Energy Harvesting for Distributed Microsystems – The Link between Environmental Performance and Availability of Power Supply

Efforts in reducing power consumption of microelectronic components and developments in the area of energy harvesting devices have led to technically feasible solutions for autonomous power supply of distributed microsystems. Reliability by means of availability of the required energy is a fundamental constraint for replacement of batteries. At the same time environmental impacts of the technical solution need to be kept low. In this paper we will present a framework for modeling energy budgets depending on non-ideal environmental loads. A new indicator describing availability and risk of materials implemented is introduced, which is then applied to compare environmental performance of different design decisions.