Energy Storage

Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman IDTechEx reports on the latest EV developments from the European Electric Vehicle Congress held in Brussels recently.

Researchers have developed methods of examining lithium-ion reactions in real-time with nanoscale (billionths of a meter) precision, offering unprecedented insights into these crucial materials.

In Brussels, Belgium, on November 19, there was a day devoted to presenting most of the European Union projects on eMobility. This is a term used in Continental Europe to mean what they call Full Electric Vehicles (FEV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), mainly on-road.

Some of the highlights of the keynote presentations at the 2012 IDTechEx conferences on energy harvesting, storage, wireless sensor networks and supercapacitors are presented.

A flex­ible and trans­parent super­ca­pac­itor, a device that stores energy as an elec­trical field instead of a chem­ical reac­tion, as bat­teries do.

The key enabling technologies of electric vehicles, whether by land, water or air and whether hybrid or pure electric are now at least six in number.

Cell phones as thin and flex­ible as a sheet of paper. Energy-​​storing house paint. Roll-​​up touch screen dis­plays. These are the sorts of devices that the engi­neering industry is preparing for and expecting.