Green Power is a feature of Zigbee based on energy-harvesting technology, said CSA. Part of the flagship Zigbee PRO standard, Green Power is built with CSA’s open standards and global membership.
The standard was first released in 2012 and has undergone several revisions since then, the latest of which has been completed by the Green Power Working Group, under the auspices of CSA.
According to CSA, revision 1.1.2 introduces additional features and scripts that simplify testing and allow Green Power developers to use the same unified test harness for Green Power receiver products as used for the traditional Zigbee protocol.
CSA said: “Green Power enables wireless devices to be powered utilizing energy-harvesting methods with limited or no batteries, thus saving on maintenance costs by reducing the need to regularly replace batteries across large areas.
“Battery-powered Green Power devices have an extended life of over 15 years without the need to change batteries, helping further reduce battery waste and contribute to a greener future.”
Zigbee, meanwhile, is a low-power wireless mesh network standard targeted at battery-powered wireless devices including IoT. Based on the IEEE's 802.15.4 personal-area network standard, Zigbee can be used as an alternative to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, particularly in low-powered devices such as smart home sensors.
A single Zigbee mesh network transmission takes requires around 500uJ of energy, with Zigbee Green Power technology reducing this by a factor 5 or more in many standard use cases, CSA said.