Issue 116
Summer 2020
The stop-start solution Why EFBs offer huge market opportunities UltraBattery blues East Penn to wind down Ecoult subsidiary The Commissioner speaks What one senior EC figure really thinks about lead
Inside Microporous A separator firm looking for bigger, better business
Hammond master class ICO N , Improving charge acceptance M ICA with novel expanders R A IS K E OZ T Bringing the industry together LLS E www.batteriesinternational.com W RE A $50/e40 DF A S
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CONTENTS COVER STORY: ENHANCED FLOODED BATTERIES A huge market ready to be tapped
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The rise and rise of stop-start cars has been accompanied by a growing need for better batteries. Initially AGM batteries met this need. Now cheaper EFBs are selling in volume. It’s a huge potential market. All the more so in that stop-start cars are still using regular SLI batteries. An overview.
Development of a novel expander for enhanced flooded batteries
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Research from Hammond Group shows that the selection of the right expander can do wonders in the performance of EFBs.
Challenging AGM batteries in stop-start vehicles
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Exide Technologies’ research into its new Marathon EFB technology shows that it could have various advantages over AGM in terms of performance.
EDITORIAL 4 The knee-jerk reaction to crises that’s just plain dumb SADLY NO LONGER WITH US
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Zeki Sarıçam, founder of international battery manufacturing machine company Zesar passed away on May 3 • Nikolay Ignatiev, president of AKOM group, died on July 12 OPINION 13
Sarıçam: much loved, missed 6
Frans Timmermans, first vice president of the European Commission, revealed current thinking about lead’s future in a recent webinar. It’s not good news for lead batteries PEOPLE NEWS
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Clarios names Wallace as next president and CEO • RWE Energy announces new CEO 15 months before start date • Bühler pays tribute to global sales head Dieter Vögtli • New heads appointed after Hitachi completes multibillion takeover of ABB Power Grids • Systems Sunlight appoints Bisalas as new CEO • Energy Storage Award given at online Smarter E ceremony STEPPING DOWN
Timmermans: view from the EC 13
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• Rick Leiby retires from East Penn after 40 years • Steve Gerts steps down from ENTEK after 35 years in separator business PERSPECTIVE 24 Farid Ahmed, principal analyst at natural resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie, assesses the vulnerabilities the pandemic has exposed NEWS 26 East Penn to wind down its investment in Ecoult • Lead-lithium hybrid soon to move to next phase for UK port project • Monbat CEO Bobokov resigns after criminal allegations, Kostadinov appointed as interim • Mega Amps launches lead battery energy-as-a service solution • Moll Batterien in talks with potential Investors in bid to save the company • BCI award winner ArcActive says it is ‘near to commercial stage’ for AACarbon • EAI launches study to improve performance for energy storage • Leoch buys 100% of UK partner DBS Leoch • Clarios to close battery assembly plant in Delaware • North American Exide up for sale, first bid emerges from Quexco • Amara Raja in evaluation testing of Gridtential bipolar batteries • ZAF Energy wins $2.5m nickel-zinc deal, offers to license technology to LAB makers Slump in metals prices due to Covid leads to split in Recyclex • Quemetco to pay $600,000 fine for emissions violations • European Parliament calls on EC to level playing field for all battery technologies www.batteriesinternational.com
Leiby: 40 years with East Penn 20
UltraBattery: Ecoult wound down 26
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 1
CONTENTS ALTERNATIVE ENERGY STORAGE NEWS
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Gravitricity to build demonstrator site for its gravity storage system • MRI scanning to develop sodium battery design • Highview Power wins £10m grant for first commercial liquid air plant • Oxis to turn Mercedes Brazil plant into lithium sulfur battery factory • Form Energy’s ‘aqueous air battery’ in long duration storage project BESS NEWS
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Vistra plans addition to make ‘largest battery in the world’ • Battery storage to be yet more critical for electricity grids, says Wood Mac • IESA pushes case for clear legal frame for Indian energy storage • NYISO sets out aggressive clean energy mandates in US Hammond’s Ho: research shows expander benefits for EFBs 60
SMART GRID NEWS
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Consortium to roll out smart grid control system for UKPN customers • EnergyHub, Vivint join forces to link utilities with residential storage • Largest V2G project in world starts in Italy • Small-scale VPP planned for Maryland • Simpliphi Power ties up with Heila in VPP demo INSIDE MICROPOROUS
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Microporous has come a long way in the last six years. Ambitious production plans have come through, partnerships achieved. Advances made in EFB separators and now AGM too CONFERENCE IN PRINT: TPPL Microporous’ Jean-Luc Koch: leading a wave of expansion 71
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Summary of a white paper by EnerSys of the advantages of thin plate pure lead batteries THE V2G REVOLUTION
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Vehicle-to-grid technology makes sense in theory, but it hasn’t happened yet. But the first steps are being taken in the UK and predictably the finance is part of the debate. EVENT REVIEWS 17 ELBC: going virtual 100
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A look inside the first virtual conference for BCI in April, the EUROBAT meeting in June and a preview of what should be happening in this year’s ELBC in September EVENTS 101 Battery International’s acclaimed selection of conference and seminars, and now postponed or virtual events, around the world in the battery and energy storage industry PROFILE: LECLANCHE
Leclanché: pushing onwards 110
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Europe’s oldest battery maker powers up both arms of its business
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2 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
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EDITORIAL Mike Halls • editor@batteriesinternational.com
The knee-jerk reaction that’s just plain dumb It could be a lesson in How Not to Win Friends and Influence People. It’s November 2008 and the US is struggling through the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And with the irony that characterizes corporate America — government has no place in business, until business needs a government hand-out — three businessmen are off to Washington, DC. Cap in hand, together they are looking for $25 billion. These are men on a mission. The automotive industry is going through an unprecedented cash burn. Tens of millions of dollars are being lost every week. It must have been a strange sight at the airport that day. The GM executive inside his $36 million corporate jet. Ford’s chief climbing into one of the firm’s five corporate jets. And the Chrysler CEO checking that his leased aircraft was waiting for him. Yet in a strange way it was less about seeking a bail-out. The paradox of three chief executives automatically flying — this is their knee-jerk moment — in individual corporate jets from Michigan (and not even sharing!) while seeking taxpayers’ money. It was a dumb mistake that even cost one of them their jobs. Knee-jerk reactions to economic downturns, however, take many forms. Usually it’s one of retrenchment. Cut costs wherever you can. Trim the company fat. Crack down on staff levels, expenses, perks. Freeze your marketing budget. Batten down the hatches, a storm is ahead. But a knee-jerk reaction is simply that. An automatic reflex that is both predictable and 4 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
happens without the benefit of thought. A lot of present battery market thinking is just this. “Some of the industry is too focused on the perceived threat from the pandemic and lithium-ion everything — from EVs to energy storage in scale — that they’ve lost sight of what should be the game plan,” one commentator told this magazine. “And that’s planning for greater sales.” Although it may sound counter-intuitive to say this is the time to invest in the future, the financial markets have always painted a different picture from the view of the person on the street. In a former life as a financial journalist I’ve seen irrational markets and rational markets going through both the roof and the floor. The times when all shares float on a rising tide of false-optimism and hype. But also on a well-founded anticipation of profits and growth that is factored into the share price. With that in mind, look at the present stockmarkets around the world. As any Wall Street financier will tell you, the herd invests at the top of the economic cycle. Profits will be marginal. But the savvy look for the moment when the cycle has bottomed and is moving up. The stockmarket knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic was one of retrenchment — a complete collapse of prices before the cleverer ones started buying again. A lot of people lost
As any Wall Street financier will tell you, the herd invests at the top of the economic cycle. The savvy look for the moment when the cycle has bottomed and is moving up again. www.batteriesinternational.com
EDITORIAL a lot of money in March and April. But look where we are now. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which measures the health of 30 large US companies, is around 27,000 — that’s the same level as mid-July last year. The Nikkei 225 on Tokyo’s Stock Exchange is about 10% higher than a year ago. The DAX index of 30 major companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is 8% up from this time last year. The one exception is the UK, where the FTSE is down by around 15% on the year. Its trading future outside the EU, that kicks in at the end of the year, is also a factor. This is not meant to be an editorial about reasons to be cheerful. Yet it is worth considering the fact that stockmarkets are anticipating a path of rapid growth. Partly this is because a huge wall of money is about to be thrown at the world’s economies in the coming months. As this magazine was going to press the European Union had announced a €750 billion ($860 billion) rescue package. In the US the rescue package is around $3 trillion and climbing. In Japan the first ¥1 trillion ($1 trillion) support package has had another $1.18 trillion added to it. Governments around the world are moving away from retrenchment to one of fiscal expansion in measures unprecedented in modern times — if not in the history of the world.
thinking? For market positioning? Getting ready for the economic good times that financial markets are already anticipating? The industry’s marketing budget should be up — not frozen. The pandemic and the lockdown are reshaping public attitudes in a myriad of ways — from a huge surge in people giving up smoking to people wanting to get to work without using public transport. And surely this is also a time to think laterally? The battery industry has little to gain from the world moving away from tobacco, but it does have a fortune to make if it can help keep the boom in electric bikes going. E-bike sales in the US, for example, are more than double the figures of a year ago. Other knee-jerk reactions need to be considered too. Cutting staff levels may make sense in the short term but is that so wise in the longer term?
