Analysis

New focus at green technology event: ‘off grid energy independence’

8th March 2018
Lanna Deamer
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The IDTechEx Show serves its 2,500 delegates with a combination of closely related topics from sensors, flexible electronics, bioelectronics and IoT to energy storage and electric vehicles. As usual, this year’s event in Berlin 11th-12th April 2018 has important adjustments to reflect important new trends. For example, there is now an 'Off Grid Energy Independence' conference in the nine parallel conferences offered.

Making off grid electricity with zero emission is very much a growth industry now and NASA, Siemens, the legendary National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US and carefully selected lesser known names will tell you why.

It even includes the previously unthinkable - businesses on grid going off grid for lower cost, fewer outages and freedom from cyber attacks. Off grid now embraces capturing infrared, daylight, wind and water movement: indeed combining them saves on energy storage.

With the new Airborne Wind Energy and Perovskite solar cells going commercial this year, those aspects have a total of eight presenters. Learn about 1MW solar windows planned for skyscrapers and 110 solar road projects. New river, wave power and system design are revealed. Blockchain, crowd funding, islands, aerospace, developing nations... the considerable breadth of the subject is captured, markets being larger than at first seems to be the case.

Economics are improving fast and applications widening from desalination, offshore platforms, disaster response to ship propulsion - all covered here. The optional masterclasses on 10th and 13th April have been extended to cover the new topics.

There are important new participants in the 220 stand exhibition and even the famous IDTechEx awards for excellence have an important new addition. It reflects the fact that technologies replacing dirty coal, diesel, mercury in fluorescent lights and displays and so on may have safe levels of other toxins or none at all.

“We wish to applaud the difficult task of managing with none at all,” said IDTechEx Chairman Dr Peter Harrop, Author of a new IDTechEx report, 'Toxic Materials and Alternatives in Electronics/Electrics 2018-2028'. “We have therefore added an award this year called, 'Toxin Replacement Hero'. Applications are open now and there is no cost involved.”

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