Renewable Technology Innovation

Whilst writing this blog, I have looked at five most commonly used renewable resources and have seen the significant research and development going into each area, with wind, solar and biofuels seeming to have some of the most rapid and exciting technological advances.

So I now turn to some of the more undeveloped and comparatively unestablished technologies that are still in their infancy. Renewable energy is an exciting area full of innovation and possibilities, but in this post, I intend to highlight two technologies that really caught my attention. Both have already been piloted and deployed on a small scale, receiving significant interest and investment.

1. Pavegen Tiles 

These tiles capture the kinetic energy transferred to the ground when an individual is walking or running. 7 watts of energy can be generated from one footstep, which can then be stored by batteries and used as a power source for lighting cities.

These tiles have already been deployed in a number of locations, including the 2013 Paris Marathon, Heathrow airport and Westfield shopping centre in Australia where the energy was used to power their Christmas trees lighting. Finally, these tiles were installed as astroturf, laid in a football pitch in a favela within Rio de Janeiro. The energy produced by the local children playing football is used to light the local area.

It such an exciting technology and has received enormous support. The company recently welcomed the former executive of Apple to its advisory board and the increasing popularity resulted in massive investment resulting from a crowdfunding campaign in 2013. This campaign saw overfunding of 275%. With such a successful advisory team behind this company and the finances available to them, it is highly likely that we will see this technology being deployed at a rapid global scale in coming years.

Pavegen Tile Installation at the Paris Marathon, 2013
Source: earthtechling.com

2. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

The second innovative technology is ocean thermal energy conversion. This uses the temperature gradient between cool deep ocean waters and relatively warm surface waters to rotate a turbine which then produces electricity. Although the current model is relatively inefficient (currently at 1-3%), there is significant research and development going into this area.

There has been great interest in piloting this thermal conversion technology, with Lockheed Martin and Reignwood signing a contract in 2013 to develop a 10 MW Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Plant off the cost of Southern China. Hawaii also installed a 105 kW plant off its coastline early last year. Hopefully more of these projects will be seen once improvements in the efficiency and design are complete.

With the signing of the COP21 agreement and the pledges made by nations to significantly reduce their carbon emissions, we are likely to see increased investment going into developing and piloting new renewable technologies. I have already outlined the huge funding algal biofuels projects have received in the US, and hopefully we will see this type of investment available for other projects that are currently in their infancy, ready to be improved and piloted.