You Didn’t Know You Needed This

A Respond! Console Desk, a battery-powered workstation. No requirements for 120V power connections.

When you are first introduced to the concept of batteries in furniture, the importance might not be obvious.

You might think it gimmicky, unworkable, unnecessary, infeasible, or partisan.

None of those things are true.

The Survey

I posted this question on Quora, “What are the implications if office furniture could be powered with batteries rather than 120V wiring?” If you are unfamiliar with Quora, simply put, it is a site where you can ask or answer any question. Questions can be categorized and you can ask for specific answers from specific people in each category. I aimed my question at people from “Electricity”, “Electronics”, and “Electrical Engineering”. In the first ten days after it was posted, this question was viewed by over 4000 curious people.

I admit that my not-very-scientific survey lacked any additional information, but I wanted to see if the question itself would prompt any creative thinking. We already have batteries in cars, batteries in power tools, and batteries in lawnmowers. Is it a stretch to imagine office furniture?

Apparently so.

A non-profit, EMerge Alliance, has been advocating for DC or hybrid AC/DC building microgrids for over a decade, and apparently with not much success, if you read the answers I received.

The Responses

One respondent, with a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering, said “no idea what that means, worst question of the day.” Another answered, “Good business for battery producers, surgeons, and the recycling industry. Not tired of battery hypes yet?” Another person replied, “Boxes and boxes and piles and piles of used batteries.”

Another response went in a different direction, “Most office equipment COULD run on batteries. It doesn’t because there is readily available, dependable power right there at the outlet and adding in a battery system, except as a backup is inefficient.” I presume this person lives in a place where the grid has been reliable, probably not a California resident.

Although not a complete endorsement, the most supportive answer started like this, “Wow it’s good that you're thinking out of the box, but this one's a hornet’s nest on amphetamines:-).”

Although this was a small, unscientific survey, I learned something.

Just suggesting “batteries in office furniture” is not going to be a successful way to market our Respond! product line. At least today, the benefits are not going to be obvious to most people. We need to point to the benefits that batteries enable, such as mobile, easily-reconfigured furniture; its corollary—the value of doing reconfiguration more often; operating cost reduction because peak electrical loads can be reduced; lower-cost resilience solutions for power outages; and lower facility electrical infrastructure investments.

That said, there are battery champions out there. Check out this short video from the BBC.