The pandemic has provoked a knee-jerk reflex from some in the battery business. It’s only natural that an economic shock that has forced whole countries to shut up shop for three months will hit business immediately.
Consider the case of Systems Sunlight which, faced with a devastating fire in 2018, kept all its staff on its payroll for a year until production could start again. Employee loyalty to the firm is a huge goodwill asset on any balance sheet.
It’s not the place for a small publishing house to lecture the great and the good of the battery industry on how to do business. But surely this is the time for sane, strategic
However, it is worth remembering — even if it is sometimes blindingly obvious — that crises offer opportunities as well as challenges.
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Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 5
OBITUARY — ZEKI SARIÇAM
M ZEKI SARIÇAM
1954-2020
A
huge wave of tributes rest of his life. poured in after the By the age of 17 he was highly It is with great sadness announcement of his skilled in machine tooling and that Batteries International has death was made. “He he quickly became expert in the was extremely well respected at manual casting of battery grids. to announce that Zeki Sarıçam, work — he was a very likeable This involved melting down the dynamic founder of Zesar, man who had a wealth of knowllead pigs and pouring them into edge and experience,” said one moulds. His experience here the international manufacturer international consultant. was to stand him in good stead of battery making machines, Another said: “He was a huge when he took it further. family man and — for those of In 1975 — aged just 21 — he passed away on May 3 us who were lucky to work for set up his own firm, Sarıçam following a long and him — he extended his care to Moulding, to provide grid castultimately unsuccessful battle us too.” ers to the major battery produc“Some people say we, as Meders in Turkey. He was on the with lung disease. iterranean people, are quick path to success. tempered and volatile,” says Meanwhile, still in his early Tolga Onen, a consultant. 20s, a chance encounter on the “But Zeki was different. He street with Mine, a beautiful and was immensely patient even in highly intelligent young women, the most trying situations. He in his home town Rize resulted knew that human nature is com— despite opposition from some plex and not black and white. quarters — in marriage and ulti“I’ve been in the battery inmately four children. dustry for close to 20 years and Zeki always said it was love at have been highly active in sales first sight. and marketing. His success in business “I know people think that prompted him to try and autoZeki was just a highly technical mate the process. person — which he was — but In 1980 he built the first grid he was one of the best sales peocasting machine. The firm that ple in the industry. It was part of was later to become known as a wonderful personality. Zesar, with its expertise in the “He will rightly be remembattery manufacturing process, bered as the pioneer batteryman was on its way to success. in Turkey.” “It was around this time that Most tributes were expresmy family got to know Zeki,” sions of sympathy and condosays Fulya Haşhaş, foreign trade lence to his family, friends and manager at AlfaKUTU. employees at Zesar. “He was one of the most But there were some, such as loved characters in the battery Lider Kebabcıoğlu, manager of industry — an energetic man, a Erdil Aku Otomotiv, who also family man, always in the field, “His first name — Zeki — means soon came to regard Zeki as benever behind a desk.” clever or brilliant in Turkish. ing “one of the milestones in the Zeki at this point had more or development of the battery secless decided that there were opHe certainly lived up to that. tor in Turkey”. portunities by focusing on maHe was a delightful man and will Certainly he put the firm chinery that could be improved he started from scratch in the to better serve battery manufacbe sorely missed.” 1970s on to the international turers. map. The next step forward was in The story of Zeki’s life may have been a barber. Zeki was the eldest of four 1983, when Sarıçam Moulding develone of unstinting work, but it was also children. Times were tough in the early oped its first heat-sealing machines for the story of drive and the passion for 1960s and in 1964 Ahmet and his wife plate assembly. In 1986 Zeki restruchis family and company that was re- Fatma took the family on the 1,000km tured the firm, forming a partnership markable. journey to Istanbul to seek a better life. with a hydraulic pump producer, ATA His childhood was not an easy one. Aged just 10, Zeki left school and Sarıçam. Born on January 1, 1954 in Rize-Çaye- started work in a machine factory to In 1990 he won his first export orli, a seaside town on the Black Sea close help support the family. He was to sup- ders shipping goods to Tudor Batteries to the then USSR, his father Ahmet was port his parents and his brothers for the in India and Spain. Since then Zesar —
6 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
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OBITUARY — ZEKI SARIÇAM Zeki changed the firm’s name to that in 2002 — has shipped its products around the world and 80% of its sales are exports. Part of his success was the way that he did business. It’s easy for companies to say ‘the customer is king’ but the reality of the after-service market is often the true measure of so-called ‘customer facing’. There was also an energetic drive to keep his international business growing. Tatiana Stolpovskaya, deputy director with Interbat, the Russian battery organization, recalls dealing with the company in the early 2000s. “Since then Zesar has participated in all Interbat events — meetings of association members, exhibitions and conferences, which helped them to occupy their niche in this market,” he said. “It was always a pleasure to work with Zeki and Zesar — very responsible, efficient and friendly people.” Another conference organizer, Maura McDermott at the International Lead Association, said the same. “I first met Zeki Sarıçam at the ELBC in Athens when Zesar exhibited for the first time,” she said. “He was enthusiastic, professional and eminently approachable. Our deepest sympathies to his family, colleagues and the wider industry.” Kadir Kaymakçı, director for business services at Inci GS Yuasa, recalls meeting him in 2005. “We’d asked Zesar to visit our factory and I was immediately impressed by him, he was very knowledgeable and there was a shine in the eyes when he spoke about his company and products,” he said. “We bought equipment the following year and have continued to do so. Zeki was a very friendly person — but not in an artificial fashion, wanting just to sell you something and go away. “Over the years the personal service and technical assistance he and his company provided was second to none. The point about him was that he was keen for everything to be just right. “His first name — Zeki — means clever or brilliant in Turkish. He certainly lived up to that. He was a delightful man and will be sorely missed.” Perhaps the biggest leap forward for Zesar was when in the mid to late 2000s Zeki decided that computer aided designs — in three dimensions not two — was the way forward. The results were spectacular and highly innovative, with battery manufacturers coming to him with their problems.
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1960: left to right: Zeki, Meryem, Mustafa and mother Fatma Sarıçam
1976: Ebonite battery mould making: the start of great things
1985 finishing the heat sealing machine for a domestic customer. On the machine is Orhan Harman, under it is Safak Sarıçam, on the left is Zeki Sarıçam
Most recently, for example, System Sunlight, the Greek battery giant, approached him to design and install a unique plate washing tunnel, the first of its kind in the world. With the help of a government grant, Zeki’s team was able to launch EVOLINE in 2009, and it was marketed as a low-cost, high-performance assembly line. Two years later he added a robotic transfer system, making the whole assembly line process fully automatic. EVOLINE opened up new markets across Asia and Africa. The business continues to go from strength to strength, as does its product range. In 2015, Zeki decided to invest in a new factory in Manisa, near the port city of Izmir. This was later expanded to another factory in Manisa and there are plans to double the firm’s manufacturing area to 10,000m2. One of his employees told Batteries International: “In the broadest sense we who worked for Mr Sarıçam were his family too — the one defining word would be to say his personality was that of a father for us all. “He thought of everyone before himself. He was a sensitive and proud person who never, ever showed his pain [in the last period of his life]. He never wanted anyone to feel sorry for him. “We all miss him deeply.” Zeki Sarıçam died on May 3. He leaves behind Mine, his beloved wife of 44 years, his two sons Yavuz, who takes over as head of Zesar, and Furkan and two daughters Arzu and Melike. He was just 66 years old when he died.
The Sarıçam family in 2019 Furkan, Melike, Mine, Zeki, Elif, Yavuz and grandchildrenYagızand Ece. 2019 Manisa factory.
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 7
BRINGING THE INDUSTRY TOGETHER FOR BETTER BATTERIES The GreenSeal® Alliance is a group of companies with a common objective: to promote and improve lead batteries throughout the world using GreenSeal® Technology.
