Q4 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more Another Strong Year For Read MoreBut like all new innovations, EVs and eco-friendly energy deal with an uphill battle. Still, the future is clear; sustainable energy and electrical automobiles are on the rise.
For more information about how these new innovations can be fine-tuned to decrease expenses and improve effectiveness, we spoke to Dan Brdar and Tim Burns of Ideal Power (Nasdaq: IPWR) to learn how they see these industries progressing over the next few years and the role their business aims to play.
Q: What are some of the significant inefficiencies dealing with emerging markets like electric lorries (EVs) and eco-friendly energy?
A: They both have cost and energy losses as inefficiencies. Both of those will continue to enhance in time.
Electric cars are still being sold in small volumes compared to combustion engine-based automobiles, so they dont yet have the exact same supply chain economies of scale. As the volume grows, the costs will come down, but its likewise new innovation. Combustion engines have actually been around for over 100 years, that makes them a lot more fully grown innovation. As electric automobile innovations mature, well see enhanced batteries, semiconductors, and lorry production methods that will drive greater efficiency, higher lorry range, and lower cost.
With renewable energy, the expenses for wind and solar power have actually dropped substantially over the last 10 years, however there is still the concern of intermittency. You need to think about highly efficient energy storage to maximize the value and offered kilowatt-hours from eco-friendly energy.
Q: How can these inefficiencies be resolved?
A: One method is by improving power conversion technologies since both eco-friendly energy and electric cars require power converters to transform direct current (DC) energy to rotating current (A/C) and AIR CONDITIONING to DC. The semiconductors for the power conversion technology that goes into these items are a few of that.
That conversion process from direct present to rotating existing isnt 100% effective due to the fact that some energy is lost. The method to enhance that is to enhance the semiconductor gadgets in those power converters so that they can pull out more helpful energy caught from the sun or kept in batteries.
The very same holds true with electric cars. Semiconductors are the second-largest cost in an electrical car after the batteries. They are utilized in the drivetrain, onboard charger and many other locations. Improving the efficiency of these semiconductors can considerably enhance the variety of an electric lorry.
Q: What is Ideal Powers technique to fixing these issues?
A: Weve come up with an actually special, high-efficiency semiconductor power switch. Our innovation is naturally bidirectional, so the energy can stream in both directions.
Q: What is the general effect that resolving these issues might have on the more comprehensive EV and sustainable energy industries?
A: If you consider electric vehicles, one of the best problems that clients have is range stress and anxiety. If you were to use Ideal Powers Bidirectional, Bipolar Junction Transistor (B-TRANTM) innovation in the drivetrain, you might really improve the variety of the car by 7% to 10%. Thats a huge impact in terms of the actual useful variety you can leave the lorry. If you want to focus on lowering the expense, you could really have fewer batteries on the car for the very same variety due to the fact that you can have more efficient power conversion by utilizing things like B-TRANTM. In regards to its visibility to the end user of electric automobiles or renewable resource, the impact could be considerable.
Q: How do you believe resolving these issues would impact the mass adoption of these innovations?
A: It might be a pretty substantial effect due to the fact that the 2 big problems dealing with both electric lorries and renewables are cost and efficiency. In electric automobiles, this takes the kind of range. For sustainable energy, it takes the type of beneficial kilowatt-hours. If you could bring a technology like our B-TRAN ™ to these applications, you might potentially lower their costs and get more beneficial energy out of them, resolving both the range and inefficiency challenges. It makes these innovations more competitive and more attractive, and it reduces the perceived threat of both brand-new technologies for the consumer. Overall, fixing these problems might lead to an acceleration in the mass adoption of these technologies.
Q: What was the preliminary concept behind the Bidirectional, Bipolar Junction Transistor (B-TRANTM)?
Especially with the adoption of batteries for energy storage, theres going to be an increasing need for bidirectional switching since batteries need to charge and then release energy. Thats where we came up with B-TRANTM as a method that could improve both the conduction and changing losses associated with managing the flow of energy in either instructions in a circuit.
Q: What is the B-TRANTM and how does it work? What are some of its applications?
A: The B-TRANTM is a semiconductor device that is utilized to form a switch to manage the flow of energy. For instance, a light switch controls all the energy streaming to a light. Switching can likewise be finished with semiconductor gadgets. It gives you the capability to change energy on and off countless times per 2nd, which enables you to do a great deal of things with energy products and power conversion. It enables you to be a lot more efficient; the losses are lowered since youre using one effective semiconductor gadget as opposed to numerous less efficient semiconductors. It likewise gives you a more compact plan in terms of how you handle waste heat.
Applications include things like electric vehicles; electric lorry charging; renewable energy, solar and wind power, which can be combined with energy storage; standalone energy storage; solid-state circuit breakers for utility transmission and distribution systems; military applications; and things like uninterruptible power supply systems for data.
Q: What can you tell us about Ideal Powers deal with the U.S. Navys ship electrification program?
A: Were working with Diversified Technologies, Inc., which has knowledge in creating solid-state circuit breakers, as part of a program moneyed by the U.S. Navy to develop a solid-state circuit breaker for the ship electrification program. The Navy wishes to minimize the amount of liquid fuels it utilizes to run ships by putting a direct current facilities in the ships that uses batteries and other innovations to minimize the quantity of fuel it should transfer throughout the world. The Navy also desires to make its ships quieter and more effective, but so far, it hasnt had the ability to do that due to the fact that you require a fast-acting, effective, solid-state breaker to manage the circulation of energy around the ship.
Traditional semiconductor gadgets are too ineffective. Traditional semiconductors produce too much energy in the type of waste heat. Along with Diversified Technologies, we were granted a task by the Navy to produce a solid-state breaker that relies on our B-TRAN ™ innovation for a large-scale presentation with the Navy later this year.
Q: What challenges do you anticipate Ideal Power to face in the next 12 to 18 months, and how do you prepare to conquer them?
A: I believe for us, one of the challenges as a small public company is raising awareness of the innovation. There are large international vehicle makers, and there are big solar business associated with the power converters for solar and energy storage. As a little company with brand-new technology, youve got to make them knowledgeable about the innovation. Youve got to make it through their certification and validation procedures. And youre competing versus some really big gamers that have high volume, traditional technologies out there. I believe a great deal of it is simply talking to the best individuals at these possible users, getting them comfy with the technology, informing them about it, and getting them to hang out and resources to assess it.
We put out whitepapers that explain the innovation. We have an active outreach with prospective consumers where our organization advancement group is educating them about the innovation and getting their engagement in regards to how they might use it. Were taking part in trade programs. A lot of it is truly simply fundamental educational operate in terms of outreach to make the neighborhood conscious that there is this new innovation that they need to be taking a look at.
Updated on Jan 12, 2022, 4:01 pm
Q4 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more Another Strong Year For Read MoreBut like all new innovations, EVs and sustainable energy face an uphill battle. You need to think about extremely efficient energy storage to optimize the worth and offered kilowatt-hours from eco-friendly energy. If you might bring an innovation like our B-TRAN ™ to these applications, you could potentially reduce their expenses and get more helpful energy out of them, addressing both the variety and inefficiency difficulties. Especially with the adoption of batteries for energy storage, theres going to be an increasing need for bidirectional changing since batteries require to charge and then release energy. It provides you the capability to switch energy on and off thousands of times per second, which enables you to do a lot of things with energy items and power conversion.
Two significant development industries in the U.S. and globally are electric vehicles and sustainable energy. As governments and companies around the world get more severe about environment modification and the requirement for a sustainable energy grid, these two emerging options are being thought about necessities for human civilization.
