M2E Power, Inc. is an early-stage company with several key innovations in power generation technology to bring to market.

The innovations are at the physics level and represent an opportunity to increase generator efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. Applications span the gamut from tiny generators that fit on a chip to large-scale applications such as ocean wave and wind power. Initially the company plans to focus on mobile power.

The company’s mobile products intersect two enormous and influential market forces—clean power generation (CleanTech) and the proliferation of mobile electronic devices. Myriad mobile electronic devices, including more than 3 billion cell phones, are currently powered by batteries that must constantly be plugged into the grid and recharged. Lack of sufficient battery life is the number one problem reported by cell phone users and a key reason why consumers do not use the game, music, and video functions on the devices they pay for.

While losing battery power may be an inconvenience for consumers, it is a mission-critical and even life-threatening issue for those in the military and first responders such as policemen and firemen. By allowing users to radically extend their battery life without having to recharge, the M2E solution can help save resources while enabling “wireless” devices to be truly wireless and “mobile” devices to always be mobile.

Mobile Market Opportunity
M2E’s mobile power solution has wide-ranging applications for both the military and consumers.

Military and related markets
The military is M2E’s initial target market because of the significant “high-pain” opportunity it presents. In fact, the inspiration and genesis of the M2E technology hales from this origin. The U.S. Army currently faces a self-described “mobile power crisis” because it uses more than 500 mobile battery-dependent devices including radios, night vision equipment, weapons scopes, lasers, mine detectors, sensors, GPS modules, and many others. The increasing reliance on mission-critical electronic equipment on the battlefield creates a weight problem (soldiers may need to carry 20-35 pounds of batteries on a mission) as well as re-supply and battery-disposal burdens. Consequently, the military is highly motivated to reduce its reliance on disposable batteries and is actively searching for mobile power solutions. First responders face a similar life-or-death reliance on power for mobile devices, making this another key target market.

Commercial
Wondering whether a battery is charged and when and how to recharge it is a near-constant hassle for users of mobile electronic devices. Some 20 percent of cell phone users lose power at least once per week. Consumer frustration includes not being able to make or receive a call because of a dead battery as well as addressing the added cost and inconvenience of juggling multiple chargers (at home, in the car, at the office, etc.). In addition, new applications and features on mobile devices—such as games, music, and video—are adding to the demand on power and battery performance. Concern over battery use powerfully impacts the adoption and usage of these power-hungry functions and features. Simply put, battery charge influences consumer behavior. With more than a billion cell phones, audio players, PDAs, and digital cameras shipped each year, there is a tremendous opportunity for a self-charging mobile energy source that delivers true convenience and mobility while driving greater device usage and airtime/data consumption.

As a proxy, annual global sales of lithium batteries are $6 billion and growing at 10 to15 percent annually.