The MEANINGFUL project aims to establish the feasibility of using Lightricity’s miniaturised Photovoltaic Energy harvesting (EH) technology as a cost-effective renewable energy source for the billions of connected ultra-low power sensors that will be located inside buildings and homes.
This project addresses the needs and challenges of the fast-growing Internet-of-Things (IoT) market, particularly in smart sensing and monitoring, tracking and positioning of assets, and intelligent packaging. Most of these applications are tied to an indoor environment and there is no current solution for harvesting efficiently ambient indoor light (low level light is a challenge). The main customer and industry pain point is the current need to either have a power-wire (unpractical) or to replace (or manually recharge) the batteries in IoT sensors, devices and products. Battery replacement involves labour, transport and chemical waste that have detrimental environmental impact (increase of CO2 emissions) and financial consequences (increased cost-of-ownership due to extra maintenance).
There is thus a large gap in the market for a compact, cost-effective, battery-free system that can operate efficiently and be easily and seamlessly retro-fitted inside buildings, which this project is targeting.
Lightricity has already demonstrated up to 6x more power density (under indoor light) than conventional silicon-based technology, on the macro-scale (~10 cm^2 EH devices). The key focus of MEANINGFUL is on miniaturisation, implementation of cost-down processes and integration with complementary ultra-low power electronics and sensors.
MEANINGFUL thus aims to provide an ecologically friendly and sustainable solution for powering these IoT devices, helping people engage with the important issue of battery disposal and CO2 emissions.
