Market Watch

December 2014
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a third round of Requests for Proposals (RFPs) under the Distributed Wind Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP). CIP aims to help U.S. manufacturers of small- and mid-sized wind turbines improve their turbine designs and manufacturing pro
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Date:
12/31/2014
Defining consumer electronics

Kevin Parmenter, Excelsys

Once upon a time electronics went into neat precise product categories, making marketing people at electronics component companies happy. However the situation has become far more complex. Consumer electronics products are now finding their way into other applications, because frankly they are better, faster, an
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Date:
12/30/2014
Up to 2014, there was only limited interest in thermoelectric energy harvesting in general and its use in automotive applications in particular. For instance, BMW had worked on it for 20 years without bringing anything to market. The theoretical maximum attainable efficiency was known to be one half of that fo
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Date:
12/29/2014
EnerKnol's latest report covers EPA’s Clean Power Plan, regional programs, and continued solar installation growth aim to improve state-level resource reliability. Impact The proposed Clean Power Plan and regional reliability programs will continue to influence an energy mix shift and electric system imp
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Date:
12/29/2014
Astronics Corporation (Nasdaq:ATRO), a leading provider of advanced technologies for the global aerospace and defense industries, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Armstrong Aerospace ("Armstrong") for approximately $51 million. The agreement is expecte
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Date:
12/24/2014
A complete failure can become a resounding success with slight adjustment. A failed disposable bra became a big earner for 3M when reconfigured into a face mask that has seen high demand during severe outbreaks of flu. This is called two degree marketing. It is now being applied to failed mainstream pure-electric ca
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Date:
12/22/2014
O2Micro, a global leader in the design, development and marketing of high-performance integrated circuits and solutions, was granted a U.S. patent for its Battery Management Systems (BMS) with Vertical Bus Circuits. A BMS monitors battery modules to ensure safe operation and to maximize capacity and
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Date:
12/17/2014
Mouser launches motor control app site

Mouser Motor Control Applications site

Mouser Electronics announced the introduction of their new Motor Control Applications site. Mouser’s applications site provides developers with the resources they need to learn about the latest advances in motor control, and the newest components available from Mouser Electronics for building motor control sy
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Date:
12/16/2014
The semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies and United Microelectronics (UMC), a leading semiconductor foundry, announced the extension of their manufacturing partnership into power semiconductors for automotive applications. Prior to this expanded partnership, the foundry had been producing Infineon’s lo
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Date:
12/15/2014
Analysts at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have used statistical analyses and detailed case studies to better understand why solar market policies in certain states are more successful. Their findings indicate that while no standard formula for solar implementation exists, a c
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Date:
12/12/2014
2-DTech & Dyesol cooperate to develop graphene-enhanced photovoltaics

2-DTech will carry out research relating to graphene being integrated into solid state dye-sensitised solar cells

Helping industry unlock graphene’s potential, 2-DTech has been awarded a grant worth £98,000 from InnovateUK to carry out research relating to graphene being integrated into solid state dye-sensitised solar cells. As a result, the company is linking up with solar technology specialist Dyesol in order to undertake th
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Date:
12/11/2014
California leads the nation in the adoption of electric vehicles

In California about 5 out of every 1,000 registered vehicles are PEVs

In 2013, there were about 70,000 battery electric vehicles (EVs) and 104,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)—small numbers compared to around 226 million registered vehicles in the United States. Total U.S. sales of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) have increased in recent years, but still represent on
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Date:
12/10/2014
Heard of structural electronics?

Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx

Structural electronics is one of the most important developments this century yet most people have never heard of it. Strange - there are over 37 million items on Google. Two years ago, IEEE published,"3D Printing for Rapid Prototyping of Structural Electronics". Drayson revealed the "structural ba
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Date:
12/10/2014
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is providing critical support to two new microgrid projects coordinated by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and General Electric Company (GE). The Energy Department recently announced its award of more than $8 million for seven
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Date:
12/10/2014
  The Energy Department recognized 25 winners across the federal government as recipients of the 2014 Federal Energy and Water Management Awards. These annual awards highlight exceptional federal agency efforts for improving the nation’s energy, water, aviation and vehicle fleets. Each winner deployed
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Date:
12/09/2014
TTI, a leading specialist distributors of passive, connector, electromechanical and discrete components, is seeing significant growth among customers implementing Industry 4.0 or ‘Smart Factory’, and, according to Norbert Piefer, European Director Industry Marketing – Industrial at TTI, Inc., the company ha
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Date:
12/05/2014
Supporting the Obama Administration’s effort to make solar energy more affordable and accessible for all Americans, the Energy Department today announced more than $9 million in funding for breakthrough research and development projects that will advance the reliability and durability of solar photovoltaic (P
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Date:
12/02/2014
Freescale Semiconductor has acquired Zenverge, a fabless semiconductor company and a leading developer of advanced HD content processing ICs. Zenverge’s market-leading transcoding technology enables the conversion of one media stream into multiple streams, each individually formatted and optimised for the s
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Date:
12/02/2014
Mouser empowers ‘Next Great Thing’ with development tools center

Engineering Development Tools Center on Mouser.com

Mouser Electronics announced the launch of its new Engineering Development Tools Center on Mouser.com. This time-saving microsite allows developers to select from a variety of development tools for products such as microcontrollers, analog and digital ICs, LED lighting, optoelectronics, wireless, and more. The new Engin
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Date:
12/02/2014
The Qt Company has announced that six leading designers and suppliers of embedded chipsets have joined the Qt Partner Program. The program aims to create value for the whole Qt ecosystem with members integrating technologies with Qt so that users benefit from a seamless, integrated experience. The new partn
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Date:
12/02/2014
Supercapacitor market leader Maxwell Technologies has faltered temporarily due to phasing of demand for supercapacitors on Chinese hybrid buses. One of the most formidable innovators it now sells large stacks for grid management and for energy harvesting in large construction vehicles. The recent IDTechEx Supercapacitors ev
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Date:
12/01/2014
Some 4.9 billion connected “things” will be in use in 2015, up 30% from 2014, and will reach 25 billion by 2020, according to recent research from industry analyst Gartner. Designers from embedded electronics specialist, ByteSnap Design, are behind a range of M2M devices, from a Head-Up Display for motorcyclists, to
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Date:
12/01/2014
UPS Systems, the UK’s largest independent supplier of standby power solutions, has been awarded RISQS accreditation by Achilles. The 'Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme' (RISQS), formerly known as Achilles Link-Up, has been developed to provide a fair, open and transparent third party qualificati
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Date:
12/01/2014
The Energy Department announced a total of $4.4 million for two projects in Michigan and Pennsylvania to support the use of advanced materials and manufacturing techniques in the development of new “low-head” hydropower technologies. The United States has major opportunities across the country to add new hy
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Date:
12/01/2014
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