2 major development markets in the U.S. and internationally are electric cars and renewable resource. As businesses and governments around the world get more major about environment modification and the requirement for a sustainable energy grid, these 2 emerging services are being considered requirements for human civilization.
Q4 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more Another Strong Year For Read MoreBut like all brand-new technologies, EVs and renewable energy face an uphill battle. Still, the future is clear; renewable energy and electric vehicles are on the rise.
To get more information about how these new technologies can be improved to lower costs and enhance efficiency, we spoke with Dan Brdar and Tim Burns of Ideal Power (Nasdaq: IPWR) to learn how they see these markets progressing over the next few years and the function their business aims to play.
Q: What are some of the major inefficiencies facing emerging industries like electrical automobiles (EVs) and renewable resource?
A: They both have cost and energy losses as inadequacies. Both of those will continue to improve over time.
Electric cars are still being sold in small volumes compared to combustion engine-based lorries, so they do not yet have the very same supply chain economies of scale. As electrical lorry technologies develop, well see enhanced batteries, semiconductors, and automobile production techniques that will drive higher efficiency, greater automobile range, and lower expense.
With sustainable energy, the costs for wind and solar power have dropped considerably over the last 10 years, but there is still the concern of intermittency. You require to believe about extremely efficient energy storage to make the most of the value and offered kilowatt-hours from sustainable energy.
Q: How can these inadequacies be dealt with?
A: One way is by enhancing power conversion technologies due to the fact that both eco-friendly energy and electrical lorries need power converters to transform direct current (DC) energy to rotating existing (AIR CONDITIONER) and AC to DC. The semiconductors for the power conversion technology that enters into these products are a few of that.
If you have solar energy at your home, photovoltaic panels in fact create direct present. That needs to be converted into alternating existing so that you can use it in your house. Because some energy is lost, that conversion procedure from direct current to alternating current isnt 100% efficient. The way to enhance that is to improve the semiconductor devices in those power converters so that they can take out more helpful energy recorded from the sun or saved in batteries.
The exact same is true with electric vehicles. Semiconductors are the second-largest expense in an electrical lorry after the batteries. They are utilized in the drivetrain, onboard battery charger and numerous other areas. Improving the efficiency of these semiconductors can considerably improve the series of an electrical car.
Q: What is Ideal Powers method to resolving these problems?
A: Weve come up with a truly special, high-efficiency semiconductor power switch. It actually is targeting that conversion step from DC to AIR CONDITIONER, AIR CONDITIONER to DC or altering the DC voltage more efficiently. As an outcome of that, these products will end up being lower expense and more effective. Part of decreasing the expense is that if you might convert power more efficiently, theres less thermal management and less waste heat to handle, which enables the products to be smaller sized, lighter and cheaper. Our innovation is naturally bidirectional, so the energy can stream in both directions.
Q: What is the total effect that resolving these problems might have on the more comprehensive EV and renewable resource markets?
If you were to utilize Ideal Powers Bidirectional, Bipolar Junction Transistor (B-TRANTM) technology in the drivetrain, you might in fact improve the range of the lorry by 7% to 10%. In terms of its exposure to the end user of electric lorries or renewable energy, the effect could be significant.
Q: How do you think resolving these problems would impact the mass adoption of these technologies?
For sustainable energy, it takes the type of helpful kilowatt-hours. If you might bring a technology like our B-TRAN ™ to these applications, you might possibly reduce their costs and get more helpful energy out of them, attending to both the range and ineffectiveness obstacles. It makes these innovations more competitive and more appealing, and it decreases the viewed risk of both new technologies for the customer.
Q: What was the preliminary concept behind the Bidirectional, Bipolar Junction Transistor (B-TRANTM)?
Particularly with the adoption of batteries for energy storage, theres going to be an increasing requirement for bidirectional changing since batteries require to charge and then release energy. Thats where we came up with B-TRANTM as a way that could improve both the conduction and changing losses associated with managing the circulation of energy in either direction 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 used to form a switch to manage the flow of energy. For example, a light switch controls all the energy flowing to a light. Switching can also be made with semiconductor gadgets. It offers you the capability to change energy on and off thousands of times per second, which permits you to do a great deal of things with energy products and power conversion. It allows you to be a lot more efficient; the losses are decreased due to the fact that youre utilizing one effective semiconductor device as opposed to multiple less effective semiconductors. It also offers you a more compact arrangement in regards to how you manage waste heat.
Applications consist of things like electrical lorries; electric automobile charging; renewable resource, solar and wind power, which can be coupled with energy storage; standalone energy storage; solid-state breaker for energy transmission and distribution systems; military applications; and things like uninterruptible power supply systems for information centers.
Q: What can you inform us about Ideal Powers work with the U.S. Navys ship electrification program?
A: Were dealing with Diversified Technologies, Inc., which has knowledge in creating solid-state circuit breakers, as part of a program funded by the U.S. Navy to develop a solid-state circuit breaker for the ship electrification program. The Navy wishes to decrease the amount of liquid fuels it utilizes to run ships by putting a direct present facilities in the ships that utilizes batteries and other technologies to reduce the amount of fuel it need to carry throughout the world. The Navy also wants to make its ships quieter and more effective, however so far, it hasnt had the ability to do that since you require a fast-acting, efficient, solid-state circuit breaker to manage the circulation of energy around the ship.
Conventional semiconductor devices are too ineffective. Standard semiconductors produce too much energy in the form of waste heat. Along with Diversified Technologies, we were awarded a task by the Navy to produce a solid-state breaker that relies on our B-TRAN ™ technology for a large-scale demonstration with the Navy later on this year.
Q: What challenges do you anticipate Ideal Power to deal with in the next 12 to 18 months, and how do you prepare to conquer them?
A: I believe for us, among the difficulties as a little public company is raising awareness of the innovation. There are huge worldwide car makers, and there are big solar companies included in the power converters for solar and energy storage. As a small company with new technology, youve got to make them familiar with the technology. Youve got to make it through their qualification and recognition processes. And youre completing versus some huge players that have high volume, traditional innovations out there. I believe a lot of it is just talking to the ideal people at these prospective users, getting them comfortable with the technology, informing them about it, and getting them to hang around and resources to assess it.
We have an active outreach with prospective clients where our organization development team is informing them about the technology and getting their engagement in terms of how they might use it. A lot of it is truly simply fundamental educational work in terms of outreach to make the neighborhood aware that there is this brand-new innovation that they require to be looking at.
Upgraded on Jan 12, 2022, 4:01 pm
Q4 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more Another Strong Year For Read MoreBut like all brand-new innovations, EVs and sustainable energy deal with an uphill battle. You need to believe about extremely efficient energy storage to make the most of the worth and offered kilowatt-hours from eco-friendly energy. If you could bring a technology like our B-TRAN ™ to these applications, you could possibly lower their costs and get more beneficial energy out of them, addressing both the variety and inefficiency difficulties. Particularly with the adoption of batteries for energy storage, theres going to be an increasing need for bidirectional switching since batteries require to charge and then release energy. It offers you the capability to switch energy on and off thousands of times per 2nd, which permits you to do a lot of things with energy items and power conversion.
