Energy Harvesting

Electraflyer has announced that it has passed crossover, meaning it now sells more battery-electric aircraft than polluting ones. Pipistrel sold over 100 battery-electric aircraft last year as they take over from its traditional offerings. Bye Aerospace does not even make conventional aircraft. With its Tesla-style approach, its order book exceeds 720 battery-electric aircraft evenly split between two and four-seaters. As the IDTechEx report, "Manned Electric Aircraft: Smart City and Regional 2021-2041" points out, this has caught Cessna, Cirrus and Piper by surprise.

Thermoelectrics is a business impeded by the use of the toxic rare metal Tellurium. Commendably, there is a trend to alternatives in research but few volume sales as yet in any of the three uses. These are energy harvesting to make electricity where it is needed and the more successful cooling and heating, those last two constituting very-reliable, solid heat pumps.

Thursday 26 August 2021 - Why is even seasonal storage a new requirement? How is it that storage by compressed air, gravity and other non-battery options closely leverage mine assets for greater safety and viability? Why does next generation solar fit so well in mines? and more.

Imagine mines with so much electricity production and storage that they do far more downstream processing. As reserves deplete, many will even transition to being zero-emission power stations and electricity storage for local communities and industry or even national grids. The cost of making-good becomes income from reinvention. That is the untold story of mining electrification, beyond the vital safety, greening, and cost reduction of electrics.

Thermoelectric cooling, heating, and harvesting is partly a great success now, partly to be a success later. First to analyze this big picture is the new IDTechEx report, "Thermoelectric Cooling, Heating, Harvesting: 90 Companies' Achievements and Strategies Appraised with Roadmap 2022-2042".

A more value-added approach to repurposing redundant fossil fuel assets such as coal mines and power stations is available.

Thursday 29 July 2021 - Thermoelectric Harvesting: New Directions, New Backers. Ten billion-dollar business awaits when thermoelectric energy harvester research is redirected. Learn some of the lessons of failure, the emerging new opportunities and the parameters that must be optimised to address them.

A host of batteryless solutions have recently been announced. The rapid increase in adoption of batteryless solutions is tracked in the IDTechEx report, "Battery Elimination in Electronics: Market Impact IoT, 6G, Healthcare, Wearables 2021-2041".

Here come 600-mile electric cars and they will grab market share even as city cars. At last, you will be able to buy a car that lets you vacation in it wherever you wish.

"Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting and Other Zero-Emission Electricity from Heat 2022-2042", a new report from IDTechEx, finds that disillusioned manufacturers share a business of mere hundreds of millions of dollars after decades of trying, mainly with bismuth telluride and variants.