OBITUARY — NIKOLAY IGNATIEV
AKOM Group president Ignatiev dies, aged 67 Nikolay Ignatiev, the charismatic head of AKOM, died on July 12. “He was a hugely important Rusbat, and AKOM became figure in the Russian batthe first Russian company to tery industry,” says Claudia be a full member of EUROLorenzini, vice president BAT. In mid-February this of sales and marketing at year, just before the coronaMicroporous. “Nikolay virus pandemic put paid to bridged the gap between practically all global events, east and west, being able to AKOM hosted its second work smoothly between the ‘Battery Innovation’ confertwo. In recent years he was a ence in Tolyatti in western key figure in doing just that Russia. for EUROBAT. “It was the only confer“He was a cosmopolitan ence in Russia,” Ignatiev and friendly figure with a said at the time, “that aimed great sense of humour. He at the development of proalso had a huge drive to duction, science, technology push the Russian battery and engineering in the field business forward through of current resources and eninnovation and hard work ergy storage systems.” to make it state of the art. Ignatiev won various inHe will be sorely missed.” dustry awards during his In a lengthy tribute AKOM career, along with letters of spoke of the company’s sadthanks and acknowledgeness over his death. “He dements from representatives voted all his life to the good of the Samara region, where of Russian industry,” it said. he worked in helping to im“Nikolay was well known prove the socio-economic in our country and beyond development of the region. as a talented entrepreneur, a Unusually for a Russian he professional of the highest was also an Icelandic citizen “He was a cosmopolitan and friendly order, who created an induscomplete with passport. He figure with a great sense of humour. trial technological leader — spent 25 years in the counthe AKOM plant — for the try and retained a holiday He also had a huge drive to push the production of world-class home there, where he spent Russian battery business forward starter batteries, supplying vacations each year. through innovation and hard work to more than 50% to the Rus“This is an irreparable sian car market.” loss for everyone. The staff make it state of the art. AKOM was registered as of AKOM Group of CompaHe will be sorely missed.” a company in 2001. A year nies deeply mourn and exlater it was producing its press sincere condolence to first SLI batteries. By 2005 it the relatives and friends of was producing one million batteries “As vice president of Interbat he Nikolay,” the company tribute said. a year, and went on to make a wide promoted the development of rela“We will forever preserve the memrange of batteries, including AGM tions between Interbat and EURO- ory of Nikolay and will be proud that and EFB. BAT, created the Section of Directors we worked under his leadership.” Ignatiev was the driving force in of lead-acid battery production faciliTurkish battery firm Zesar, which leading the company to join indus- ties and established efficient commu- lost its company founder Zeki try associations domestically and nication between the involved per- Sarıçam on May 3, also paid tribute abroad. V Soldatenko, president of sons and plants. to Ignatiev, saying it “deeply mourns Interbat, the Russian trade body and “Thanks to his efforts, a new Inter- and expresses our sincere condoconference, said: “Since joining the bat platform was created in Tolyatti lences to the relatives, friends and leadership of the association Nikolay for communication between people colleagues of Nikolay Mikhailovich became a source of new initiatives working in the battery industry and Ignatiev”. and ideas that have significantly in- those in the automotive industry.” He leaves behind Lilya, his wife of creased its influence in the industry. Ignatiev was also vice president of over 30 years, and two daughters.
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Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 9
Bringing the industry together
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Meet the team
Karen Hampton, publisher
Mike Halls, editor
Debbie Mason, deputy editor
Jade Beevor, advertising director
In her years of working within the energy storage business Karen has become a well-known figure at conferences. “My job,” she says, “is to get the maximum benefit for our advertisers to make sure their name and brand is out there, while maintaining the integrity, fairness and excellence our publications are renowned for.”
Mike, a former journalist with the UK newspaper the Financial Times, has been involved in journalism, publishing and print for three decades. “I’m particularly fond of writing about the energy storage industry,” he says. “It’s an unusual mixture of being fastpaced but slow to change.”
Having trained as a journalist after university back in the nineties, Debbie then spent a decade in China working for various media before coming back to the UK and joining the world of B2B journalism. She joined the Batteries International and Energy Storage Journal teams in 2016.
Jade’s our drama queen. She has been with ESJ since April 2015. She knows how to help companies drive their businesses forward by identifying the most effective marketing opportunities for print and digital platforms. She’s never happier than when she’s tailoring bespoke packages to help businesses grow.
Claire Ronnie, office manager and subscriptions Claire’s our unflappable person — she’s the go-to girl for subscriptions or account enquiries. Go ahead and challenge her!
Antony Parselle, page designer Better known in the office as ‘Ant’ he’s been working in magazine design and layout since the early 1990s. Not so good on showing his best side however!
PUBLISHER Karen Hampton Tel: +44 (0) 7792 852 337 karen@batteriesinternational.com
Juanita Anderson, business development manager Juanita is our new financial guru, who loves playing with numbers. Everything balances, she says — in the end.
Hillary Christie reporter
Kevin Desmond, historian
Hillary is the newest member of our editorial team, and is quickly getting to grips with the twists and turns of the energy storage sector. Watch out for her at events!
More than just a historian on energy storage and batteries as he’s written about many things. He’s the inspiration behind our Heroes of the Grid section.
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DIGITAL MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES Jade Beevor +44 (0)1243 782 275 jade@batteriesinternational.com
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OPINION Frans Timmermans has been first vice president of the European Commission since 2014 — effectively he is second in command for the administration of the European Union. But some of his views on lead batteries need challenging.
What the Commissioner said Nobody can question the integrity or commitment of Frans Timmermans to the European common cause, the environment, decarbonization and the new green deal for Europe. Timmermans, speaking at the EUROBAT virtual meeting on June 5, made strong and convincing points on the need to leverage the extra
funding from the pandemic to advance energy storage in the EU, the need to decarbonise, the importance of the circular economy and Europe’s need not to rely on Asia for its battery supplies. Historically he takes a pro-business attitude and this is reflected in his view that high European standards
Timmermans (04:23): [We need] … to develop technology to make batteries a more sustainable, lighter and less dependent on rare earths or on components, that the world will be fighting over in the next decades.
something we will do in a cooperative spirit with you, uh, of course the more promising future technologies that need to be developed in strong support. Again, we have no preference as long as it gets us where we need to be. But we of course are more reluctant when a technology seems to be sort of mature or it doesn’t seem to have a lot of potential for further development. And on top of that has a huge negative impact on the environment. So, you know, we are agnostic, but we’re not stupid. We, do look at things that have a future rather than things that have a great past.
Timmermans (13:27): We’ve said clearly that we are technology agnostics, you know, what works for the environment will get our support. But we also have to be honest, we’re looking at batteries, and assess which technologies have reached a maturity that will not allow more innovation and we shouldn’t be throwing money at that, but that’s
Timmermans: technologically agnostic but not stupid
may initially seem hard for industry but will eventually be accepted — the European market is too valuable a market to be ignored by outsiders. But some of his remarks are not just worrying — but very worrying — for the lead battery industry. As some of this word by word transcript shows.
IN REPLY (04:23)
Rare earths — the 15 lanthanides, scandium and yttrium — are not found in batteries. There is no suggestion as yet that we will face a shortage of supply, in the longer term, for battery components. IN REPLY (13:27)
He can only be talking about lead batteries here. He is clearly unaware of the achieved and potential lead batteries have for further development that has happened in recent years. He appears unaware of lead’s huge recycling rate — 99% is the figure endlessly bandied around within the industry — and that lead batteries do not have a “huge negative impact on the environment” since in Europe lead batteries are collected and processed more or less seamlessly. However, so far lithium batteries are proving difficult to recycle cost-effectively but cannot be left untreated.
LAST THOUGHTS If this is the thinking coming from the top of the European Commission then clearly the need is to step up our efforts in convincing officials of the merits of lead batteries. This is not to downplay the role of lithium or nickel batteries or new technologies yet to come but to ensure that lead remains a vital player in Europe’s energy storage system in the future. The need for energy storage is rising rapidly across Europe as the continent switches from its dependency on fossil fuels to coping with the intermittent nature of power generation from renewables.
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Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 13
PEOPLE NEWS
Clarios names Wallace as next president and CEO Clarios, the largest lead battery maker in the world, named Mark Wallace as its new CEO and president on May 18. Interim CEO John Barkhouse steps down but will
continue as board chairman. Wallace joined from Dana Incorporated. He was previously executive vice president and president of commercial vehicle drive and motion systems with the
firm. Dana is a supplier of integrated drivetrain and electrified propulsion systems, which are used in automotive applications. He had worked there since 2008. Before that he spent almost two decades with Webasto Products, most latterly as its CEO. “Mark has a demonstrated history of driving revenue growth and improving profit margins. His experience as a leader with extensive knowledge of the OE and aftermarket industries ensures Clarios and its customers are in good hands, and our strategic plan will continue to advance globally,” said Barkhouse.
Sheldon picked as first team member to build UK’s first battery gigafactory Britishvolt, the start-up planning to build the UK’s first lithium battery gigafactory, has appointed Isabel Sheldon as chief strategy officer, the first member of its technical team, the company said on June 15. Sheldon is described as a ‘battery industry veteran’ by Britishvolt, having worked for nearly 20
years in the industry. She is joining from the UK government-backed Battery Industrialisation Centre. “As one of the first pioneers to integrate lithiumion batteries in road vehicles, including the first commercially available plug-in hybrid in the world based on the Toyota Prius hybrid in 2003, I’ve devel-
oped a wealth of knowledge on a wide range of disciplines — from cell technology, chemistries and system integration to how the global industry and supply chain works, as well as the processes involved in manufacturing the cells,” says Sheldon. “I’ve grown over time with this nascent industry
Key Capture Energy adds three senior staff Energy storage provider Key Capture Energy on May 27 announced it had appointed Ken Rush as director of technology, Emma Johnson manager of market analysis and Andrew Gelston manager of market strategy. It has also made four interns full-time members of staff. All will be based at the company’s headquarters in Albany, New York State. Rush was previously
chief engineer for GE, acting as architect of solar + storage and grid support applications and designing more than 200MWh of storage facilities across the world, the firm said. Johnson came from Citigroup Energy’s Global Commodities Group, and Gelston from NextEra Energy. “With more than 1,500MW of stand-alone energy storage projects under development, we
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remain busier than ever. It is critical that we have the internal resources in place to push forward as we continue to bring our projects online,” said chief operating officer Dan Fitzgerald. Key Capture Energy was founded in 2016 to develop storage projects to back up the grid in New York State. It also has projects in Texas and offices in Albany, Houston and Salt Lake City.
