Technology Trending: Energy harvesting, Fike Blue, quantum-space collaboration

Energy harvesting brings carbon benefits, Fike Blue to quench battery thermal runaways and a quantum-space collaboration are on the week’s technology radar.

Energy harvesting brings carbon benefits

Energy harvesting specialist EnOcean has estimated that users of its devices are saving 1.4Mt of CO2 annually – equivalent to taking over 304,000 cars off the road – and growing as the installed base exceeds over one million premises served.

Such devices – sensors that can harness energy not only from sunlight but also from motion in for example switches and from temperature differences such as in heat pump valves – are estimated to deliver an average of approximately 15% reduction in a building’s energy consumption.

Currently, EnOcean’s wireless building-automation devices manage 221 million m2 of floorspace or the equivalent of around 74,000 football fields, the company boasts.

Have you read?
Aspern smart city grid to be modelled with digital twin
Site visit: NTUA Electric Energy Systems Laboratory

“Reducing our energy demand is critical for transitioning to renewable sources and combating climate change,” says Armin Anders, co-founder and VP Business Development at EnOcean, noting that buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy consumption.

“Products like ours, which allow us to eliminate unnecessary energy consumption, represent quick and affordable wins compared to extensive infrastructure investments.”

EnOcean’s devices are reported to be able to communicate with heating, air conditioning and lighting, monitor occupancy and people flow, and allow settings to be automatically adjusted for optimum user convenience while saving energy.

They are battery-free, eliminating the need for regular servicing and battery replacement and they are easy to install without any special cabling or power source setups.

Fike Blue – the response to battery thermal runaways

Concerns about fires due to thermal runaway in lithium ion battery cells have been on the increase – but may now be allayed with what is stated as the “first third party tested solution” to stop such fires.

The solution, Fike Blue, from the US hazard prevention developer Fike Corporation, is a liquid that is piped from a cylinder to the site of the fire after activation by a heat anomaly.

Fike Blue immerses the overheated cells within the module, absorbing the intense exothermic heat without breaking down due to a boiling point of more than 400^oC.

It uses exponentially less liquid than the water required by sprinklers and especially by fire fighters, resulting in less runoff into the surrounding environment and may be stored for at least five years at 25oC without the formation of precipitates or sediment.

Omri Tayyara, director of mechanical engineering at Jule, who observed Canadian Standards Association’s testing of Fike Blue, says that the liquid cooled their internal module temperatures from several hundred degrees Celsius to under one hundred degrees – “and the whole thing was done in less than 10 minutes”.

A quantum space collaboration that could impact energy

The US Department of Energy has launched a Quantum & Space collaboration to harness cutting edge quantum technologies for advancements in energy among other areas including national security and support for sustainability goals.

Participants include the DOE, the Department of Defence, quantum product provider Infleqtion, space computing specialist Nebula Space Enterprises and consultant Accenture Federal Services.

“This collaboration has been long in the making,” explains Rima Kasia Oueid, who is the lead and Commercialisation Executive in the DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions.

“We stand on the brink of a new economic era – one that expands into space, propelled by current and soon-to-be-realised quantum technologies. These advancements are poised to enhance global safety, economic stability and overall human welfare, while also unlocking the potential to discover and efficiently use space resources.”

The target is to begin space environmental demonstrations using quantum technologies in early 2024 and to begin evaluating use cases and new commercialisation opportunities.

The participants intend to leverage their technology portfolios to foster a range of space-oriented capabilities, such as quantum secure communications, quantum sensing and the integration of quantum with classical computing in orbital environments.

They also should provide initial feasibility assessments on the deployment of a mesh network of data centres delivering hybrid quantum computing capabilities, enhanced by quantum sensing, powered by nuclear energy and connected by secure quantum communications.