Energy Harvesting

Energy independent electric vehicles exist today and there is a multi-billion dollar opportunity for their new technology as it cascades down into all vehicles, land, water and air. The new report from analysts IDTechEx is a world first in revealing this exciting future for component and system suppliers, product integrators and system integrators.

Energy harvesting is a term that now encompasses creating microwatts to megawatts of off-grid electricity using ambient energy such as heat, light, wind and waves. That means big business for those seeing the big picture.

Scouting the market for energy harvesting for almost 7 years now has allowed IDTechEx significant insight into the markets for the technologies, the potential applications and their prospects for growth.

High power energy harvesting (HPEH) is the clean part of off-grid renewable energy and its main potential lies at kilowatts to megawatts. Few things are genuinely new in this world but newly important aspects of energy harvesting really matter.

Thought leaders IDTechEx were among the first to identify three new megatrends in the world of technology: Structural Electronics (SE); 3D Printed Electronics (3DPE); Energy Independent Electric Vehicles (EIVs).

The most dramatic new advances and visions have no name initially. So it is with electric vehicles that need no external charging or refuelling - no, not even wireless charging.

Forget the obsession with driverless autonomous cars; energy independent vehicles are the megatrend. Electric land vehicles, boats, underwater craft and aircraft already exist that never plug in or refuel.

High Power Energy Harvesting (HPEH) is a term beginning to be used for creation of electricity where it is needed using ambient "free" energy. That zero-pollution, high-energy conversion typically captures light (photovoltaics), heat difference (thermoelectrics and heat pumps) and movement (electrodynamics).

Thermoelectric energy harvesting is no longer the Cinderella of energy harvesting - a subject previously dominated by photovoltaics and electrodynamics such as the bicycle dynamo and the electric vehicle's regenerative braking.

Energy harvesting spans microwatts to megawatts because it is the creation of electricity where it is needed using wind, sun, movement, heat difference, friction and other ambient energy.