CLEVELAND — Aaron LeMieux’s portable generator is small in size but big in potential.
The $150 device, capable of repowering hand-held electronics, is dubbed the nPower PEG.
The “personal energy generator” is a cylinder 9 inches tall and up to 1 1 /2 inches in diameter. It weighs 11 ounces.
It takes the kinetic energy produced by walking, running or bicycling to power an internal lithium-ion battery that can recharge hand-held electronics when electrical outlets are unavailable.
Uses include mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), MP3 players, digital cameras, global positioning systems and handheld games.
The key was developing the technology to harvest, or collect, the kinetic energy from oscillatory motion, LeMieux said.
LeMieux, a 36-year-old inventor-entrepreneur, came up with the idea for his personal alternative energy system while backpacking along the Appalachian Trail in 1996.
Now he is marketing the patented device through Tremont Electric Inc., his 31/2-year-old company on Cleveland’s west side.
He started the operation with his wife, a neighbor and a fraternity brother. Today the company has nine employees and has moved from LeMieux’s kitchen to a storefront. Each device is made largely of parts produced in Ohio.
The device was offered for sale beginning in May. The first of 2,700 pre-ordered devices began to be built and shipped in early September. About 25 percent of the orders are headed overseas. The U.S. Forest Service bought 10 units to give to volunteers.
LeMieux is working with researchers at the University of Akron and Ohio State University to develop a similar system to turn waves on Lake Erie into electricity. That system - in preliminary stages - would rely on similar devices affixed to buoys. It would take about 20 buoys with devices to produce 1 megawatt of electricity - enough to power 500 typical houses.
The electric power produced would be wired to shore and tied into the electric grid.
That plan has the interest of Akron’s FirstEnergy Corp., but it has failed three times to win state Third Frontier funds for development.
LeMieux’s innovative efforts have been attracting attention, with General Electric’s $200 million Ecomagination Challenge among the most noteworthy.
LeMieux, a Cleveland native and a one-time Navy Seabee, hiked 1,500 miles from north Georgia to the New York-Connecticut area on the Appalachian Trail while attending the University of Toledo, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1998.
He stopped in towns all along the trail to buy fresh batteries for his Walkman over the three-month hike. The batteries were expensive and created extra weight to carry, he said.
He wanted to devise a way to collect excess kinetic energy and convert it to electricity.
LeMieux said it is a good thing he didn’t drop everything to pursue that idea in 1996, because there was no market for such a product at that time.
Today there are more electronic devices out there, and people are more dependent on them - and more inclined to want to stay in touch, he said.
Getting from that point to where he is today was “a very long process ... with a big learning curve,” he said.
LeMieux and his wife, Jill, decided four years ago to pursue developing the technology needed for the nPower PEG. He quit his job as a management consultant, and used the couple’s entire savings to hire a patent attorney.
“I thought it was a great idea ... and I was confident that alternate energy was going to get pretty big,” he said.
He frequently walked around his Tremont neighborhood with a backpack while testing early devices.
“The neighbors were convinced that I was crazy. ... And I couldn’t tell them what I was doing,” he said.
LeMieux said the technology harvests kinetic energy. It relies on a magnetically active mass designed to pass completely through a conductiveloop, creating a power takeout system.
He said he sees his device being especially attractive to college students, commuters, outdoors people and the military. The device will appeal to anyone who typically carries a purse, bag or backpack, walks about an hour a day, uses high-drain mobile electronic devices and has no ready access to wall outlets to recharge, he said.
At present, LeMieux’s device requires one minute of movement to provide one minute of power to recharge an iPod nano.
It takes from five to 15 minutes of movement to get enough power to recharge a cell phone.
The device produces 2.5 watts of electricity and can hold a charge for months. The device should last from three to five years, he said.
His firm is interested in getting used devices back, perhaps with rebates, to recycle components, he said.
The list of devices the recharger works with, by means of adapters, includes seven Blackberry devices, 36 High Tech Computer Corp. products, 96 LG products, 104 from Motorola, 42 from Samsung and Apple’s iPhone, iPod Classic, iPod Nano, Touch and Mini models but not the iPad.
More information is at npowerpeg.com.
ActiveStyle, Pages 27 on 10/25/2010