Energy Storage

The graphene industry is at a critical juncture for many small to medium sized companies: it is time for them to generate revenues and pre-empt any pending cash flow issues. These companies cannot often afford to take the long view, which many research groups and government are rightly taking.

Graphene finds users in California (Our most exciting graphene conference so far).

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).

Whilst existing battery technologies such as lead acid and lithium-ion batteries will dominate the battery market in the following 10 years, advanced and post lithium-ion batteries given the right conditions can potentially take a considerable dent of about 10% of whole battery market by 2026.

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.

A trillion dollar opportunity to 2035, electric buses are being completely reinvented because they are the electric vehicle sector already attracting billion dollar orders and they can prevent millions of deaths and injuries from air pollution.

Plenty of kilowatts from no fuel. This dream ticket is a reality today from the rapid adoption of high power energy harvesting. Energy harvesting converts ambient energy into electricity where it is needed, off-grid.

Analysts IDTechEx almost completely rewrote their report Power Electronics for Electric Vehicles 2015-2025 this year and frequent updates take place, such is the pace of change.

Buses are now a crucible of change, often adopting new technology before cars.