Former CEO and president Joe Walicki retired in September 2019, when he also stepped down as president of Battery Council International’s board of directors. He had been with Johnson Controls for 30 years, most latterly as vice president for its Power Solutions division. He was made president and CEO of the battery business when it was sold to the asset management firm Brookfield Business Partners in 2018 and renamed Clarios. Wallace will be making the opening keynote speech in the virtual ELBC meetings that start on September 22. As well as making around one in three of all car batteries worldwide, Clarios also makes batteries for stationary storage systems. and have learnt some hard lessons through trial and error to spot the industry’s pitfalls and opportunities.” Sheldon will also be head of an advisory board with Britishvolt, which was founded by Swedes Lars Carlstrom and Orral Nadjari in December 2019. The plan is to have capacity of 10GWh in production by the third quarter of 2023, with a further 10GWh added the following year and then the full amount, 30GWh, in production by 2025/6. The main market will be EVs, but energy storage applications will also be served, at first in the UK with a later option for the batteries to be sold overseas as well. In May, Britishvolt signed a memorandum of understanding with the Scotland-based battery firm AMTE Power to build the gigafactory. A location for the new plant has yet to be confirmed, although sites are being assessed in Wales and Teesside, with the possibility of operating two plants at separate sites.
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PEOPLE NEWS
RWE Energy announces new CEO 15 months before start date RWE, one of Europe’s largest energy companies, decided at a supervisory board meeting on April 28 that Martin Krebber would take over from CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz — but not until July 2021. Martin Schmitz has headed the group since 2016. Krebber is currently chief financial officer. He joined RWE in 2012, and became CFO four years later. The chairman of the supervisory board, Werner Brandt, said: “It was important to the supervisory board to have a robust succession plan in place early on. “The appointment of Krebber ensures that RWE’s strategic ambition to transform itself into a leading global player in the renewables sector will be pursued also in the long term. Together, Schmitz and
Martin Krebber (right) will take over from CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz — but not until July 2021.
Krebber have defined the course to develop the group into a sustainable company that will be carbon neutral by 2040.” In September 2019, RWE announced it was relaunching itself as ‘the new RWE’, with a new look and an ambitious CO2 reduction
plan, which includes more investment in storage technologies, it said. “The objective is to transform electricity generation from fossil fuels to achieve carbon neutral production. In addition to a large international portfolio including wind turbines and
photovoltaic units, which the company intends to expand continuously, RWE will then place its chips on storage,” the company says. RWE’s portfolio includes coal-fired power plants in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, which will all be closed by 2040, it says.
Bühler pays tribute to global sales head Dieter Vögtli Swiss machinery firm Bühler has announced that executive board member and global service and sales head Dieter Vögtli died after a short illness on June 5. “We lose a great entrepreneur, a powerful leader and close friend,” said Bühler Group CEO Stefan Scheiber. “He created a great reputation for Bühler and for himself. We are ever thankful to him for his 16 years of service to the company, and our thoughts are with his wife and family.” Vögtli began his career as a global power plant commissioning engineer at Brown Boveri, also in Switzerland, before joining Bühler in 2004 as president of Bühler China. He became head of Bühler Group Asia-Pacific in 2009. “His entrepreneurial attitude and deep market understanding, combined with strong empathy for customers and employees, he was fundamental to the success and growth of Bühler over the past 16 years, especially in Asia,” the company said. He returned to Switzerland in 2018. Samuel Schär will step in as head of service and sales as well as continuing as CEO of the group’s advanced materials business.
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Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 15
PEOPLE NEWS
New heads appointed after Hitachi completes multibillion takeover of ABB Power Grids
Six directors
Japanese multinational conglomerate Hitachi and ABB, the Switzerland-based technology company, on July 1 completed a $6.85 billion transaction that gives Hitachi 80.1% of ABB’s Power Grids business, with an option to take over 100% after 2023. Claudio Facchin (pictured right), the head of the Power Grids business with ABB, has been appointed CEO of the new firm. Hitachi executive vice president Toshika-
Association
zu Nishino is chairman. The deal has resulted in the formation of a new company, Hitachi ABB Power Grids, which will include ABB’s Grid Edge Solutions business. Bloomberg, the news
agency, said the transaction, which has been on the table since an agreement was signed in December 2018, would be Hitachi’s biggest ever corporate deal as it moves away from its nuclear plant business to develop electricity networks. A key part of growth in the new Hitachi ABB Power Grids organization is energy storage, says Maxine Ghavi, senior vice president and head of the Grid Edge Solutions business with ABB.
Two new board members for EnerSys EnerSys announced on May 27 the appointment of Caroline Chan (pictured right) and Steven Fludder as Class I directors on its board. The appointment was to follow immediately after the annual meeting of stockholders provisionally scheduled for July 30. At the same time longstanding board members John Lehman and Dennis Marlo — both of whom joined as directors after the firm’s initial public offering in 2004 — will retire. EnerSys’ corporate governance guidelines provide that no
director may stand for reelection after the age of 75. Their ‘leadership and collaboration with the board and management contribution to EnerSys’ was fulsomely acknowledged by Arthur Katsaros, non-executive chairman, and David Shaffer, president and chief executive officer. Shaffer welcomed the new directors and said: “Caroline’s extensive background in wireless technology and 5G network solutions and Steve’s experience in smart energy storage solutions and the electric grid will
provide varied and essential depth of experience to our board.” Full year-end (March 31) figures for EnerSys were released on June 1. They showed sales of $3,088 million for fiscal year 2020. This compares with $2,808 million for 2019.
DoE awards scholarship for lead battery research at Argonne The US Department of Energy has awarded a scholarship to Missouri University of Science and Technology PhD student Julian Kosacki to study lead batteries at the Argonne National Laboratory. Kosacki will study the electrochemical interfaces in the positive electrodes of lead batteries at atomic and molecular
levels as part of his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering. This will research material utilization and failure mechanisms in lead batteries. Kosacki, who is one of 62 students in the US who have been chosen to develop their doctoral theses at the 1,700 acre (7km2) Argonne National Laboratory complex, has been working with
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NorthStar Battery researching advanced lead battery technologies in microgrid systems for solar-powered houses designed and built by university students. He was scheduled to speak at the LABAT conference this year, which had to be rescheduled to next June because of the coronavirus pandemic.
elected remotely for first time to Energy Storage For the record, six directors were elected to the US Energy Storage Association in the trade association’s 2020-2021 ballot, which for the first time had to be conducted remotely instead of at the conference that had been scheduled for Pittsburgh on April 8-10. It has been postponed until August 26-28, to be held in the same venue, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The six new directors are: • Javier Cavada, CEO and president Highview Power, London • Kelli Joseph, director, Markets and Regulatory Policy, Clearway Energy Group (Washington DC) • Jonathan Landy, director Renewable Business Development, Duke Energy (North Carolina) • Roger Lin, vice president, marketing, NEC Energy Solutions, Boston • Joel Newton, senior FERC counsel, NextEra Energy • Christopher Tilley, CEO and president, ENGIE Storage, San Francisco Four directors are stepping down. These are: Craig Horne, of Swinerton Renewable Energy; Zachary Kuznar, of Duke Energy; Juliana Mandell, of ENGIE Storage; and Charlie Pot, from the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. The other nine directors remain the same. “We are grateful to our outgoing board members, who have served ESA through the extraordinary period of growth and change the storage industry has experienced in the past few years,” said ESA CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman. .
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PEOPLE NEWS
Systems Sunlight appoints Bisalas as new CEO Lampros Bisalas was appointed chief executive officer at lead and lithium battery firm Systems Sunlight on April 29. He takes over from Robby Bourlas, who had been acting as an intermediary CEO since December. Bourlas continues as CEO of Olympia Group, the owner of Sunlight. He will continue as chairman of the board of directors at Sunlight. The appointment of Bisalas confirms the new direction Bourlas announced in December. Sunlight will focus on the commercialization of its lithium battery technology while maintaining its lead battery business, which
forms the basis of its profits. “Bisalas has been integral to the growth of commercial sales and the development of industrial lithium products, which has led to the launch of Sunlight’s first revolutionary series of smart lithium batteries: Li.On Force,” says a company official. Bisalas joined Sunlight in 2008 as the financial controller for its international subsidiaries and has been the firm’s chief commercial officer since May 2017. He has also been R&D director, in charge of the technical development and commercialization of industrial lithium batteries for electrical industrial ve-
hicles and energy storage system applications. Before this he was head of new business development for motive power batteries, before becoming a sales director for Sunlight’s motive power battery business. This business accounted for nearly 70% of Sunlight’s annual turnover. While sales director he increased sales, through a business development plan, by 70% in two years and profitability by 125%. His responsibilities were increased when he was put in charge of the motive and reserve battery commercial team worldwide, which had annual sales of more than $135 million. Before joining Sunlight
he worked for PwC and Marfin Egnatia Bank. Bisalas said: “Being asked to step up to CEO is always a career milestone and an honour, but to be trusted to do so in the middle of a global crisis points to Sunlight’s inherent optimism for the future and our determination not to lose momentum.” Bisalas will also continue as managing director of Sunlight’s European battery assembly plant in Verona, Italy.
