BOULDER, Colo. — The deployment of energy harvesting enabled devices will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 38 percent over the next few years, resulting in annual shipments of 235.4 million units by 2015 (from a base of 53 million in 2012), comprising a range of consumer and industrial applications, according to a report from Pike Research. Those shipments will translate into worldwide annual revenue from energy harvesting enabled devices of $9.5 billion in 2015, the firm forecasts.

An increasing number of consumer and industrial products that are untethered from the electrical outlet will be powered by some form of energy harvesting technology in the near future, says Pike Research. This technology converts ambient energy into useable electrical energy. The energy sources available for ambient charging include electromagnetic radiation, thermal energy, and mechanical energy.

“Devices in settings with thousands of sensors that are diligently working to bring us information about temperature, humidity, security, machine health, structural health, and many other forms of data are becoming increasingly pervasive,” said vice president Bob Gohn. “In many of these applications, maintaining batteries is a major logistical and cost issue. Viable energy harvesting technology exists today and developers are fast becoming familiar with how to implement it into ever more-innovative devices.”