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From ABC's Innovations program 9 May 2005

Kinetic Energy Cell

A renewable energy device that captures vibration to produce electricity is making moves towards commercialisation.

Science and Technology:Research Contact: Jan Dekker, Managing Director
Centre for Energy & Greenhouse Technologies, PO Box 320, Churchill, VIC. 3842
International Telephone: +61 3 5122 1941 FAX: +61 3 5122 1248
Email: dekker@cegt.com.au Contact: Clive Davenport, CEO
CRC for Microtechnology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC 3122
International Telephone: +61 3 9214 8557 FAX: +61 3 9214 8008
Email: clive.d@microtechnologycrc.com

TRANSCRIPT:

BLANCH : The Kinetic Energy Cell is an Australian invention that generates electricity from the movement of cars, trucks, ships, even people and looks set to replace or complement small conventional batteries for a range of every day applications and enable the reliable powering of new technologies. In the studio we have Jan Dekker, Managing Director of the Centre for Energy and Greenhouse Technologies whose company will develop and market new prototypes of the technology and Clive Davenport, CEO of the Co-operative Research Centre for Microtechnology where the Kinetic Energy Cell was developed.
So first Jan, the Kinetic Energy Cell is an invention that will produce energy so long as there is access to movement or vibration, so in what kinds of energy situations will this technology be most suited?

DEKKER : The initial targeted applications for the technology are in e-tag devices for cars so that when the car goes onto the tollway, the tollway measures the presence of the car via a small energy burst from the battery. Another application is in ship containers that obviously move up and down over the ocean which keeps the battery charged or keeps the output coming and therefore they’re able to be tracked and something like 100,000 containers a year go missing in the ocean whether deliberately overboard or otherwise, so it is a critical application. But I guess the second part of the answer is that the CEGT is applying its funds in two ways – the first is to identify the key target market applications for the technology. Those two I mentioned are just initial ones that I’m sure Clive will be able to elaborate on further, but secondly, is to put the money towards the next prototype development.

BLANCH : So your company’s role and investment in the device is to develop a market new prototypes, so what size is the device now and at what size would you hope to eventually have it?

DEKKER : The size of the device now, I think is in its sixth generation, is about the size of a 9-volt battery. The ultimate size depends on the application that is to be developed for, but the next prototype I believe is around about a AA size battery.

BLANCH : Clive, the Kinetic Energy Cell relies on movement as its renewable energy source, so what components comprise the device itself?

DAVENPORT : Very obviously being electrical device it’s got a series of very small coils in it and also some magnets. Interestingly in a world where the focus is now going to things like nanotechnology we’ve created some of the world’s most powerful nano-magnets and you can now put those into a polymer to a point where you can actually mould or cast magnets to whatever size and shape you now like.

BLANCH : So how does the device deal with what would have to be a wide range of movements of varying size and frequency?

DAVENPORT : It’s interesting – what we do is we actually tailor the design to particular frequencies and Jan just before mentioned about a car going down a freeway or a vehicle going down a freeway and when you actually do the analysis of that car’s vibration and movement, you actually tailor the design to that band of, say, frequencies and it’s a little bit like when you walk – the motion of walking or swinging a lady’s handbag is a very, very low frequency and we actually tailor the design to those frequency ranges.

BLANCH : How much energy output does the device generate at this stage of development?

DAVENPORT : It’s actually fairly small as you could appreciate because you are only harvesting sort of very small amounts of motion, but the idea is that it charges what’s called a super capacitor, so the capacitor itself in essence becomes a storage battery.

BLANCH : Jan, by how much would you expect to improve on that energy?

DEKKER : Well, I think significantly. If you look at the advances over the six prototypes that the CRC has developed you notice a considerable shrinking of the size of the unit, but with as good or better energy output, so I think in future while it’s difficult to quantify there should be significant advancements.

BLANCH : Like double?

DEKKER : I think I’d have to defer to my colleague here.

DAVENPORT : I mean that’s always the aim, I mean with everyone of these, you know, we’ve increased the power output very significantly and we’re still on that path, so the idea is that we continue to achieve or extract greater power actually out of the devices with each generation.

BLANCH : So tell us the story of the device’s development, where does it start and how long has it taken to get the project to this stage?

