2 major growth industries in the U.S. and internationally are electrical vehicles and renewable resource. As governments and companies worldwide get more major about environment change and the need for a sustainable energy grid, these 2 emerging solutions are being thought about requirements for human civilization.
Q4 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more Another Strong Year For Read MoreBut like all new technologies, EVs and sustainable energy deal with an uphill battle. You require to think about highly effective energy storage to make the most of the worth and readily available kilowatt-hours from sustainable energy. If you might bring an innovation like our B-TRAN ™ to these applications, you might possibly decrease their expenses and get more beneficial energy out of them, dealing with both the range and inadequacy challenges. Especially with the adoption of batteries for energy storage, theres going to be an increasing need for bidirectional switching because batteries need to charge and then discharge energy. It gives you the capability to change energy on and off thousands of times per second, which allows you to do a lot of things with energy products and power conversion.
This Odey Funds Six Biggest Longs Were Its Worst-Performing Positions In 2021Odeys LF Brook Absolute Return Fund was down 4.6% for the 4th quarter, bringing its full-year performance to 9.9% for 2021. The fund, managed by James Hanbury and Jamie Grimston, has enjoyed a 12.9% compound yearly development rate considering that beginning in May 2009. Q4 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more Another Strong Year For Read MoreBut like all brand-new innovations, EVs and sustainable energy face an uphill battle. Not only is the proof of idea in requirement of refining to drive more performances and lower expenses, the tipping point for mass adoption has yet to be reached. Still, the future is clear; renewable energy and electric automobiles are on the rise.
For more information about how these new technologies can be improved to enhance and reduce expenses efficiency, we spoke with Dan Brdar and Tim Burns of Ideal Power (Nasdaq: IPWR) to learn how they see these markets evolving over the next couple of years and the function their company aims to play.
Q: What are a few of the major inefficiencies dealing with emerging industries like electrical cars (EVs) and sustainable energy?
A: They both have expense and energy losses as ineffectiveness. Both of those will continue to improve gradually.
Electric automobiles are still being sold in small volumes compared to combustion engine-based vehicles, so they dont yet have the same supply chain economies of scale. As electrical lorry technologies develop, well see better batteries, semiconductors, and automobile manufacturing techniques that will drive higher efficiency, higher automobile variety, and lower expense.
With renewable energy, the costs for wind and solar energy have dropped substantially over the last 10 years, however there is still the concern of intermittency. The sun is not always shining, and the wind is not constantly blowing. You require to think about extremely efficient energy storage to optimize the value and available kilowatt-hours from renewable energy. The rapidly declining expense of batteries and ingenious methods to their use can mostly alleviate the intermittency concerns.
Q: How can these ineffectiveness be dealt with?
A: One way is by enhancing power conversion innovations since both renewable resource and electric cars need power converters to transform direct current (DC) energy to rotating current (AIR CONDITIONING) and AC to DC. The semiconductors for the power conversion technology that goes into these products are a few of that.
That conversion process from direct present to rotating present isnt 100% effective because some energy is lost. The way to improve 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.
Semiconductors are the second-largest expense in an electric car after the batteries. Improving the efficiency of these semiconductors can substantially improve the variety of an electrical car.
Q: What is Ideal Powers technique to solving these problems?
A: Weve come up with a truly distinct, high-efficiency semiconductor power switch. It actually is targeting that conversion step from DC to AIR CONDITIONING, AIR CONDITIONER to DC or altering the DC voltage more efficiently. As a result of that, these products will end up being lower cost and more effective. Part of decreasing the expense is that if you might convert power more effectively, theres less thermal management and less waste heat to deal with, which permits the items to be smaller, lighter and more economical. Our technology is naturally bidirectional, so the energy can flow in both directions.
Q: What is the general impact that solving these concerns might have on the wider EV and renewable energy industries?
