Custom Turbines: Energy Harvesting solutions for your application
Home and building Irrigation Sanitary Industry Turbines Water heatersWater turbines are effective energy harvesting solutions for sustainably powering electronics and IoT products in many markets like water heating and management, irrigation, sanitary, and home and building.
Implementing energy harvesting turbines erases (or at least reduces) the need for batteries in low-power applications, leading to maintenance-free products with a longer lifetime.
Kinetron has expertise in both Radial and Axial Turbines. Radial turbines (Water Turbine Generators or WTG) are ideal for creating maximum power at low flow rates, while Axial Turbines (Axial Water Turbine Generators or AWTG) are basically “turbine-powered sensors” ideal for generating energy and measuring flow rate accurately.
Depending on your application, one of these two technologies can better match your specific needs.
Parameters to consider for Energy Harvesting implementation
Working with a standard product (range) for these small turbines is proven to be rather challenging. Water flow & Pressure drop, Energy output, Size, Connection type and Price ranges are the main parameters we consider when studying the implementation of a turbine in the appliance. These vary so much in each application that it limits the application of any standard product.
Customization: Incremental or Radical
Kinetron combines expertise, know-how and IP to research and develop (from concept generation to serial production in all the development phases) a customized turbine to market in the shortest time possible.
Kinetron’s power turbine systems can be custom developments to meet the application’s size, energy, and price. Every application of our technology is therefore uniquely adjusted for your needs.
The power turbine can influence the power output level (at specific flow), maximum pressure loss, output voltage level, cable and housing connections, and add electronics and storage options.
Incremental adjustments
Incremental developments that only require adjustment to existing products, like different bypass valves, inlets, outlets, and piping plugs, are easier to introduce, while new complex designs require more research and resources.
For instance, it is relatively easy to manipulate the point when the bypass valve opens. In the graph, the same function can be shifted along the axes, depending on your energy needs (while taking pressure drop into account). However, major re-designs are necessary to change the turbine’s behaviour over the flow range.
Radical changes: examples of battery box WTG and shower turbine
When incremental adjustments are not possible or convenient, developing a new product becomes the ideal way to go. Radical changes lead to a perfectly adapted solution for your application, both in design and functionalities.
Kinetron developed a custom turbine based on a previous model (WTG2 with battery box). By adjusting connections and adding electronics and a more compact battery box, we were able to meet the exact specifications, in size, performance and price-level, with a tailor-made product.
Another example of radical adjustment was the AWTG made for HAI. This AWTG was developed using the expertise gained in years of cooperation with Bosch. For this specific project, we had to customize connections and electronics, introduce a battery and a LED, and implement BLE communication and power management.
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We are eager to learn more about your business and possible applications for energy harvesting systems. Of course we are also available to answer questions and to supply more detailed information.
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