Business energy could be revolutionised in the years to come as technology to capture and store 'free' ambient power is perfected and applied on a broad scale.
In a new report entitled Energy Harvesting Technologies & Energy Storage: Worldwide Forecasts, Second Edition, Reportlinker explains that a wide range of different methods of capturing energy from the environment already exist.
Notable examples of this include solar panels, which are able to gather sunlight and convert it into
electricity for use remotely from the National Grid.
However, other small-scale methods of creating power also exist, such as producing electricity from vibrations - the piezoelectric effect that is used to power kinetic watches and eliminate the need for a disposable battery.
Thermoelectrics, in which a current is produced by creating a temperature differential between two conductors, is another area that is currently seeing greater interest.
However, these solutions are not expected to dominate by the end of the period covered in the report, which spans 2010-15.
"Thermoelectric energy harvesting solutions will experience healthy growth," the study anticipates, "but they are still too expensive to realistically challenge photovoltaic and mechanical solutions during the forecast period."
Instead, the report notes that a number of different factors are still shaping the markets both for the generation of power from ambient sources and also for the storage of the electricity generated, which typically requires some form of rechargeable battery unit.
Even technologies that are finding widespread applications - such as radio frequency identification, an innovation that is now used in everything from contactless payment cards to casino gambling chips - may remain small in terms of overall value for some years while the technology is perfected.
However, as further developments are made, the typical business energy mix could include power from seismic activity and stray radio and television broadcasts, which carry electromagnetic energy of their own, in addition to the recently adopted solutions such as solar, wind and geothermal power.
