Outlook bright for printed batteries

Nanomarkets, an industry analyst, has released 'Printed Battery Markets:2009 and Beyond' that contains the latest analysis and market projections of the 'thin' batteries market.

The report offers some mixed perspectives on the market.

Printed batteries are now a viable technology; due to advances in materials and manufacturing, there are products available that use them.

However, the conventional wisdom a few years back was that RFID was going to be the killer application for printed battery technology.

That has not come to pass because of printed RFID's slower-than-anticipated market acceptance. While they will still be an important application for printed batteries, the real story today is powered smart cards, which are increasingly important technology for the credit card industry and consumers.

Smart cards is an area where printing is already used as the manufacturing process. Being able to integrate the power source in the production of smart cards is attractive to manufacturers.

The story of printed batteries has shifted from being about their own opportunity to what it is that printed battery technology can enable. By 2015, the company says sales of products that use printed batteries will total US$1.5 billion in revenue, with the value of the batteries themselves amounting to more than US$200 million.

While this should be seen as encouraging, the company believes that more printed battery firms will have to follow the lead of Power Paper and look to develop applications for their batteries, rather than just produce the batteries themselves since remaining as a battery supplier will likely spell the demise of many firms.

This strategy will offer potenially bigger markets for printed batteries manufacturers to tap into, but it also means a potentially significant shift in the focus of the business models and the need for additional finance.