Energy Harvesting

The conductive inks and paste business will generate a demand of 1800 tonnes. IDTechEx Research forecasts that this will grow to 2200 by 2026. This business has come alive again and is now a business where literally everything is changing.

2015 has been a year to report very disparate progress in advancing different energy harvesting technologies: advances in thermoelectrics, new and higher power output photovoltaics, capacitive harvesting as well as steady development of markets for electrodynamics along with new applications have created an array of devices serving a diverse number of industries; with applications for wireless sensors, switches and actuators all the way to high power industrial waste heat and vibration harvesting, the technology landscape is developing at a steady pace, with many interesting applications being realized.

It is a no brainer. The ultimate vehicle by land water and air is independent in performance of task and in provision of its motive power.

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.