When the next cold snap cuts downs power lines and leaves New Englanders disconnected from the grid, a quarter-sized device could help them tap their boilers for electricity.

The same technology—a precise combination of materials sandwiched together—is poised to impact larger markets, and make cars and heavy industries more energy-efficient.

The technology has origins at labs at MIT and Boston College—the researchers who created it in the lab launched their startup, GMZ Energy, out of their garage in 2007.

That was then. This week, from its grown-up digs in Waltham, GMZ Energy announced its newest product, a self-powered gas boiler that can help you survive the winter off the grid, or when the electricity fails. The boiler absorbs heat from fuel, like a regular boiler. But the extra fitting, a device the size of a quarter, converts a small fraction of the heat to electricity that can power the water pumps that take water through the house.

Sure, it’ll cost a bit extra. But GMZ chief executive Cheryl Diuguid believes the appeal of the convenience will sway boiler buyers into asking for models with the device fitted in: “If you’re sitting up in the Northeast and the infamous national grid goes down for a week, what would you pay for hot water and your pipes not to freeze?”

It wouldn’t be too hard, she said, to build a version with a converter and a USB output—“so you can have hot water and you can charge your cellphone.”

There are other heat-to-electricity converters on the market, but GMZ is the only one to work at really high temperatures. This makes the device appealing to other industries as well.

For example, diesel engines in heavy machinery could save fuel costs if they are able to convert part of their waste heat energy to electricity.

The auto industry is another big target for GMZ. Driven by government mandates, car manufacturers need to increase fuel efficiency every year.

“By about 2017 the task gets a lot harder,” Diuguid said. In the first quarter next year, GMZ will be testing the first thermoelectric generator in a Honda car.

Image via Flickr user m01229