Energy Storage Award winners at online Smarter E ceremony Three awards were given in the Electrical Energy Storage category of the annual Smarter E awards in a ceremony that this year had to be held online, on June 30. The three winners in this seventh year of the awards were Fenecon, Webasto and ZnR Batteries. German firm Fenecon won for its Fenecon Industrial Storage System, a plug-and-play container that uses software to enable the use of industrial and grid applications. It is optimized for mobile BEV batteries, which can be new or second life. “The jury was impressed with this well thought-out system approach that creates a platform for intelligently integrating zero life or second life automotive batteries, taking advantage of the automotive industry’s sale and addressing endof-life EV battery challenges,” said Smarter E. Also from Germany, Webasto won the award for its CV standard battery system, an
18 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
off-the-shelf plug-and-play traction battery for commercial vehicles. “The jury awarded this product for its scalability, its possibly wide application in diverse vehicles and its ability to retrofit existing vehicles with minimal costs, while providing battery systems to vehicle manufacturers,” the organizers said. The final EES award went to ZnR Batteries, the zinc-air battery subsidiary of French energy group EDF, for its rechargeable Zinium battery, which contains zinc-air cells made of components that are submerged in an aqueous electrolyte called Zinolyte. This makes the battery rechargeable, using ambient air to function while the battery absorbs and releases oxygen as it charges and discharges. Containing manganese and calcium, the battery does not use rare earths or precious metals and will target residential, commercial and industrial energy storage markets with lower entry barriers.
The other seven finalists were: • Ads-tec Energy, Germany — Mobile High Power Charger, a temporary moveable high-speed EV charging station • BayWa r.e., Germany — Hybrid storage system with AC/DC e-mobility charging infrastructure • BYD, China — Battery Box Premium storage device • Instagrid, Germany — Instagrid PBS portable storage solution for devices that need a grid connection • LG Chem, South Korea — New RESU Modular domestic storage system • Pylon Technologies, China — Powercube H1 high-voltage storage system • Volytica Diagnostics, Germany — A battery diagnostics system. Smarter E is Europe’s largest energy conference and exhibition provider, uniting Intersolar, EES, Power2Drive and EM-Power under one umbrella of events.
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PEOPLE NEWS
Rick Leiby retires from East Penn after 40 years Rick Leiby — known with respect and affection to almost two generations of lead battery producers and recyclers — retired at the end of June from East Penn Manufacturing after more than 40 years with the company. He started in November 1979 and for the past 27 years has been vice president for metals operations. Leiby joined the company just as it was about to make a further leap in size. “We’ve had an amazing journey. When I began we already had around 1,000 people working on the site,” he says. “Now we’ve 10 times the workforce and not just in our huge plant at Lyon Station, Pennsylvania but with people around the world. In fact the workforce quadrupled in size during his first decade of working there. The speed of growth was prodigious. By the early 1990s the annual battery total passed the five million mark and every stage of the manufac-
turing process was computer-aided or automated. The SLI line alone consisted of more than 150 battery types for everything from golf cars to farm tractors. The industrial division was manufacturing, distributing, and servicing nationwide an amazing range of battery sizes and types, some weighing more than
“Pick the topic: recycling, metals processing or baseball. Rick is the person you should engage!”
“I take with me a host of fond memories, not just of the challenges and the success the Metals Division has had, but especially of the people with whom I worked, some now present and some gone, that made every day enjoyable to come to work.” 20 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
20,000 pounds (10 tonnes). The battery recycling operation increased in sophistication as did the volumes of lead processed. “We used to process less than 20,000 tonnes of lead a year,” Leiby says. “Now it’s more than 100,000 tonnes. Leiby too was involved in the modernization of the smelting process. “It’d be fair to say life was simpler then and it’s true it was less complicated — from the smelter we made only three lead products: soft lead and antimonial lead at 3% or 6% concentrations. But over the years this has changed completely and we’ve happily had to change with it. “Now it’s vastly different as we’re producing alloys of calcium — for example, with tin, silver and aluminium. And of course, it’s those alloys that are being fed into the smelter when they reach recycling. “It’s not just the chemistries of the furnace that have changed but the huge wave of mechanization that we went through in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s odd to think that when I started that we used to do things such as manually lift off batteries from the delivery truck before putting them on the batterybreaking line. “New generations of furnace technology have been incorporated, improved and replaced with even newer innovations. Out went the traditional equipment and in came the new reverb furnaces. Our approach to the feedstock changed; I can remember when the battery casings were made of ebonite. Now recycling the polypropylene is a revenue stream.” The main force for change was DeLight Breidegam, the founder of East Penn with his father in 1946, who was one of the earliest advocates about environmental responsibility. “People thought that waste was normal,” Breidegam said in an interview a few years before his death. “Then in the 1960s, more environmental measures started to come in. Some people threw their hands up and said, ‘There’s no
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PEOPLE NEWS
Aerial shots of East Penn Manufacturing in the 1980s (top left), 1990s (bottom left) and nowadays (above right).
way.’ And I always said, ‘Well ... heck, we’re going to try.” Breidegam’s efforts through organizations such as BCI, have helped achieve the now accepted understanding that environmental stewardship needs to be built into the economic model. It would not be cost-effective to build a battery without recycling. Today East Penn recycles some 30,000 batteries a day including reclaiming the acid and the plastic. Leiby was also instrumental in helping meet the ever-stricter rules on worker exposure to lead. “We analyzed all our operations and redesigned the processes such as how we arranged the baghouse for example and the filtering equipment. “We’ve always been very conscious about worker health and keeping up with OSHA standards but its amazing how they have tightened over the period. Occupational exposure to lead has decreased from 200µg/m3 to 30µg/m3 and blood levels are down from 60µg/dl to 20µg/dl with ambitions to take this further.” Leiby remembers with pleasure working with DeLight Breidegam, “When I joined DeLight was very active in the business — he created a real warmth in our working culture, he was an amazing individual, interested in everyone and keen for us all to move the corporation forward. It can only best be described as a warm, family atmosphere. “And when he got older, he stepped back and transitioned the firm to his daughter Sally who carried on this tradition. Oddly enough her untimely death a few years ago caused us to reexamine ourselves.. “We had come to a fork in the road — we could either approach our work in the way that a big corporation would or we could continue the family tradition. Continuing the family tradition is what we’ve done.”
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In his farewell note to friends in the industry he wrote: For the last 40 years it has been my privilege and honor to work at East Penn and participate in this company’s growth and success … I am extremely grateful for the opportunities and the trust the Breidegam and Miksiewicz families have given me over my career. Also for the trust and faith that was shown to me by my fellow employees and East Penn’s suppliers through their support. I take with me a host of fond memories not just of the challenges, and the success the Metals Division has had, but especially of the people with whom I worked, some now present and some gone, that made every day enjoyable to come to work.” Certainly the tributes to Leiby from his Linkedin comments has been huge — around 80 and still counting with an enormous spectrum of well-wishers from leading industry figures, to suppliers, to employees. Robert Steinwurtzel, an attorney writes: “pick the topic: recycling, metals processing or baseball. Rick is the person you should engage!” Others wrote: “I always knew you as one of the people with the highest integrity and open minds”… “It’s been an honor and a privilege working with you for the past 30 years. I never met a more loyal, hard working and valuable person who contributed so much to his company and co-workers. Much enjoyment in your retirement Rick. You’ve certainly earned it” … “You have been
Leiby was instrumental in helping meet the ever-stricter rules on worker exposure to lead: here the inside of the battery breaking area.
a leader of East Penn and have had a big hand in it’s growth and success. Your retirement is well deserved, but a bitter-sweet day for East Penn.” Leiby is not alone with his 40 years of dedication to East Penn. The company is proud of the fact that successive generations of families continue to work for it and have had many long, fulfilling careers. “Leiby is one of many from East Penn who have not only played a key role in the operations of the company but who has also been instrumental in the growth and progress of the overall industry,” says an East Penn spokesperson. “As he transitions into his well deserved retirement, East Penn and the industry alike take much comfort to know that there are some very capable people in place to fill some very big shoes in the wake of his departure.” And his plans for the future? “These include some consultancy work for East Penn,” he says. “But not forgetting a travel schedule my wife has been planning for the past 20 years, and time spent with a fishing pole at hand.”
“You have been a leader of East Penn and have had a big hand in its growth and success. Your retirement is well deserved, but a bittersweet day for East Penn.” Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 21
PEOPLE NEWS
Gerts retires from ENTEK after 35 years in battery separator business Steve Gerts, sales and marketing manager, Eastern Europe and North Africa, for separator firm ENTEK, has decided to retire after 24 years with the company and almost 35 in the battery separator industry. He left the company on July 1. “I don’t miss the responsibility of my job and my function, but I miss the friends and the marketplace,” Gerts told Batteries International. “But I can do without the responsibility of getting the job done.” Gerts has worked in the battery industry since 1989, when he joined Lydall, the US manufacturer that makes, among many other things, separators. He was director of sales and marketing for the company’s Axohm Industries subsidiary, increasing the company’s market share of battery separators to 55%. Before that, he had decided to move to France simply because he wanted to become proficient in another language — and he chose French because he had studied it at college in the 1970s. Seven years later, he headed to ENTEK, staying with them in France until transferring to the UK office in 2008. “I’ve been close to the industry for a long, long time. I was there at the very beginning of AGM separators, when they were starting to take off,” he says. “That experience gave me exposure to the battery world, as from there it moved on to PE battery separators. ENTEK has now begun to manufacture separators for lithium batteries as well as lead, with an eye on the market trend towards the newer chemistry. “Sure there’s a lot of interest in lithium batteries and what they can do and whatever applications, but lead is the inexpensive choice and on specific jobs does it well, can do it in a lot of harsh climates and is almost completely recyclable,” says Gerts. “I don’t think there should be worries about anything in the lead battery industry over the next 1- years. With lithium I wouldn’t call it a threat but it’s a presence in our minds — all of us in the OEM and battery world.” As well as his work colleagues, Gerts
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It’s not going to be all riverside walks or holidays in the sun — he already has dates in his diary for him and his guitar to play open mic sessions in various watering holes around Newcastle-upon-Tyne. says he will miss interaction with his customers. “The most important thing and the most gratifying was to help when I could — offer what I could,” he says. “I hope I was able to contribute a little bit to the strength my customers have now.” So what now? It’s not going to be all riverside walks or holidays in the sun — he already has dates in his diary for him and his guitar to play open mic sessions in various watering holes around Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Gerts will play covers of American heroes such as James Taylor and Neil Young, and also one of his musical favourites John Prine, the American folk and country singer who became one of the tragic victims of Covid-19 in early April.
