Energy Harvesting

In this article we share some of our research for the new IDTechEx report, Electric Motors for Electric Vehicles 2012-2022.

IDTechEx, the organiser of the World's largest global series of Printed Electronics events will hold its European show in Berlin, Germany on 3-4 April. The focus, as at all IDTechEx events, is to address the needs and experiences of adopters of the technology.

Over the next decade, the most vibrant Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) markets will be the contactless charging of portable and mobile equipment, in particular consumer electronics and electric vehicles.

According to IDTechEx research in the new report Wireless Sensor Networks 2011-2021, WSN will grow rapidly from $0.45 billion in 2011 to $2 billion in 2021.

In 2011, IDTechEx research finds that the amount of money spent on energy harvesters will be $0.7Bn, with several hundred developers involved throughout the value chain.

IDTechEx began exploring energy harvesting for small devices four years ago when it was obvious that conventional batteries were a dead end for many wireless sensor applications.

Over twenty million electric vehicles produced in 2010 will employ on-board energy harvesting to help charge the traction batteries. That includes both hybrid and pure electric vehicles.

Energy harvesters enabling micro-power generation provide new levels of efficiency and automation in the built environment, process control, vehicles and healthcare.

There are now other forms of energy harvesters developed initially at the micro level which are now being scaled to produce enough energy to replace or supplement grid power.

The IDTechEx exhibition with the only co-located conference on Energy Harvesting & Storage with Wireless Sensor Networks & Real Time Locating Systems saw an unprecedented 340 people attending and 28 exhibitors.