Sustainability efforts frequently center on renewable energy, electric vehicles, recycling, and carbon reduction. However, a critical aspect often overlooked is how to power the billions of connected devices now being deployed throughout homes, buildings, factories, warehouses, hospitals, stores, and data centers.
According to IoT Analytics, there were 18.5 billion connected IoT devices in 2024. That number was expected to reach 21.1 billion by the end of 2025 and rise to 39 billion by 2030.
This scale fundamentally shifts the sustainability conversation.
A single battery-powered sensor may appear insignificant. Yet as organizations deploy hundreds, thousands, or millions of connected devices, battery replacement becomes a recurring cycle involving manufacturing, shipping, installation, removal, and disposal.
As IoT expands, more devices are moving to the physical edge. These include sensors, tags, monitors, controllers, trackers, remotes, wearables, tools, and smart infrastructure endpoints. They collect the data that enables efficient buildings, safer equipment operation, automation, and better decision-making.
But every connected device needs power.
Traditionally, edge devices have relied on wires or batteries. Wires are often costly to install, challenging to retrofit, and can restrict product design or device placement. Batteries provide greater flexibility, but introduce a separate sustainability challenge, requiring manufacturing, shipping, replacement, and proper disposal.
The Global E-waste Monitor reported that the world generated 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, up 82% from 2010. By 2030, global e-waste is projected to reach 82 million tonnes.
Wireless power provides an alternative. By reducing reliance on disposable batteries, exposed connectors, and hardwired installations, wireless power can simplify the deployment and maintenance of connected devices at scale.
The Battery Problem at Scale
Many IoT devices consume very little energy. The challenge is not always how much power one device uses. The challenge is how many devices are deployed, how long they need to operate, and how often their batteries need to be replaced.
A straightforward example illustrates the point.
If a facility deploys 1,000 battery-powered sensors and each battery must be replaced once per year, that creates 10,000 battery replacement events over a 10-year period. Even if the replacement cycle is every two years, that still creates 5,000 replacement events. Those numbers do not include technician labor, travel, downtime, documentation, or disposal.
- 1,000 devices replaced every year: 10,000 replacement events
- 1,000 devices replaced every 2 years: 5,000 replacement events
- 1,000 devices replaced every 5 years: 2,000 replacement events
- Battery-free or wirelessly powered devices: 0 battery replacement events
This is why battery maintenance becomes a challenge at scale. The sustainability benefit lies not only in avoiding a single battery, but in eliminating repeated battery replacements throughout the entire lifecycle of a deployment.
How RF Wireless Power Helps
Powercast’s RF wireless power technology is especially relevant for low-power connected devices. RF wireless power sends energy over the air to devices equipped with Powerharvester® receiver technology. These receivers convert RF energy into usable DC power, allowing devices to operate battery-free or recharge small batteries over time.
This can help reduce the need for disposable batteries in applications such as wireless sensors, RFID sensor tags, BLE tags, smart home devices, electronic shelf labels, environmental monitors, remotes, and data center sensors.
Battery disposal is also not as simple as throwing batteries away. The EPA advises that lithium-ion batteries should be taken to separate recycling or household hazardous waste collection points, not placed in household trash or regular recycling bins.
Wireless power reduces the frequency with which organizations encounter battery disposal challenges.
Moving Toward Lower-Waste Devices
Wireless power does not address every sustainability challenge. Energy sources and product lifecycles remain important considerations. However, wireless power can significantly reduce one of the most persistent sources of waste in large-scale connected systems: the disposable battery replacement cycle.
For smart buildings, this can mean more sensors without creating a constant maintenance burden. For data centers, it can mean continuous monitoring without sending technicians throughout the facility to replace batteries. For industrial environments, it can mean more flexible sensing without adding unnecessary waste.
As IoT, automation, and AI continue to expand, organizations will require more edge devices. The challenge is to determine whether these devices will increase battery use, maintenance, and waste, or whether they can be designed with a more sustainable power strategy.
Reducing battery waste begins by re-evaluating how connected devices receive power.
Powercast works with manufacturers and system designers to develop wireless power solutions that reduce reliance on disposable batteries in low-power IoT devices, sensors, tags, and smart infrastructure applications.
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