Ovshinsky Wins Economist Award
 How important is the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery? It's high enough on the list of life's breakthroughs to earn Energy Conversion Devices' president, chief scientist, and technologist Stanford R. Ovshinsky The Economist's 2005 Innovation Award for Energy and the Environment.
It's well-deserved. Ovshinsky's pioneering work in amorphous and disordered materials has resulted in an array of advanced technologies like thin-film photovoltaics, optical media and electronic memories, regenerative fuel cells, solid metal hydrogen storage, and more. This work has previously landed him a long list of honors including Time Magazine's Hero of the Planet Award.
It’s the NiMH battery that’s of particular interest. Because of Ovshinsky’s work in developing Ovonic NiMH battery technology, environmentally positive NiMH batteries have replaced the use of toxic nickel-cadmium batteries in many consumer products. Known for their high energy density, advanced NiMH batteries have also found widespread use in transportation, in high-profile ways. NiMH technology powered the energy-hungry battery electric vehicles of the 1990s including the GM EV1, Toyota RAV4 EV, Honda EV Plus, and others. Today, NiMH batteries are the reason we have reasonably affordable gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid, and all three Honda hybrid models.
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