A small company with headquarters in Oberhaching, near Munich, Germany, had a big presence at LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) 2012 in Las Vegas from May 9-11. The name of the company is EnOcean and, since it was founded in 2001, it has developed a patented “wireless energy harvesting” solution— as well as a consortium of 250 companies worldwide, called the EnOcean Alliance, that are licensed to use its technology.
What is energy harvesting? It is the ability to collect the ambient energy that surrounds us and use it to power devices, such as light switches, architectural controls, daylighting, dimmers, occupancy sensors, photo-sensors, relay panels, and timer switches.
EnOcean devices typically harvest any of three types of energy:
· Kinetic energy, which uses the small amount of energy from pressing a button or switch to charge itself and send a low-energy wireless signal (from a lighting switch, for example, to a controller);
· Integrated solar cells, which harvests the energy from outdoor or indoor light to power wireless sensors, such as occupancy and motion sensors, and door and window contacts; and
· Thermo power, which creates energy from the temperature variations in areas abutting heating and air conditioning ducts... Read More
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