The new IDTechEx Research report, Battery Elimination in Electronics and Electrical Engineering 2018-2028 notes that billions of wireless electronic and electrical products consuming microwatts to milliwatts or more operate without batteries or even capacitors to store energy.
Among the most successful are the piezoelectric gas lighter, the bicycle light with dynamo and the EnOcean wireless building controls such as sensors, lights and light switches in over 400,000 buildings and some boats.
In the Torre Crystal building in Madrid alone they have installed 30,000 of them. It is managed with energy harvesting, sometimes two types at a time to reduce intermittency and increase security of supply.
In the case of EnOcean that is electrodynamic, photovoltaic and thermoelectric. To further enhance its virtuosity as a “no battery” company, EnOcean is also developing vibration harvesting and thermoelectrics that operate using tiny inputs.
