PMIC manages induction for energy harvesting
The company has also raised €8 million (about $9.5 million) bring the total raised by the company to more than €12 million.
E-peas inductive demo has been made with French specialist in magnetic components Tores Composants Technologies (TCT). The two companies have developed an energy harvesting platform based around E-peas’ AEM30940 power management IC.
A loop is placed around an electricity cable carrying a few amps of current and by induction is able to harvest energy. The AEM30940 manages this and when the ac current is put through a rectifier is able to use the dc current to charge supercapacitor. The supercap is connected to a PCB that includes multiple sensors and a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon. An LED indicator is included to show that this is in operation.
TCT pointed out that inductive energy harvesting would allow the deployment of battery-less control and monitoring units. “The logistical difficulties of having to periodically replace battery cells can be completely avoided, presenting facilities management with greater convenience and lower operational costs,” said Alexandre Decombejean, sales manager at TCT. “The energy harvester attached to the cable is built around a specific soft magnetic material core with high permeability, and will reach an elevated output voltage even with a low current.”
“We have already been able to validate the effectiveness of e-peas technology in harvesting energy from thermal, vibrational, RF and photovoltaic sources. Now, by combining our technology with TCT’s, we have the ability to do so via inductance,” said Christian Ferrier, CMO of E-peas. “This opens up an array of exciting new market opportunities for us as a leader company in energy harvesting and processing solutions.”
In July E-peas announced it had raised €8 million. The money came from Partech and Airbus Ventures, with KBC Focus Fund, W.IN.G, Noshaq Ventures, LeanSquare, Nivelinvest and Vives also contributing.
The money will be used to introduce new products and improve the sales and marketing of existing products the company said at the time.
The company said it is well-placed to help minimize the use of batteries with energy harvest solutions.
Related links and articles:
https://e-peas.com/news/how-energy-can-be-harvested-using-magnetic-core-as-a-harvester/
News articles:
Energy harvest PMIC firm raises $10 million
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Energy harvest startup raises €3.5 million
