Tiny electric motors are quiet, ubiquitous, eminently handy and inefficient.
This is about to change – the inefficiency part, that is. An enormous amount of energy could be saved.
Electric motors are an indispensable part of the modern world. They run air conditioning units, power tools, hair dryers, clocks, garage doors, windshield wipers and toothbrushes.
New motors for buildings and appliances will have 90 percent efficiency, sats Sail Venture Partners' Thomas Cain
And yet, two-thirds of the electricity they consume is wasted, says Thomas Cain, managing partner at Sail Venture Partners, who calculates that electric motors in buildings and appliances are just 30 percent efficient.
Cain says the market will be upended a newly designed motors with 90 percent efficiency. One company developing such a product is SNTech, which Sail has funded.
It is a huge opportunity. Every year 1.2 billion electric motors are sold.
Over the next seven to 10 years, dramatic change will hit the electric motor market, Cain said at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco.
