Summer Project Theme

Summer = sunshine = solar/thermal/wind... often equates to mobility (scooting/skating around)... keeping/looking cool... so how about summer of Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMICs).

I’ve been thinking about ideas for a Summer of Green Technology. The following list includes topics that could be explored:

• Solar Power/Wind Power
• Energy Harvesting
• LED Lighting
• IoT that leads to energy savings (Smart Buildings, Smart Cities) – Ambient IOT
• Vertical Farming
• MEMS devices
• Upcycling
• Ultra low power electronic Devices

Here are some specific ideas that I thought of:

List of Content Ideas

• Upcycling Design Challenge: Several years ago, we did a Design Challenge on Upcycling. (/challenges-projects/design-challenges/upcycleit/#pifragment-1926=3 ) I thought it was well received. In that design challenge, the participants could upcycle anything. Perhaps for this design challenge, we could frame it as Upcyle Efficiency: upcycle a low efficiency thing and with a higher efficiency for power conversation.
• Energy Harvesting Roadtests: https://www.newark.com/analog-devices/adp5091-2-evalz/evaluation-kit-energy-harvesting/dp/49AK8766?st=eval-adp5091 https://www.newark.com/mikroelektronika/mikroe-3814/peltier-click-board-rohs-compliant/dp/51AH9935  www.adaptivete.com/.../
• Spotlight article: How MEMS Devices Are Energy Harvesters. Write an article based on this paragraph: “Micro-electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS) have shown significant promise in providing robust, low-cost transduction capabilities. MEMS sensors and actuators are ideally suited for small-scale energy harvesting and power generation applications where overall device dimensions are critical. Furthermore, MEMS technology can also be harnessed for large scale energy applications by augmenting these systems with sensing and actuation capabilities in order to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs.” (source: researchgate.net)
• Ebook: How IOT Saves Energy or Sustainable IOT. www.watchnetiot.com/.../ https://www.techtarget.com/iotagenda/feature/How-to-use-IoT-for-energy-efficiency-and-sustainability  https://www.digiteum.com/internet-of-things-energy-management/#:~:text=What%20does%20IoT%20energy%20management,strategy%20based%20on%20usage%20patterns. https://www.softeq.com/blog/how-iot-transforms-energy-management-key-application-areas
• Show Me Your Solar and Wind Projects – this could be a project14 or design challenge or video or unique competition. Any solar wind generation project would fit.
• Ultralow power microcontrollers – renesas, nxp, stmicroelectronics, analog devices, infineon

All great topics. The Show me your Wind and solar could be both project14 and a design challenge events. Perhaps the design challenge could incorporate various specific vendor components , the project14 would be more novel and small scale projects beyond a solar cell or a generator shaft with blades. Energy storage may also be included. 

Another energy harvesting review was Epishine...

 Epishine LEH Solar Cell Evaluation Kit Review 

All of those topics on the green list sound interesting!

Green solutions (and more broadly systems that could form sub-systems of green solutions) are or could become top-of-mind for lots of engineers because people all over the world can relate to the needs for them currently.

There's been a fair amount of interest in USB-C Power Delivery with half a dozen blogs from people in the past month. USB-C PD is relevant for low-voltage solar/wind power sources and battery power.

Personally I'm interested in LED lighting a lot, but am currently just finishing a blog on it, so it would be too early to be part of a summer theme (and my project isn't green related as such, but again could form a sub-system of a green solution), but plenty of others would be interested to create projects for that topic I bet. Maybe it might give ideas to help with the summer topics, I'll publish it in a few days.

Regarding IoT for energy saving, smart thermoostats/heating control is low-hanging fruit for meaningful levels of fast cost-saving for homes, and that would be useful for many, if some of the IoT projects from people ended up involved in this area.

I don't know if this is interesting or not (I find it interesting) there's a great website that has US household energy usage surveys dating back decades. I'd like to find a similar thing for the UK. Anyway, it was super-interesting going through the documents, and I tried to get some of the basic info into a chart:

These figures are averaged, over the entire years (i.e. peak Gigawatt power will be higher at times). Also, most people probably use other fuels for heating, this chart only covers electricity consumption since that is what I was initially interested in (the website actually covers all fuel sources available to consumers) although I now wish I had considered all sources. No guarantee this diagram is entirely accurate (I did the best I could). Also, energy costs ballooned over certain periods, this chart doesn't help to show how costs to consumers could have shot up over the decades.

It looks like you can actually see the adoption of LED lighting....

I hope to see this too, it's hard to tell. It will be a bit clearer in a month or two, when the 2020 results are published.

I'd hoped to see the transition to CFL lighting too, but some years of survey did not break down the lighting figure separately from the appliances. The more recent surveys are a lot more granular.

Interesting how refrigeration power usage dropped significantly from sometime between 2009 and 2015. Maybe there was some legislation like Energy Star or related, that helped during this period especially. (Or maybe 2015 was a particularly cold year!).

I was thinking the same thing.  I also noticed that usage related to air condition and heating increased in latter part of the graph.

I was thinking the same thing.  I also noticed that usage related to air condition and heating increased in latter part of the graph.

Staying at home during lockdowns may influence those numbers when they come out.

It will be interesting to see any correlations to the 11 year sunspot cycle. Last maxima was 2014, last minima was 2019, next maxima predicted in 2025.

I will have to look up more info on sun cycles.  Another thing to look out for in the future is widespread adoption of electric vehicles.  Also during recent heat waves in the Pacific Northwest and the UK I found out that not many people own air conditioners in those regions.  However I imagine quite a few were purchased immediately afterwards.  It will be interesting to see if a measurable bump will be observed from new AC adoptees. 

By coincidence I have family members in the air-con business, and they saw big demand, but only for businesses and wealthy homes (multi-$M). The average (perhaps 95% at a guess) of homes in the UK still won't have it I guess, or at best they will have the little portable units which work for one room. Those wealthy customers are also investing in heat pumps (even though there is government assistance, it likely only benefits the wealthy, who have the funds to pay for the rest of it, and have the land to use it (for say ground sourced ones I guess). 

During winter, sales of small electric heaters soared massively, because everyone was trying to cut down on energy costs, so they were probably only heating one room at a time (most homes here have central heating (water in pipes), which in theory can be shut off in some rooms, but in practice I've yet to see anyones home with fully-functioning valves : )