Alphabet Energy Case Study

Alphabet Energy Matt Scullin is the PhD student in UC Berkeley and he has high interests in thermoelectric technology. In his academic career, he found that the traditional way of power generating wastes about 60% energy. While with the thermoelectric technology people can generate electricity from wasted heat and it can improve efficiency in 10% to 25%. By using his own technology, Matt started a company called alphabet energy and producing superior thermoelectric device. He narrowed his targets to four industries: automotive, aerospace, power generation and manufacturing. Automotive industry is the area that the team most passionate about. Typical motor engine converts only 30% energy into propulsion. Thermoelectric generator could potentially use for improve vehicle fuel economy by converting engine generated heat to electricity, a thermoelectric system connected to engine exhaust could make cars 10% more fuel efficient. The market of automotive industry is large. There are growing automobile market internationally and domestically, but the …show more content…
There are multiple applications could be applied including submarines, spacecraft, satellites and GPS devices. Aerospace and defense has been a pioneering market for thermoelectric, many thermoelectric applications have already been applied in military, and the market is still growing. Estimated market can reach $2 billion by 2020, and the margin is nearly 80%. But on the other hand, economic cycles is very long. They need political authorization for defense budget and also need to build relationship in the defense market, as well as research grant from U.S Air Force and Army. This most important thing in this market is prioritizing performance and weight over economic and payback. So i think Alphabet could start here because the profit and market is most attractive, and then they can figure out how to reduce the cost for more markets at the same