Energy Harvesting

IDTechEx's Energy Harvesting & WSN conference in Berlin, on May 15 and 16 this year (www.IDTechEx.com/EH ) will focus both on wireless sensors as well as the photovoltaic and other harvesting technologies that are being integrated and are creating exciting new market segments for solar cells.

2011 turned out to be a very interesting year for energy harvesting, full of scientific advances, technology breakthroughs and new product developments. IDTechEx predicts that the trend is set to continue, with further developments expected in 2012, along with expansion of commercialization efforts which will push energy harvesting adoption forward.

Energy harvesting is the use of ambient energy to provide electricity for small and or mobile equipment, whether electrical or electronic. In 2011, $700 million is spent on the energy harvesting component itself, rising to just under $5 billion in 2021.

Those designing electric vehicles have much in common, whether they are hybrid or pure electric, on-road, off-road, on-water, underwater or in the sky.

Less than two weeks remain until the IDTechEx Energy Harvesting & Storage conference and exhibition and already exhibitors are prepared to demonstrate their capabilities and technology advances, and not just on paper.

Zero power wireless sensors are now available, which bring together new low power wireless ICs with energy harvesters (which harvest energy from heat, light or motion, for example) and the appropriate form of energy storage and conditioning.

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.