DAVENPORT : The project actually began in an attempt to create a replacement for the lithium batteries that actually go into keyless entry systems for automobiles. This is normally the little black tag that you have attached to your key – press the button and it opens a car door. In an attempt to remove or reduce the number of lithium batteries which become a pollutant in the environment when they get to their expiry, we looked at harvesting the amount of energy that you can provide by simply walking to your vehicle or for example, it could be either in your pocket or in a lady’s handbag and the idea was that we could generate power only over a distance of ten metres and that would be acceptable to a motorist. So the application was all about generating enough power to be able to trigger the system. Of course, if we walked for longer than that you’d be generating excess power which we could store in the super capacitor and in a small capacitor. The application required to power a very short burst or a very short transmission of radio frequency energy which could actually trigger the receiver in the car, so it’s a device which began ideally suited to what we call small burst transmissions. We’ve continued to look for applications like that – and the e-tag application is a classic example of it.

BLANCH : So Jan, what might the eventual cost of the cell be, would it be a price that’s comparable to current battery technology perhaps?

DEKKER : I think that’s ultimately the aim. Alternatively I guess it does depend on the application that is selected as Clive has said. The design of each individual battery is going to be very specific to the application, so you’ll have a very different battery and even a different super capacitor size for a container tracking device as compared to an e-tag, so it’s very difficult to say at this time, but again, through each generation of the technology the projections on costs have been coming down.

BLANCH : So what impact would this style of energy source have on the environment?

DEKKER : Well again as Clive alluded to, there are around about, I think six billion batteries produced every year by the world’s largest battery manufacturer, so what you have here is a device that really, apart from materials wear, has an unlimited life, so you don’t have to continually replace the application with new batteries and I think that’s the key environmental benefit.

BLANCH : Clive is there a role for the cell to power portable devices like music players and mobile phones?

DAVENPORT : Yeah ultimately they could. For example, you take the new Apple iPods – they are a very, very low power consumption devices and most people that are using them are actually very active people, so there’s no reason why a little power source couldn’t be created to go into something like an Apple iPod.

BLANCH : So far we’ve been talking about small scale applications, but can you scale this whole project up to something that would power something much larger?

DAVENPORT : It was always one of the thrusts of what we were looking at because what we’re really talking about is a device that can harvest low frequency energy and I see it as being totally scaleable. Our focus really at the moment is on small devices, but there’s probably no reason why it can’t be scaled up to something quite large and we’ve actually looked at applications such as powering radio frequency buoys sitting in the ocean just bobbing in the waves.

BLANCH : What commercial interest is being expressed in this type of technology?

DEKKER : Well, I think commercial interest to date has been via our company – the Centre for Energy and Greenhouse Technologies and also Alan & Buckeridge and MNT, the commercialisation arm out of the CRC for Microtechnology and we’ve all put time and investment dollars towards this technology because we think it has a large market potential and a whole range of applications as we’ve discussed. As the next prototypes are developed and the commercialisation strategies are developed that’s when we’ll take the next step of seeking further private sector and industry finance to take it along the path.

BLANCH : Well, as you say the financial base has been set to fund the development of the Kinetic Energy Cell, so what’s your timeframe, do you think, for producing a commercial product?

DAVENPORT : Again that’s a very difficult one because the next step is partially to develop the commercialisation strategy and it may be that one particular application is quicker to get to market with than another, but I think the next prototype is designed to be developed within the next 12 months or 18 months or so and we’ll have a much better idea then I think.

BLANCH : Well Jan, you’re at the Centre for Energy and Greenhouse Technologies and this is one of your projects, what other things do you do?

DEKKER : Well Desley, as you’d be aware, the greenhouse issue is a very current one and it’s very controversial worldwide at the moment, but I think if there’s one factor that all parties from the UN to the OECD to the International Energy Agency, federal, state, local governments all agree on and that is that technology innovation is absolutely critical to addressing the greenhouse issue and in a nutshell that’s what we at the Centre are all about, so we’re looking for new and innovative post research and very, very early stage technologies in the sustainable energy area that any of your listeners may have or be aware of to bring them forward for consideration for commercialisation and funding.

BLANCH : Jan Dekker who heads the Centre for Energy and Greenhouse Technologies and Clive Davenport whose Co-operative Research Centre for Microtechnology developed the renewable energy device – the Kinetic Energy Cell.