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Sweden-based Epishine has launched a development kit based on its 50mm x 50mm 6-cell organic photovoltaic module to prototype and test its use in battery-free indoor sensing and monitoring devices.
Linköping-based Epishine has launched a development kit for the evaluation of its organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology, which it claims can replace or augment batteries in small monitoring devices, information displays and indoor environmental sensors. The kit is aimed at innovators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) considering incorporating organic solar cells as a power source in new products.
Optimized for indoor lighting conditions and low-power wireless applications, the developer kit contains a supercapacitor or power buffer that can be reconfigured to act as a battery, as well as integrated maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and a management system to manage load, output voltages and energy storage mechanisms.
“The evaluation kit highlights the power of Epishines indoor solar cells, demonstrating their ability to power low-power wireless devices. It combines our solar cells with a supercapacitor and enables rapid replacement of primary batteries to evaluate light energy harvesting,” Jonas Bergqvist, CTO of Epishine told pv magazine .
The unit has sufficient current to support low-power data communications protocols, such as Zigbee and LoRa, with an output voltage ranging from 1.8 V to 3.3 V in 0.1 V steps, up to a current of 300 mA output, according to the company. It is supposedly safe to operate between -20°C and 40°C and a humidity range of 0 to 85%. The lighting intensity ranges from 20 lux to 1000 lux.
The company claims that if the supercapacitor is empty, the circuit can start with an input voltage of 38 mV. The maximum charging voltage of the capacitor is limited to 4.5 V.
Epishine recently subjected its LEH3_50x50_6_10 product to a life cycle assessment (LCA) conducted by Swedish environmental consultancy Miljögiraff and third-party review by Sweco, a Stockholm-based engineering firm, resulting in a carbon footprint measurement. carbon of 0.86 g CO2eq/cm2.
The low carbon footprint is attributed in part to the companys proprietary production process, which avoids high temperatures and excludes certain materials. According to Bergqvist, it is also profitable. “Roll-to-roll printing aligns well with these design rules with a very high degree of automation and comparatively low process temperatures. Furthermore, we have chosen not to use transparent conductive oxide electrodes, but instead all our solar cell layers are deposited from a solution, allowing a completely roll-to-roll printed solar cell with high performance and very robust for applications. indoors in low light,” said Bergqvist.
Epishine offers custom cell sizes, supporting cell surface cutouts, in sizes ranging from 20 cm2 to 300 cm2, to make the technology available for a wider range of sensor devices and IoT end nodes ( IoT).
In July, the six-year-old company raised 60 million Swedish krona ($5.43 million) in a round led by Jula Miljö & Energi, which is owned by Jula Holding, a diversified retail, real estate and energy holding company with based in Sweden, to finance product development and production expansion to increase its market share in the indoor solar cell market. |
