Increasing gas prices, restrictions on oil supplies, and the constant funding of renewable energy are factors in seeing energy bills at an all-time high. Add the increasingly tougher regulations on energy efficiency in new homes, and sprinkle some heat pump boilers, and what you have is a market ripe for a new generation of power devices. What challenges are homes facing with regards to energy efficiency? Where is energy typically wasted in a home? And how will power devices help?
What Challenges Are Homes Facing?
Despite being well into the third year of the COVID pandemic, the effects of global lockdowns as a result of trying to control the spread of the virus are still being felt. Without going into too much depth, the multiple lockdowns resulted in many thousands of businesses closing, supply chains in disorder, semiconductor supplies dwindling, and poor economic performance as governments borrowed large sums of money to try and cover payments made to citizens unable to work.
Now, the increased cost of living combined with inflation is lowering the spending power of most people, and the lack of wage growth is making it harder to make ends meet. To make matters worse, rising energy costs because of the Russo-Ukraine war is putting immense pressure on homeowners with many having to sacrifice heating.
Finally, legal requirements on efficiency continue to be introduced to the public, and these laws are restricting what can and cannot be sold. While such legislation helps to reduce energy bills and reduce carbon emissions nationwide, it puts engineers under design constraints that are not so easily solved.
Where Is Energy Typically Wasted in Homes?
To improve the energy efficiency of a home, it is essential to first identify all sources of energy waste. By far the largest source of wasted energy is thermal loss through lack of insulation, which is why all modern homes are required to have significant quantities of insulation in lofts and walls (interestingly, there is a strong argument to leave wall cavities empty due to moisture build-up).
In cold climates, the thermal loss will be hot air either escaping the house directly or through the thermal transfer of internal warm air heating up the extremities of the house that then cool down. In hot climates, the thermal loss is identical but opposite in that cool internal air escapes outside and/or the hot extremities of the building heat up the internal air. In either case, energy is needed to maintain a stable internal temperature, and poor insulation will see large energy bills from this thermal transfer.
Lighting is another major energy consumer in modern homes. Traditional tungsten filament lights have been phased out in most markets around the world, including the U.S. and E.U., due to their extremely poor efficiency, but even with LEDs and fluorescents, lighting is still a large energy consumer. This is why turning off lights in rooms not being used is a good way to reduce energy bills.
Devices on standby can also contribute to energy consumption even though they are technically in an “off state.” Well-designed power supply circuits should draw little to no current when in standby mode, but cheaper power adaptors can get hot even when not in use (typically due to the use of linear regulators and poor power management).
High-powered devices such as washing machines, vacuums, and dishwashers can also waste power through power conversion. These household appliances can sometimes require a DC voltage to drive inductive equipment (motors, solenoids, etc.), and this conversion can see large amounts of waste.
Finally, homes with renewable energy sources (such as solar and wind) can waste power if not fitted with battery storage systems. During times of peak energy generation, if the power generated by the renewable sources isn’t being used then it is being wasted.
What Energy Opportunities are Opening Up in Homes?
As one door closes another door opens, and this couldn’t be truer in the field of energy efficiency. The increasing regulation on device efficiency combined with rising energy prices is the prime time for engineers to look for the latest methods in improving energy efficiency.
With heat being the biggest factor, temperature gradients present engineers with a major opportunity with energy recovery and extraction. For example, heat pumps are beginning to replace gas boilers thanks to their dependency on solely electricity, safer installation, and the ability to move thermal energy more efficiently than gas boilers (heat pumps can be used for both heating and cooling).
The rapid scaling of the IoT industry, along with low-powered devices, will see the use of energy harvesters increase. As such, more unusual energy sources can be explored by engineers, including piezo flooring that generates electricity when walked on, and thermoelectric generators that can be attached to hot pipes to generate energy.
Additionally, the rise of smart homes also presents new opportunities for energy efficiency. As the number of devices increases in homes, it may become impossible to find permanent power sources, thus becoming reliant on energy harvesting techniques.
The increased use of electric vehicles also presents major opportunities in the field of renewable energy for electric grids. The inability to store renewable energy when it is at peak production makes renewable energy sources difficult to rely on, but EVs connected to the grid could act as virtual batteries that charge and discharge to stabilize power. EV owners that contribute to this system could either receive credits for charging their vehicles for free or be provided with a financial incentive.
Future smart homes could even combine real-time energy prices with connected devices to determine the best time to run equipment such as washing machines and dishwashers. Homeowners could load their washer, engage eco-start modes, and then whenever peak energy is being generated (and thus the cheapest time for energy) the smart home can operate this equipment.
Why Could Energy-Efficient Homes Be the Next Big Market for Power Devices?
It is obvious that there is a dire need for improving energy efficiency in everyday life, whether it is due to environmental, governmental, or economic reasons. Fortunately for electronic engineers, most devices are turning to electricity as their primary source of power, and it is possible that future homes will eliminate the need for gas connections entirely. When this happens, power devices will be crucial at every level of energy production and use.
All devices in use by homeowners will need to be as efficient as possible, including tiny energy consumers such as low-energy, battery-less IoT sensors to high-powered motors found in heat pumps and washing machines. Low-energy devices that use energy harvesters must be able to extract nanowatts of energy from vibration and stray RF sources, and this will require efficient DC-DC converters that can fit in the tiniest of spaces. High-energy devices will require new solutions to deal with large currents and voltages efficiently, which is where SiC and GaN show great promise.
Even though electric vehicles are great for the environment, the extremely large currents and voltages used to charge them can see large losses. As such, EV chargers may be a prime market for power devices aimed at improving energy efficiencies, and if the use of virtual batteries does indeed take off, then such power devices will also need to be bi-directional and have very low conversion losses.
Power sockets and light switches in homes also present power devices with another potential market. As turning off power in unused areas of homes can present significant energy savings, smart sockets and switches could be used to disconnect power automatically if a room is unoccupied. Combined with smart sensors and cloud-based infrastructure, homes could even predict behavioral patterns of occupants to predict when power will be needed and thus make decisions on how best to provide this power to minimize energy usage.
Conclusion
Energy efficiency has always been important, but the increasing cost of living, rising fuel prices, and stricter government regulations are making it a critical factor in product design. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and the need for increased efficiency presents power amplifiers and converters with a massive opportunity. Heat pumps replacing gas boilers allow for electronic engineers to have a significant influence in the efficiency of heating systems, the use of IoT devices in the home is seeing the need for energy-harvesting systems capable of extracting power from the smallest energy sources, and the introduction of electric vehicles on a large scale now require homes to be retrofitted with charging systems able to make the most of every watt.