Off Grid

It is a rule-of-thumb that manufacturers should vertically integrate only when products and markets mature, so they can confidently shave off the last pennies of cost. One exception is when shortages loom: Tesla built its battery gigafactory fast using proven Panasonic technology. However, many suppliers now build battery gigafactories.

The British have studied the possibility of a Severn tidal barrage for 100 years and its government has turned it down again recently as seriously uneconomic. It

The IDTechEx Show! on April 10-11 in Berlin brings together eight key disruptive technologies and their customers at one venue.

A large proportion of the cost, disruption, pollution and exposure to natural disasters in a city would be eliminated if there were no infrastructure.

Hydroelectric power is by far the most successful form of so-called zero-emission production of electricity but it has a dark side.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 31 January titled Zero Emission Gensets - $100 Billion Opportunity.

The on-road electric vehicle industry knows it is headed for a vicious fight to the death as the biggest category, private cars, collapses due to people moving to cities and nothing compensates for saturation of the Chinese electric bus market. In contrast, off-road EVs will be prosperous growth markets.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 10 January titled Airborne Wind Energy AWE Gets Serious.

California and Europe are pumping millions into development of electricity-generating roads using piezoelectrics. Piezos will also be useful in self-powered Internet of Things nodes because no one will change or even charge millions of batteries for those nodes let alone the envisaged billions. Without self-powered nodes, the IoT will be nothing more than a footnote in history. The new IDTechEx Research report, "Piezoelectric Harvesting and Sensing 2019-2039" is the first to pull it all together. Milliwatts or megawatts: where will piezoelectric success lie?

Diesel generator sets remain crucial to many key industries and are a multi-billion dollar global market.