Reaping the Energy Harvest [Resources]

We are entering an era when scavenging tiny amounts of power from the environment can power small devices to do extraordinary tasks. The needs of the Internet of Things and the advent of lower-cost components are moving energy-harvesting systems from niche applications to broad-scale practicality. This was the clear message of a conference sponsored by market research firm IDTechEx, held in Santa Clara, Calif., last November, where seven events took place at once. In addition to energy harvesting and storage, the topics covered were printed electronics, wearable technology, 3-D printing, supercapacitors, the Internet of Things, and graphene. These seemingly disparate fields are tightly linked; for example, as IDTechEx CEO Raghu Das pointed out, wearable devices were a strong driver for energy-harvesting technologies. Throughout the sessions and in the exhibit hall, other linkages were evident: Supercapacitors hold the potential to create highly efficient ways to store and release harvested energy, and 3-D printing plays a big role in creating prototypes and short-run custom production items.