Power Matters Alliance Opens For Business

By John Laposky On Mar 12 2012 - 4:01am

PICATAWAY, N.J. – The IEEE has formally launched the Power Matters Alliance (PMA), an industry standards organizations dedicated to advancing smart and energy-efficient wireless power into a standard called Power 2.0.

Vint Cerf, IEEE fellow and chief Internet evangelist for Google, has been appointed honorary chairman. “The PMA is dedicated to the idea that it may be possible to do for electricity what the Internet has done for information,” said Cerf. “The PMA’s recipe for delivering power wirelessly creates a vision of a new world in which power and information become parts of a whole. We are happy to invite interested prospective members to take part in shaping this new era of intelligent wireless power.”

According to the PMA, the Power 2.0 standard will be about “linking power, information, and energy- efficient solutions utilizing Direct Current in order to enable and optimize a new approach to power.”

The PMA is established as an IEEE-SA Industry Connections activity. The IEEE-SA Industry Connections Program enables groups like the PMA to launch and become operational quickly, by providing a platform for like-minded companies, government agencies and others to come together to hone and refine their thinking on rapidly changing technologies, according to the group.

“IEEE led the wireless Internet revolution with the IEEE 802.11 series of standards, and is poised to do the same for wireless power,” said Judith Gorman, managing director, IEEE-SA. ”The IEEE-SA Industry Connections Program is an ideal forum for PMA to incubate specifications that can then go on to become globally adopted.

The alliance was founded by a group of industry and government entities including Duracell, General Motors, Microsemi, National Grid, Procter & Gamble, EMerge Alliance, the FCC, Powermat Technologies, Sony Pictures Technologies and the EPA’s Energy Star program.

Companies interested in joining the PMA are asked to contact the alliance via its website, www.power matters.org, or emailing info@powermatters.org.