate's location to the receiver.

Fiercely contested market?

When asked whether the market for IoT energy harvesting solutions is competitive, Harper replied that while there is some competition, e-peas products stand out due to their small form factor, as they require few external components. "We primarily focus on being super efficient," Harper said. "Our products usually harvest around 90 percent of the energy. A solution can be extremely sustainable and super efficient, but if I can't change the channel on my TV, the user experience is quite poor."

Energy harvesting from light is likely to be adopted in consumer electronics first, as it is suitable for devices such as keyboards. It allows for harvesting energy from keystrokes and light energy. The PV modules can, of course, be customized. "In the next six months, a major manufacturer will launch a keyboard and a mouse," Harper hinted. e-peas has already demonstrated a keyboard at the trade fair.

Other application areas are found in the smart home. For example, doorbells can operate solely on the amount of energy generated by pressing the button, which is transmitted via Bluetooth LE. e-peas' solutions are, of course, also usable in industrial sectors, such as for temperature or CO₂ sensors. If you want to learn more about the energy harvesting applications from e-peas, check out the products and technology on the company's website. (sb)

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