Gerts has handed his sales work to Richard Towns, a technical sales professional with a PhD in polymer chemistry from Durham University. “I was able to impart to him everything I knew and he’s going to be great for the customers and for ENTEK,” said Gerts. “We couldn’t have found anybody who would have been better than Richard to take over, and he’s off to a great start. I wish him and the company all the best for the future.” Thomas previously worked for Jotun West Europe and was based in London. Before that he spent 16 years with Akzo Nobel, the multinational painting and coating firm, starting as a R&D support manager in 2002 and spending the last two years as global marketing manager.
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LOW PROFILE HIGH PERFORMANCE
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PERSPECTIVE: WOOD MACKENZIE Farid Ahmed, principal analyst at natural resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie, assesses the vulnerabilities the pandemic has exposed.
Secondary lead supply chain fragility We’re now months into the coronavirus pandemic and getting used to this ‘new normal’ of everyday life. As lockdowns restrictions ease, it becomes more apparent how the remaining restrictions impinge on the way we’d wish to live our lives. Our roads seem to have returned to pre-Covid levels of daytime traffic and noise, only returning to something approaching pandemic peacefulness with the onset of evening calm. This hustle and bustle is indicative of economic activity stirring back to life, and the lead battery market is a barometer of this. Many have started using their vehicles again for the first time since the start of lockdown. For the past few months many cars have, at most, just had short runs to local shops — not nearly far enough to recharge their batteries. Or been completely idle and unused for the duration. With their batteries slowly discharging through lack of use. Unsurprisingly, there was a sharp spike in battery failures as lockdowns
started to become less locked-down. Easing of travel restrictions and — for some — the need to return to their place of work saw drivers jump into their keys, turn the ignition key and… nothing. Just a dead battery. Many battery retailers and wholesalers were carrying higher levels of stock at the start of the pandemic following modest replacement battery demand after a mild winter in the key markets of North America, Europe and China. These finished batteries gathered dust until the lid came off lockdown and the surge in demand rapidly cleared warehouse shelves. Battery producers scrambled to replenish supplies and urgently needed refined lead to make new batteries. And that’s where the stress in the system, caused by the pandemic lockdown, started to show. For the Rest of World excluding China, three-quarters of lead supply comes from recycling — and the overwhelming source of that is scrap lead batteries.
One stark truth is that the secondary lead supply chain is less robust than we might have wished to believe. Lead smelters and battery makers could be brought to their knees in just a matter of weeks.
Rest of World (ex. China) lead production is becoming increasingly biased towards recycling
24 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
When lockdown first hit, people couldn’t travel. There were exceptions such as essential logistics, key workers, health and emergency services. But, on the whole, drivers didn’t drive, so weren’t discovering failed batteries. Motor workshops were closed so batteries weren’t be replaced as part of a regular service. Scrap collectors’ trucks weren’t making collections or deliveries, moving the raw material from source to consumer. Secondary lead smelters weren’t receiving their critical raw material — scrap batteries — without which they couldn’t operate. The closedloop recycling supply chain had become immobilised, frozen solid, nothing moving. Smelters had gone into the lockdown with low scrap stocks after the mild winter had failed to inflict its usual toll during the traditional ‘battery kill’ season. Used batteries were scarce and smelters were buying everything they could lay their hands on. They just about managed to maintain adequate supplies to the battery makers, many of whom were producing batteries crucial for maintaining backup power for hospitals, data centres and telecoms, motive power for mechanical handling of vital goods and supplies, and automotive batteries for essential vehicles. The importance of this activity was recognised by many authorities globally, who permitted lead smelters and battery plants to continue operating when most manufacturing was instructed to close. So what have we learned from this? One stark truth is that the secondary lead supply chain is less robust than we might have wished to believe. Lead smelters and battery makers could be brought to their knees in just a matter of weeks without supplies of their most essential feedstocks and plummeting demand. Some did not survive, and familiar names with long, proud histories have, due to Covid-19, now passed into lead battery history. We must redouble our efforts and take the necessary actions to ensure the rest of the industry does not follow them into the past, rather than striving boldly for the future.
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NEWS
East Penn to wind down its investment in Ecoult East Penn is withdrawing investment in its wholly owned Australian subsidiary Ecoult, which developed battery management software and complete module solutions for custom integration into energy storage applications. These solutions utilized the UltraBattery, according to an internal memo released this week. The UltraBattery is a hybrid lead battery capable of rapid charging and discharging in partial state of charge and had been potentially seen as a game-changer in providing an alternative to lithium batteries in the energy storage market. No jobs in the US will be lost following the decision. EPM funding of the Australian workforce will be phased out as existing customer responsibilities are completed or transferred. East Penn said: “The decision was based on multiple factors including evolving market strategies and changes in the energy storage sector as well as streamlining operations and communications.” The licence for the UltraBattery IP will remain with East Penn. One industry commentator said: “When the UltraBattery first appeared, it looked as if it were going to be a technology that would save the lead battery industry,” “But the initial promise never seemed to be forthcoming in large scale energy storage products. Its uptake was patchy. Over time too the technology proved to be glitchy.” Put simply, said the observer, it’s because the market for grid scale energy storage is a fiercely competitive one and anything to do with lead — even advanced lead products — doesn’t get a look-in nowadays. It’s lithium only, with flow batteries coming in a poor second. This market attitude was summed
up in a recent interview with Batteries International where Ben Irons, cofounder of Habitat Energy, the UK grid-scale storage platform designer: “It’s very obvious to everyone in the market that lead acid is for a completely different set of applications. We don’t even mention them — let alone think about them.” According to US government statistics less than 2% of new large energy scale storage projects use lead batteries — despite the fact that it is the cheaper option. One other factor that East Penn alluded to was systems integration. The family-owned battery firm said: “The company feels that the partial state of charge service remains a valid path for the lead battery industry to attain consistent high performance against the wide range of power profiles encountered in energy storage and other cycling applications. “However, system integration continues to be a challenge within this highly competitive environment.” As part of the race to enter this market systems integrators have been as important to successful sales as have the batteries that they use. East Penn said that: “Any open projects will be transitioned by the
When the UltraBattery first appeared, it looked as if it were going to be a technology that would save the lead battery industry. “But the initial promise never seemed to be forthcoming in large scale energy storage products. Its uptake was patchy. Over time too the technology proved to be glitchy.” 26 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
third quarter of 2020 to East Penn’s headquarters in the US.” East Penn will continue to develop the UltraBattery for Automotive, Motive Power, and Reserve Power applications, according to a company spokesperson. The original idea for the UltraBattery came from Australian research organization CSIRO which had found that a combination of a battery and an electrochemical ultracapacitor operating in sulfuric acid — where a high surface area carbon electrode is connected in parallel to the negative plate and uses the high capacitance of the positive plate — solved the partial state of charge problem. A limited company was formed between CSIRO and investors/licensees called Smart Storage in 2007. The business name was changed to Ecoult in 2008 by John Wood when he was appointed CEO of the firm. In May 2010, East Penn acquired Ecoult from CSIRO, along with the global licence to manufacture the UltraBattery (outside Japan and Thailand where Furukawa Battery holds the head licence). Recent contracts won by Ecoult include a 1.6MW microgrid for the US Department of Defense in August 2017. In January 2017 India’s Exide Industries agreed to manufacture batteries for the Asian energy storage market . East Penn said: “Being at the forefront of new battery technology is important to East Penn,” said Bruce Cole, senior VP for industrial sales. “Our investment with Ecoult has helped us to explore the potential of what lead battery technology can do in new exciting ways. We will continue to study and innovate new battery technologies and their systems accelerated by the many things we have learned from the team at Ecoult.” In 2012, with assistance from an US Department of Energy ARRA grant, Ecoult installed a 3MW UltraBattery frequency-regulation system in the PJM grid in Pennsylvania, US, at the factory site of East Penn Manufacturing. The initiative was designed to prove the field capability of the UltraBattery in high-rate partial state-of-charge duty for MW-scale systems.
