Invisible Innovation with Micro-energy harvestingA Novel approach for energy efficiency in casino game floors

Prithiviraj Damodaran

• 2003 – Seiko launches thermic wrist watches with Nanostructured TEGs

• 2008 – BMW launches hybrid vehicles with regenerative braking with TEG

• 2009 - Jeffrey Snyder talks about Nanostructured Thermoelectric for power

generations

• 2010 - Fujitsu Develops Hybrid Micro-energy harvesting device for generating

electricity from heat and Light, to be commercialized in 2015

• 2011 – Recent IDTechEx research talks about forecasts , players and

opportunities for Micro-energy harvesting between 2012-2022

Micro-Energy harvesting – A clear trend and a huge strategic market

Energy efficiency - Market Trends

Energy harvesting (also known as power harvesting or energy scavenging) is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients, and kinetic energy)

What’s Energy Harvesting?

When does energy harvesting make sense?

One or more of these

characteristics are

required for energy

harvesting to make

sense

• Harvestable energy available

• Wiring too expensive

• Difficult to power device

• High Installation cost

• Numerous devices

• Difficult to reach for maintenance

• Environment friendliness required

• High uptime demanded

Source : Hi-Globe

Micro-Energy Harvesting Market Forecast

Micro-Energy Harvesting current market intelligence

Typical micro-energy harvesting applications

• Powering on wireless sensor networks

• For instance: A remote sensor installed in hard to reach or hazardous areas,

need this application thus avoiding need for batteries and maintenance. This

makes the buildings greener as well.

• ABB’s Energy harvesting application (1:19)

Challenges in micro-energy harvesting

• Operating directly from a harvester could be a design challenge, it depends

on

Constant power source or matching harvestable energy

Output power matching the peak current requirement

Relatively sizable harvester

With these trends a Casino floor appears like a huge play ground for micro-energy harvesting

Is this apparent opportunity a real opportunity ?

Lets check out

Imagining a self sufficient slot machine

* - Sources: ECN Magazine on average power throughput from various energy sources** - Slot Machine average power consumption

Variables Values

Benchmarked micro-energy that can be harvested from a Indoor light source

~ 10 uWh / Sq.Cm *

Benchmarked micro-energy that can be harvested from hear from a machine source

~ 10 mWh / Sq.Cm *

Average Slot machine Power consumption ~ 569 Wh **

Area size of a casino floor which can serve as energy source includes light , heat, vibrations, RF, humans

~ 25,000 Sq feet (Or) 23225760 SQ Cm

Conservatively the approximate energy that can be harvested for 25,000 sq ft area

~ 232.5 kWh

Data + Assumptions

Period AVG Power When Active

AVG Power when Standby

12 hrs ? ?

1 hr ? ?

1 min ? ?

1 sec ? ?

How much power a slot machine needs ?

How much power we can create from casino floor ?O

utp

ut

po

wer

Energy from all sources

Dependent variables

Ambient heat = ?Ambient light = ?

Futureenergysolutions.com – micro-energy harvesting platform

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNA-ixbU2DQ

Concept evaluation by building a prototype

1. Cost of Energy Harvesting unit (Initial and life time)

2. Efficiency of the micro-energy harvesting unit

3. Cost of engineering the solution into a EGM

4. What will be the volume of energy the expected sources inside casino can produce from different size casinos

5. Cost savings in power usage for the casino (Drop in energy consumption by Slots + implicit Drop in A/C energy

consumption)

6. How feasible is to design a EGM solution that can operate directly from a energy harvester

7. Cost of the new Power management unit’s battery replacement.

8. What will be the capacity of the battery in mAh we would need in the new Power management unit.

9. Environmental impact of the new power management unit’s battery.

10.Are EGM’s read to use D/C power or Should the alternate power be converted back to A/C for EGMs to use ?

The Critical Unknowns

Thanks !