Beyond the Tipping Point: energy storage and harvesting for a sustainable future

Climate change has become a severe threat to the survival of the planet and humanity. The population and living standards are increasing day by day, giving rise to an increase in global energy demand. Providing sufficient energy would require an overhaul in the historic pattern of fossil-fuel use and a major transformation of the global energy system.  With depleting fossil fuel, alternative green and clean energy resources are crucial to fulfil the energy demand and to boost the economy of any country. Renewables are the promising choice when it comes to addressing critical energy issues however, renewables have intermittent and discontinuous supplies. Hence, the energy produced from renewable sources needs to be preserved in clean, safe, efficient, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy storage devices. To go one step further would be to produce an integrated device which includes both energy harvesting and energy storage. Energy storage devices such as batteries and supercapacitors are well-established for numerous applications such as electric vehicles, power peak shaving, load levelling, portable electronics, power quality improvement, power fluctuation minimization, and grid integration with renewable energy. However, in integrated devices, energy harvesting device can be used to significantly extend the life of the energy storage device. The energy harvesting device is capable of capturing, converting, storing and delivering energy in a form that can be used to provide the power needed by the system it serves.  Energy harvesting and energy storage devices can smooth energy management in smart cities and solve the issues of the lifetime limitation in batteries in mobile, wearable and ubiquitous devices. The purpose behind energy storage devices is the supply of sustainable energy for reduction in environmental pollution and provides sustainable economic and societal needs as the sustainability is the key component of consistent supply of energy and significant impact on the economy, ecology, and environment. Therefore, energy storage market is rapidly expanding and became double from 2020 to 2021. The global storage capacity is expected to increase by 56% in the next five years. In terms of total energy supply, 2021 marked the first time over 10 Gigawatts (GW) of energy storage was installed in a single year. However, this pales to the near 150 GW expected by just 2025. 

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