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BCI award winner ArcActive says it is ‘near to commercial stage’ for AACarbon BCI innovation award 2020 winner ArcActive is closer to commercializing the first generation of its AACarbon anodes, CEO Stuart McKenzie told Batteries International on May 5. “We are reaching the end of the process to get our first generation of electrodes into commercial products,” McKenzie said. “Having said that, we are really only at the start of realizing the potential of this technology. “We have leap-frogged the performance of the traditional negative electrode by changing the electrode architecture, but we have barely begun work on optimizing the material,” he said. “There’s a lot of additional performance to be extracted from our technology, but time will tell.” ArcActive has re-engineered the negative electrode in a lead battery to remove the lead grid and replace it with a non-woven carbon fibre fabric — AACarbon — resulting in much higher dynamic charge acceptance, much lower water consumption, and around 1kg less lead. East Penn Manufacturing partnered ArcActive in May 2018 to try out the technology. McKenzie says: “Our feedback is great. East Penn presented their test results on batteries using the AA technology at the AABC in Wiesbaden. Germany earlier this year. “They have verified the high DCA/low water consumption attributes — and there are no red flags on other tests. They said that they believe that the AA technology is the best technology for micro hybrid automotive batteries.” While the company has formed formal relationships with a number of battery makers, there is a limit to the number ArcActive can support, so it is not seeking new
28 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
relationships yet. “The technology is reaching technical maturity thanks in large part to our relationships with companies such as East Penn,” says McKenzie. “We have a high degree of consistency with our performance levels and the electrodes can be readily manufactured. “But it’s a big job taking a completely novel design and making it a stable industrial technology, and there’s more work to do, principally on fine tuning manufacturing processes. “So far we have been highly focused on the automotive applications — there’s been plenty to do on this front! Having said that, we do have an interest in other markets, such as ESS, and the early testing is promising. “The ability to resist sulfation (retain high DCA) that we’ve seen in automotive testing has also been demonstrated for ESS, which makes sense. But it’s early days on this front, and there’s a lot to do. “The battery development cycle is lengthy; tests take months to complete, and changes to the design and materials specifications, which are being constantly worked on, require testing to verify all aspects of performance.” Arc Active won the BCI Innovation Award at the end of April. There were 13 nominations to the award. Honourable mentions go to TBS Engineering for its automatic plate loader machine and CMWTEC Technologie for its advanced high rate discharge test machine. The judging panel consisted of Dick Amistadi, a US veteran of the lead industry, Don Karner, president of Electric Applications Inc, Boris Monahov, former chief technical officer of ALABC and Geoffrey May, a consultant to the lead battery business.
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EAI launches study to improve performance for energy storage Research by Arizona-based Electric Applications into optimizing lead acid batteries for energy storage systems with the use of an intelligent BMS has won backing from the Consortium of Battery Innovation, CBI said on May 4. The 18-month study will look at optimizing performance so that lead batteries can meet the life cycle and total cost of ownership requirements of the emerging BESS market, said CBI managing director Alistair Davidson. “The project includes life cycle testing of two different battery constructions using a high SoC cycle simulating a grid energy
storage profile combined with controlled overcharge techniques,” he said. “The batteries will be cycled under laboratory conditions simulating a typical BESS field environment. The controlled overcharge algorithm will be customized to each battery early in testing, to optimize the performance of each battery construction.” During the study, an electrical current will be sent across large strings of batteries which will be monitored and controlled using the BMS, which will look at each string discharge and integrate it with the capacity discharged. “This capacity will then
be used to determine the charge return required to achieve the desired overcharge (105%-110%),” said Davidson. “Capacity returned during charge will be precisely controlled for each string.” He said previous experiments had indicated that the best capacity for optimizing performance in ESSs was with batteries overcharged at between 105%110%. Two types of battery will be tested during the study — a traction thick plate gel type, and a standard AGM construction — in simulated BES systems of 1MWh2.5MWh. “This capacity represents
a typical near-the-meter BESS application, consistent with applications such as peak shaving or renewable shifting,” said Davidson. “Batteries of these two types will be assembled into two separate battery packs of approximately 50kWh. Each battery pack will consist of four parallel strings of 36-40 series connected cells, simulating a portion of the typical series/parallel configuration of a BESS.” Several of CBI’s projects have had to be delayed because of the pandemic, but some, including this one, are back up and running, with others due to re-start this year.
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Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 29
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Lead-lithium hybrid soon to move to next phase for UK port project A lead-lithium hybrid storage crash,” said the spokesman. trial pilot advanced to its next “Yuasa’s battery will provide project phase in mid-June with the centrepiece of the project, the acquisition of a 100kWh which will help us use renewable GS Yuasa battery system at energy more efficiently across Portsmouth International Port the port estate.” in southern England. Mike Sellers, port director at The two-year project, known Portsmouth International Port, as PESO (Port Energy Systems said: “As a port that is owned Optimization), is being coby the people of Portsmouth, funded by Innovate UK, a we are committed to take bold public body funded by a grantaction to meet our goal to be the in-aid from the government. UK’s first zero emission port. Marine South East is “This innovative project will working with Swanbarton, a Historic port of Portsmouth could provide clarity enable the port to maximize the UK consultancy and Energy for lead-lithium combination amount of renewable energy it Systems Catapult, a not-forcan produce and use for its own profit firm set up and managed the AI protocols we are introducing operations, including powering by Innovate UK that aims to bridge will reduce the cost of energy electric vehicles to replace diesel and the gap between industry, government, management.” reduce emissions. academia and research. In addition to the energy efficiency “This initiative has the potential to The pilot storage battery had been aspect to the project there are have significant benefits for the port, sized in kW and kWh to validate the environmental benefits too — this is and could also provide a solution to concept. If the trial proves successful important in that the shipping industry smart energy use that can be shared and is commercially viable, the results has often been accused as being with the wider port industry.” of the project will inform future more polluting than aviation. The Swanbarton is also working in a decisions on the power (MW) and electrification of ports would be one consortium with Marine South East, energy rating (MWh) for follow-on step towards cleaning the industry up. naval architecture firm Houlder, and installations. The removal of a large amount of Lloyd’s Register, the international The intention would be to use the fossil fuels — electric vehicles in the shipping risk assessment and modularity of the system to expand port area will be powered by the certification firm, on another project it to a larger scale at Portsmouth. It system — will also help decarbonize called FLO-MAR. would also serve as a template that the port. This has successfully attracted could be expanded to other UK ports. “The lead-acid battery provides the funding from MarRI-UK’s Clean “Three main areas of innovation bulk of the energy storage capacity for Maritime Call to assess the feasibility will be explored in the PESO pilot; cost-effective harvesting of renewable of using flow batteries in vessels the design and construction of novel energy, and the lithium-ion battery to enable zero-emission marine dual-chemistry battery technology to provides high power discharge propulsion and auxiliary power. meet the port requirements; advanced capability for EV fast charging,” said The project is to investigate how the management software to optimize the port spokesperson. design of electric and hybrid ships, onsite energy generation and storage; “The lithium-ion one also supports from ferries through to tugs and wind and the development of smart port the operating condition of the lead- farm vessels, can be optimized to grid infrastructure,” says Marine acid battery to extend life and energy accommodate flow batteries and to South East. conversion efficiency.” assess the advantages this technology The storage system and the The lead batteries are manufactured offers in comparison with lithium-ion integration of artificial intelligence at GS Yuasa’s factory in Ebbw Vale, batteries and hydrogen fuel-cells. in it is being developed by Anthony Wales, where final assembly and the Flow batteries have the potential to Price, the head of Swanbarton. integration of the entire system will offer faster charging in port — simply “The lithium battery part of the take place. pumping out the used electrolyte and system will do the rapid charging The lithium batteries are made in pumping in the charged electrolyte and discharging needed to keep the Japan. — coupled with potentially costmicrogrid stable. The lead battery will One of the biggest problems for effective, high-capacity storage. To provide long duration power,” he says. rapid EV charging is the limited power date they have not yet been configured “One advantage of the combination available to commercial premises. for marine applications. of the two is that of minimizing “This will often be in the 30kWThe FLO-MAR project will select expense. Despite the price falls we 50kW range for a medium sized the vessel types and operating have seen in recent years for lithium shop or car showroom. The battery situations most suitable for flow batteries, they are still more expensive capacity of standard EVs ranges from batteries and will develop an outline than lead. 50kWh to 90kWh, so fast charging can vessel design to validate the advantages “The combination of the two and overwhelm sites, causing the grids to offered by this battery type.
30 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
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Monbat CEO Bobokov resigns after criminal allegations, Kostadinov appointed as interim Atanas Bobokov announced on June 3 that he had stepped down as CEO of Monbat, the Bulgarian and eastern European battery and recycling group. He remains as chairman of the board of directors. This follows a 24 hour detention for Bobokov, his brother Plamen Bobokov, also a Monbat director, and Bulgaria’s deputy environment minister Krassimir Zhivkov on May 28, according to the Sofia News Agency and Bulgarian state television. The three, with at least three others, are being investigated for alleged involvement in a crime group that is meant to have mismanaged hazardous waste, part of which has included lead product waste. This has implicated activities in the Monbat recycling plant in Montana, Bulgaria, according to national newspaper Trud. Atanas Bobokov’s official announcement said: “To preserve the stability of the company Monbat AD, which I represent, as well as the investors’ trust, built through many years, I hereby declare my resignation from the position of CEO of Monbat AD.” The Monbat group said that same day that it had appointed a second procurator of the company a new independent director Dimitar Kostadinov and appointed international law firm to Wolf Theiss, to conduct “an independent audit into the matters related to the ecological aspects of the company’s activity and compliance with Bulgarian and European legislations”. Monbat later released an invitation to shareholders on June 15 to come to an extraordinary annual general meeting to appoint the interim CEO Kostadinov to its board of directors. The meeting, to be held on July 22 in Sofia, Bulgaria, will also formalize his remuneration package. Kostadinov takes over from Evelina Pavlova Slavcheva who will stand down from the board. The group had already made a lengthy declaration of its position on May 29, the day after the Bobokovis’ detention. “Monbat does not process general
32 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
waste (trash) and does not have such facilities,” the firm said. “The lead alloys coming out of the recycling plant are necessary to produce batteries. Given the high demand, the produced lead alloys have not been sold for export.” Monbat said that it did import raw material — lead paste — from Italy which it said is categorized as hazardous material and as such, its transportation falls under strict regulation.
