Energy Harvesting Market - Forecast(2022 - 2027)

The global energy harvesting systems market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 12.1% during the forecast period, 2021-2026, and cross the $1 Billion mark by 2026, from around $615 million in 2020. Energy harvesting devices helps in energy conservation which are been dissipated in terms of heat, light, sound, vibration, or movement.  Devices aids in harvest or scavenge energy can capture, accumulate, store, condition, and manage this energy into electricity for further consumption. Although the market shall witness a slight downturn of around -4% in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19, the market shall bounce back in 2021 on the back of strong consumer demand in electronics and industry verticals such as Oil and Gas, Manufacturing etc. Governments and favorable public initiatives are the major drivers for energy harvesting market growth. Public actors consider energy harvesting as a key tool for meeting the rising energy demand and saving energy. The imperative to face the issue of climate change and global warming will fuel the growth of the market during the forecast years. The market for commercial building automation is booming today and is expected to face a 5% growth between 2015 and 2019. Energy harvesting wireless solutions find increasing applications in building and home automation thanks to their high cost saving potential

The report: “Energy Harvesting Market Report– Forecast (2021-2026)”, by IndustryARC covers an in-depth analysis of the following segments of the Energy Harvesting market

By Technology: Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting, Photoelectric Energy Harvesting, Mechanical Energy Harvesting, Radio Wave Energy Harvesting, Regenerative Energy Harvesting, Others

By End User:   Home & Building Automation, Consumer Electronics, Industrial, Transportation & Logistics, Others

By Application: Wireless Switching, Wireless HVAC Sensors, Wireless Sensing and Telematics, Tire Pressure Monitoring System, Asset Tracking, Remote Health Monitoring

By Geography: North America (U.S, Canada, Mexico), South America(Brazil, Argentina and others), Europe(Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Others), APAC(China, Japan India, SK, Aus and Others), and RoW (Middle East and Africa)

Mechanical Technology dominated the market with revenue of $222m in 2020. Mechanical coupling from the vibration source to the harvester has to be good and the good electrical matching between the mechanical harvester and the electronic power management has to be provided to gain maximum power. A team of Penn State materials scientists and electrical engineers has developed a mechanical energy transducer. This transducer is made by flexible organic ionic diodes that points towards a new direction in scalable energy harvesting of unused mechanical energy in the environment including wind, ocean waves and human motion. According to a recent research in Georgia Institute of technology, the triboelectric effect creates surprising amounts of electric power by rubbing or touching two different materials together, due to this discovery they found a new way to power mobile devices such as sensors and smartphones. In the automotive sector, energy loss from engine vibrations and friction as well as vibrations in shock absorbers have been a major source of energy harvesting applications. As a significant portion of input energy is lost in the engine, effectively using thermoelectric and mechanical energy harvesting is required. Depending on the life expectancy of the system an upfront cost to use energy harvesting will pay off in the long run, even though the energy generated is not quite substantial. The use of the energy harvesting system in consumer devices will reduce the cost associated with the change of the batteries. The increasing applications such as deploying EH sensors to monitor remote or underwater locations is also beneficial to consumers.

The industry home & building automation market has acquired the largest market share with 40% in 2020, majorly driven by increase in smart home homes and buildings constructions in the recent years. The development and the implementation of the improved growing systems, for the purpose of biomass production for bio refinery utilization, is gaining attention due to the increasing demands for biofuels and a variety of bio refinery products.  Increasing needs of growth in living conditions in the new EU developing countries is expected to increase the demand for the energy. The technological advancements in home automation includes graduated alarm that plays some music which increases the volume slowly until the person reacts to the alarm. Along with this the introduction of many advanced technologies is expected to create opportunities in home automation. Companies like Apple, Jawbone, fit bit and Nike are considered as the major players of wearable devices in U.S. Apple is planning to launch a new wearable device which can determine the glucose levels in blood and link it the daily schedules.  The additional feature which is available in this device is it can monitor the stress levels of the person and can distinguish the people and meetings who gave stress.

Energy Harvesting market in Asia-Pacific region held significant market share of 37.5% in 2020. A group of researchers are focusing on the development of ‘Piezo’ harvesters which helps in reducing the number of heart surgeries for people dependent on pace makers. The energy harvester system is used to convert small ambient vibrations into technology and can be used to power the batteries used in pace makers for a longer duration. On an average the battery of a pace maker can run for seven or eight years but, implementing this can increase its life by another 2-3 years.  Germany, the home for a number of major automobile manufacturers. is planning to increase the R&D investments on the automotive industry amounted to $21 billion. The increasing investments in automotive manufacturing units with in the country is expected to boost the market

The Energy harvesting technologies present valuable social benefits when applied to the healthcare sector. They have the potential to improve the quality of life for aging people through home-based healthcare solutions, health monitoring systems, pain management, and new treatments. Rise in elderly population year on year set to upsurge the demand of the market in medical sector. For instance, wearable medical sensors that monitor the wearer’s physiological parameters act as preventive healthcare for elderly people. These technologies may also reduce costs by enabling preventive diagnostics, eliminating unnecessary surgical procedures and shortening surgery time. Many companies are planning to invest on R&D in developing an automated pacemaker that will convert kinetic energy from the beating of the human heart into electrical energy. The device could be the first medical implant able to be powered by the body’s own vibration. With pacemakers, the life of persons can be changed by sparing them the battery-replacing operation they currently need to undergo almost every half decade.  Passenger and commercial vehicles such as cars, lorries generate and lose a huge amount of heat in their general operation that creates an opportunity for thermoelectric energy harvesting. Thermoelectric generators can be installed into lorries and cars to reuse some of the heat given off by their vehicle. This provides less stress on the engine and thereby increases energy efficiency levels. Studies have also shown that lorries and cars installed with this thermoelectric generators reduced their fuel consumption by around 5%.

Wearable medical sensors that monitor the wearer’s physiological parameters and act as preventive healthcare for elderly people are a good example. These technologies may also reduce costs by enabling preventive diagnostics, shortening surgery time and eliminating unnecessary surgical procedures. Many companies are significantly investing on R&D to develop an automated pacemaker that will convert kinetic energy from the beating of the human heart into electrical energy. The device would be the first medical implant able to be powered by the body’s own vibration. 

The increasing cost of the energy harvesting system will obviously leads to higher initial costs owing to its costly components such as energy generator, energy management circuitry, and also often it needs to have an energy storage. The cost of the above energy harvesting modules ranges from $10 to several hundred dollars and majorly the cost of energy harvesting module depends on the amount of the energy need to be harvested. The higher prices of these energy harvesting have been hampering the penetration of market in low capital intensive infrastructure of residential and commercial buildings. 

Product launches, acquisitions, Partnerships and R&D activities are key strategies adopted by players in the Energy Harvesting market. Energy Harvesting top companies include ABB, Honeywell International Inc., Microchip Technology Inc., Fujitsu Ltd, Silicon Laboratories Inc., Analog Devices Inc. and Others