M2E Power reveals plans for kinetic power

Boise, Idaho-based M2E Power, which is developing kinetic motion technology, announced plans today for its first commercial product, a portable charger for mobile devices. But the company is aiming for a broad range of applications for its technology, including in hybrid cars, military gear and utility-scale energy generation.

M2E came out of stealth less than a year ago with $8 million in funding from OVP Venture Partners, @Ventures and Highway 12 Ventures (see M2E captures $8M with kinetic energy).

The portable charger, about the size of a pack of cards, should be available in the second or third quarter of next year, offering cell phone users an extra 30 to 60 minutes of talk time and iPod listeners some more time to enjoy their music, all without going near an electrical outlet. That power will come from six hours of cumulative motion, which could including walking, jogging or driving.

Consumers will be able to get their hands on this version of the company's kinetic technology, which will also work as a standard outlet-connected charger, for between between $25 and $40. The other applications planned by M2E may end up being a bit more behind the scenes.

"We are in discussions with some of the automotive manufacturers," Regan Warner-Rowe, director of business development at M2E, told the Cleantech Group.

Warner-Rowe said M2E's technology could end up being added to the peripheral systems of a hybrid car, boosting the efficiency of the vehicle.

"Right now, if you're running off of a battery, and a lot of times the batteries in the hybrids they weigh 275 pounds, they're six feet long, they're huge," she said. "When you're using the battery to power the car, if you can take any other system that also uses the battery off of that main source, then you can extend the range of the vehicle."

M2E's kinetic system could end up powering devices including windshield wipers, door locks, power seats and sensors on the next generation of automobiles, according to Warner-Rowe.

Companies like Newton, Mass.-based startup GMZ Energy are also looking at peripheral energy efficiency in cars. GMZ is developing a new thermoelectric material that it says can turn waste heat into electrical power (see GMZ Energy gets thermoelectric).

 GMZ's initial market is in cooling, such as in carseats, but it plans to work on integrating the technology into car exhausts as a way to capture heat and generate electricity.

M2E got its start at the Idaho National Labs as part of research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The system uses the Faraday Principle, where energy is produced by the motion of a magnet through a wire coil.

Take a look at a rendering of the portable charger here >>

In contrast to current systems, like a flashlight that you shake to light up, M2E's system adjusts the magnets' orientations to each other, which the company said boosts the amount of energy that can be created by between 300 percent and 700 percent using the same amount of movement.

Warner-Rowe said the portable charger is a good entry point for the company's technology, which also aims to make replacements for the internal batteries for mobile devices. She said cellphone makers wanted to "try this first as an external product, get used to how consumers would use it and their response, then it would allow them to integrate it into the cellphone."

M2E is also working on military applications for an energy hungry armed forces with soldiers that now carry numerous battery-powered systems and up to 30 pounds of batteries to power them all.

"We've done prototyping for a centralized power pack that would be on a vest on the back," said Warner-Rowe. "And we've also been working on decentralized approaches. So you would have individual M2E units that would be integrated into various devices like night scopes and night vision goggles and different communication devices."

The company expects some testing of the military applications to happen this year.

On the utility side, M2E is moving forward with plans for pushing its technology as a way to enhance current energy generation, with potential applications in wind, ocean wave and hydro.

"We are in the process of building a small-scale generator that can just show how if you put this in, used it in a wind turbine, that you would help reduce some of the gearbox problems that they have," said Warner-Rowe. "You would get greater efficiency, which would then allow wind power and ocean wave to be more competitive with fossil fuel-based power."

With this move into some of the more capital intensive technology applications like hybrid vehicles and the larger power applications, M2E plans to look at bringing more investment into the company.

"We will be looking at another round, and that could be coming up fairly soon."