Designing a system to be powered from an energy harvesting power source (e.g. solar panel, thermo- or piezo- electric generator, etc.) requires more design time and planning than designing system with a standard power source (e.g., a battery or wall wart).
A simple application, such as a remote sensor, consists of a harvesting source, battery management circuit, rechargeable battery and end-system. System optimization can be accomplished in five easy steps:
- Selecting the best harvester for the application environment
- Minimizing the load by running the system at a reduced duty cycle
- Selecting an optimal battery management IC
- Sizing the battery to provide power during the dark times
- Determining the minimum solar panel size needed
By starting with the system load and reflecting the output system power backwards to the harvester output using efficiency power balances, only appropriately sized batteries and solar panels are used, thereby reducing cost and solution size.
Read the entire article "Designing a solar powered remote sensor" in Electronic Products magazine, which uses the steps above to design a remote sensing application.
Additional resources:
- Order samples and find out more about the bq25570, bq25504 or bq25505 ultra-low power battery management ICs that support energy harvesting applications.
- Download reference designs and datasheets tied to energy harvesting applications.
- Talk to TI engineers and other designers via TI's E2E Power Management Forum.
