AN innovative company built on harvesting waste energy from passing cars through vibration sensors has applied the technology to the mining sector and picked up this year’s Western Australian Innovator of the Year award.
Tim Jones and his business partner, Greg Mancarrow, who only started West Perth-based Intium Energy in April last year, are hoping to carve a niche for its adapted technology, which has been redesigned to monitor rollers on conveyor belts on mine sites.
Intium, an unlisted company, developed a technology that would collect energy generated by vibrations of vehicles passing over a platform structure for application either in a car park or on freeway ramps.
With the potential for business growth through servicing the mining and resources sector in the back of his mind, Mr Jones was keen to find a way Intium could apply the technology to mining.
He told WA Business News it was through his approach to learning the intricacies of the mining industry that made him realise the sensor systems developed for energy generation could be applied to conveyor-belt monitoring on mine sites.
“We had been educating ourselves on what needs there were or what unsolved technology issues there were in the resources sector and monitoring our technology to see at any stage whether any of our technology could be applied,” Mr Jones said.
“It was an ongoing theme and when we came up with the sensor platform, it was largely based on a vibration platform. We put two and two together and saw the problem it might be able to solve.”
The sensors are used to monitor vibration levels in the bearings of rollers in conveyor belts on mine sites and in processing plants and are programmed to recognise abnormalities in rollers in order to avoid unplanned stoppages and maintenance.
“The conveyor is critical to the production and process, so if the conveyor goes down then potentially the whole process does, which means the company isn’t shipping ore properly,” Mr Jones said.
“The way they value the loss is on loss of production, the amount of ore they are producing in an hour multiplied by the ore price.”
Mr Jones said part of his strategy in developing what is known as the conveyor roller monitoring system was gauging demand in the mining industry by engaging early with potential customers.
The technology’s elements of self-sustaining energy provision helped to make it more attractive to the industry as well.
“It is ambient powered, which means it draws its energy from the environment and in this case the vibration of the conveyor frames,” Mr Jones said.
Having a background in law and intellectual property, Mr Jones said patents had been taken out on the technologies and the company would be pursuing more patent protections with further development of the commercial trials and application of the product.
Both the waste energy and conveyor systems are at the same level of commercial trials, with the conveyor system being trialled by a mining company in northern Western Australia.
Intium hopes the conveyor system will lead to revenue for the company.
“We are called Intium Energy and originally the focus was definitely on energy generation, and that translates across to energy efficiency and micro electricity generation, so that is effectively what the sensor does – generate electricity on a micro basis rather than a macro basis,” Mr Jones said.
The company has engaged a broker for its initial capital raising, after initially pursuing independent funding avenues. Intium is
an unlisted public company with 70
shareholders.
“(Listing) is one of the possibilities, our shareholders in particular are looking for some kind of value event down the track, whether it is a listing, a trade sale, sell down or something like that, it is worth keeping an eye on,” he said.
‘‘I suppose listing would depend on what the market is like next year but it is something we are keeping an eye on.
“The main focus at the moment is bringing a product to market to increase the value of the company.”