A: If you think of electric cars, among the biggest concerns that consumers have is range anxiety. If you were to use Ideal Powers Bidirectional, Bipolar Junction Transistor (B-TRANTM) innovation in the drivetrain, you might in fact improve the variety of the lorry by 7% to 10%. Thats an extremely big impact in regards to the real helpful range you can leave the automobile. If you wish to concentrate on reducing the expense, you could really have less batteries on the car for the same range since you can have more efficient power conversion by utilizing things like B-TRANTM. In terms of its presence to the end user of electrical lorries or renewable resource, the impact might be considerable.
Q: How do you believe solving these problems would affect the mass adoption of these innovations?
For renewable energy, it takes the form of useful kilowatt-hours. If you could bring a technology like our B-TRAN ™ to these applications, you might possibly lower their costs and get more beneficial energy out of them, addressing both the range and ineffectiveness obstacles. It makes these technologies more competitive and more appealing, and it minimizes the perceived threat of both brand-new innovations for the customer.
Q: What was the preliminary concept behind the Bidirectional, Bipolar Junction Transistor (B-TRANTM)?
A: We saw that the conventional semiconductor gadgets used to make bidirectional switches were simply not efficient. Especially with the adoption of batteries for energy storage, theres going to be an increasing requirement for bidirectional switching since batteries require to charge and after that discharge energy. Therefore, energy has to flow in both directions to and from the battery. We were looking for a more effective semiconductor gadget that you could use to make a bidirectional power switch. Thats where we created B-TRANTM as a method that could improve both the conduction and switching losses connected 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 a few of its applications?
A: The B-TRANTM is a semiconductor gadget that is used to form a switch to manage the circulation of energy. A light switch manages all the energy flowing to a light. It gives you the ability to switch energy on and off thousands of times per 2nd, which enables you to do a lot of things with energy items and power conversion.
Applications include things like electrical automobiles; electrical automobile charging; renewable energy, solar and wind power, which can be paired with energy storage; standalone energy storage; solid-state circuit breakers for energy transmission and distribution systems; military applications; and things like uninterruptible power supply systems for data.
Q: What can you inform us about Ideal Powers work with the U.S. Navys ship electrification program?
A: Were working with Diversified Technologies, Inc., which has proficiency in designing solid-state circuit breakers, as part of a program funded by the U.S. Navy to establish a solid-state circuit breaker for the ship electrification program. The Navy wishes to minimize the quantity of liquid fuels it uses to run ships by putting a direct existing infrastructure in the ships that utilizes batteries and other technologies to minimize the amount of fuel it must transfer throughout the world. The Navy likewise desires to make its ships quieter and more effective, but up until now, it hasnt had the ability to do that because you require a fast-acting, efficient, solid-state circuit breaker to manage the circulation of energy around the ship.
Conventional mechanical breaker are much too slow; it needs to be a solid-state gadget that can act upon orders of magnitude quicker. Standard semiconductor gadgets are too inefficient. Standard semiconductors produce excessive energy in the type of waste heat. That requires heavy, costly and intricate cooling systems to eliminate the waste heat. Because B-TRAN ™ has significantly lower conduction losses, the cooling is easier, and the breaker can be much smaller. Together With Diversified Technologies, we were awarded a job by the Navy to produce a solid-state breaker that depends on our B-TRAN ™ innovation for a large-scale presentation with the Navy later this year. The job intends to show a 12-kilovolt direct existing solid-state breaker at a Navy-sponsored center.
Q: What challenges do you anticipate Ideal Power to deal with in the next 12 to 18 months, and how do you prepare to overcome them?
There are really big global vehicle manufacturers, and there are large solar companies included in the power converters for solar and energy storage. As a small company with brand-new innovation, youve got to make them conscious of the technology. I think a lot of it is simply talking to the right people at these prospective users, getting them comfortable with the technology, educating them about it, and getting them to invest time and resources to assess it.
We put out whitepapers that explain the technology. We have an active outreach with potential clients where our business advancement group is informing them about the technology and getting their engagement in terms of how they could use it. Were taking part in exhibition. A great deal of it is really just fundamental academic operate in regards to outreach to make the community conscious that there is this new technology that they need to be looking at.
Upgraded on Jan 12, 2022, 4:01 pm
