By Brad Smith
Monday, August 25, 2008
Mobile phone users, like those who use laptops, have had a problem that just won’t go away. They can never be completely free from electrical outlets so they can charge their phones. Come next year that may not be as big a problem.
M2E Power, a Boise, Idaho, renewable energy company, said it expects that its technology will be used in an external charger for cell phones in a year or less. M2E’s technology harvests power from motion, providing electricity produced when a device using its technology is moved while a person walks or even drives.
The company isn’t saying yet what partners it may have lined up to produce the mobile chargers, but Regan Rowe, business development director, said M2E expects there will be at least one handset manufacturer with a commercial accessory device in the second or third quarter of 2009.
Rowe said the first charger, which will have its own storage battery, will supply enough energy to provide 30-to-60 minutes of talk time for every six hours of cumulative motion. M2E eventually expects its technology will be built into mobile phones so there will be no need for an external charger, she said.
The company’s technology uses kinetic energy produced in movement and converts it into electric energy. The technology, which came out of research at the Idaho National Laboratory, also is being studied by the military.