“To preserve the stability of the company Monbat AD, which I represent, as well as the investors’ trust, built through many years, I hereby declare my resignation from the position of CEO of Monbat AD.” — Atanas Bobokov “Monbat is in possession of the necessary notification issued by the Ministry of the Environment and Waters which is a must for the transportation of this ‘paste’, and it is being transported predominantly with own transport vehicles,” the firm said. “Monbat has never been involved in transportation of refuse and/or trash and trucks, property of Monbat, have never been detained. “The technological waste from the recycling, that cannot be further recycled, is deposited with a licensed operator. The activities of such license operators are fully regulated in compliance with the relevant legislation of Republic of Bulgaria and abroad. “Any movement of this technological waste is always accompanied with transportation documentation, handover protocols, and invoices. All these primary accounting papers are properly documented and booked in the appropriate accounting and tax manners.
“There are no companies, owned and/or controlled, by Monbat which conduct business activities for depositing and utilization of the residue technological waste. Monbat is allowed to deposit residue technological waste only to licensed operators in full compliance with the regulations and in line with the economic justification for the company.” Separately, the work of the battery manufacturer continues as before. In April, Monbat completed the next step towards building a plant based on Advanced Battery Concepts’ GreenSeal bipolar technology, by issuing an intent to invest in the construction of the plant in Vratsa. Monbat NBP EOOD is a whollyowned subsidiary of Monbat AD, which makes lead-acid and lithiumion batteries and has a presence in more than 60 countries. In January 2019, it acquired the licensing rights for ABC’s GreenSeal bipolar technology, with a view to producing the batteries in a 2.4GWh plant in Bulgaria, ‘especially for the production of bipolar batteries based on this technology’. “There will be direct synergies to the existing supply chain of the Monbat Group,” said Monbat CEO and chairman Atanas Bobokov at the time. “It is inspiring to see a future in a very old industry without changing the material base, just by offering a smart mechanical solution of the grids becoming the battery building block.” The actual building date is a way off yet, with a large number of procedures still to be gone through, said the company, ‘including the preparation of an assessment regarding the impact on the environment’. It added that waste treatment plants would be installed at the production site as an inseparable part of the production equipment. Other details of the facility have not been revealed yet. “Monbat AD will announce further information regarding the financial parameters of the project after obtaining the approval of the investment proposal,” the company said.
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Clarios confirms closure of assembly plant in Delaware Clarios, the world’s biggest lead battery maker, on May 7 confirmed it would be closing its lead battery assembly plant in Middletown, Delaware in November 2020, partly because of the Covid-19 virus outbreak. The 200 staff affected will be offered other jobs or compensation, the company said. “The decision to permanently close a plant is not one we made lightly, but
changing conditions, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, left no possibility for us to continue operations at the Middletown plant,” said Aimee Iverson, communications manager for the US and Canada. “The decision was necessary to strengthen our position as a global leader in advanced battery technologies.” The move was being made to streamline the US manu-
facturing network as the firm focused on ‘providing best-in-class service to customers, while optimizing and modernizing our operations’. “We will continue to have a significant presence in the region, including through our Middletown Distribution Center, which remains vital to serving our customers across the Northeast,” Iverson said. “We intend to offer op-
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34 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
portunities to impacted employees at our Middletown Distribution Center and other locations or, in limited cases where opportunities are not available, we will compensate fairly. “Clarios is not closing any other manufacturing plants at this time.” Clarios VP of product management Jason Searl said in late April the company estimated 20% of US vehicles were inactive or seeing extremely minimal use as they sat on their home driveways during the lockdown, which has been enforced in many countries. TomTom, a global satellite navigation device maker, has released photographs of various cities before and after the global pandemic took hold, and the images show striking emptiness on normally frenetic city streets. “On top of this drop in vehicle use, much of the US experienced a mild winter, which may mean more older, weaker batteries are still in use and vulnerable to a lack of proper maintenance,” said Searl. “However they remain a critical and essential product. They reliably power the transportation and logistics networks that move the people and materials that fuel our economy. Before the current crisis, lead batteries helped to carry Americans via public transportation 34 million times each weekday. “Plus, every US mass-produced car and truck (more than 275 million), including nearly every electric vehicle and approximately 60% of all forklifts, contains and relies on lead batteries. The global automotive industry produces more than 85 million new vehicles annually. On average, each vehicle will use three to four lead batteries over its lifespan.”
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Mega Amps launches lead battery energy-as-a service solution UK-based lead-acid energy storage developer Mega Amps has added a new strand to its business model with the announcement on June 29 that it would offer energy-as-a-service to its customers, essentially organizing battery instalments from start to finish. The company will aim its service, which it is calling ESaaS, at large-scale commercial and industrial customers, independent power producers, utilities and mines, particularly in developing countries, where the service could replace fossil fuel consumption and cost as little as $0.08-$0.15/ kWh. Tailored solutions would offer battery deployments alongside renewables like solar and wind, with different localized plans (payment per year, per kWh) replacing upfront capital expenditure. “We have been considering changes to the traditional model of selling batteries as a commodity for quite some time, but the timing has never been better post Covid-19, where customers will be much more focused on cashflow and much more stringent in evaluating the projects they invest in,” said chief technological officer Neill Human. “No one has managed to monetize energy storage-asa-service in a massive way and we believe we have found the key to unlocking this, by changing the way we perceive energy storage and positioning the model correctly as opposed to the technology that supports it. “We have realized that we own a suite of technology solutions and know-how that places us in a position of managing batteries through a technology-propelled, asset-smart approach and by leveraging industry partnerships.”
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Features of the Mega Amps service will include revenue stacking by application to leverage energy arbitrage and peak demand reduction and shifting, combined with renewable self-consumption optimization, says Human. While the service the company offers will begin with offering lead-acid batteries, it will eventually be adaptable. “Our strategy specifically makes use of lead-acid as a starting technology as our own version offers by far the highest NPV given capital outlay, performance, opportunity cost and average available capacity over the contract term,” says Human. “We have purposefully designed a phased replacement strategy to optimize the economics of our initial capital
outlay so that we futureproof our model and retain the flexibility to be technology agnostic in the future, when alternative solutions will have in high probability be much more affordable between five and seven years from today. “We have evaluated all the technologies we may have access to and by far lead-acid, when you know how to treat it and when you have advanced features, offers the best IRR [internal rate of return]. If an alternate value offer is available from an alternative chemistry and it makes sense within our model, we will integrate it.” In February, Mega Amps entered its EQLYTE technology into the BCI annual innovation awards.
EQLYTE is a battery ancillary inserted at the manufacturing stage to optimize electrochemical hydrodynamics within flooded acid cells so the electrolyte can more actively respond to charge and discharge. “Mega Amps is continually innovating and will continue to do so,” said Frank Pretorius, managing director. “The innovation entry has certainly brought us to the attention of the battery world. It is not our intention to monopolize any sector, but rather to drive the rapid expansion and deployment of electrical energy storage in tandem with our partners so that we end up materially affecting the planet and how it uses and stores energy for the better.”
Moll Batterien in talks with potential Investors in bid to save the company Akkumulatorenfabrik Moll, the German family battery business which filed for insolvency on March 30 because of the Covid crisis, said on June 18 it was in talks with potential investors. Owner Gertrud MollMöhrstedt, whose father, Peter, founded the business 75 years ago, said it was too early to give precise details of the discussions, however “we are still optimistic that a good solution will appear”. The firm said sensitive discussions were taking place aimed at finding a rapid resolution in the interests of all parties. “The goal is to find a strong partner, enabling the company to continue its growth, further strengthening its position as an innovative powerhouse,” the firm said.
“All innovation and development projects remain on track and continue to be driven forward. This means, despite the restructuring process, sustainability and innovation is still being assured. Recently, pre-finance for future growth had already been given the green light and Moll is currently in the process of bringing three innovations to market maturity.” The timing of the Covid crisis could hardly have been worse for Moll, which had a full order book and was operating at full capacity when the outbreak shattered global trade. When Moll filed for insolvency, Moll-Möhrstedt said: “In the current situation it is not possible to predict whether and when sales will recover. It is
highly probable that even if automobile production resumes, it will take many months, perhaps even years, for sales to return to the level seen at the beginning of the year. “Therefore, we thought that it would appropriate to act very early.” Market research analyst Technavio predicts the global automotive lead battery market will grow by $12.26 billion between 2020 and 2024, which “marks a significant slowdown compared to the previous year’s growth estimates due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020. “However, healthy growth is expected to continue throughout the forecast period, and the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 5%,” Technavio says.
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 35
NEWS
Atlas Holdings affiliate snaps up Exide Technologies at auction Exide Technologies has been bought at auction by an unnamed affiliate of the US private investment firm Atlas Holdings, Exide announced on July 23. The auction was held as part of a court-supervised process to get the company through its third bankruptcy. The EMEA and AsiaPacific side of the business will continue as per an earlier agreement, made when the company filed for bankruptcy in May, under which noteholders will maintain
continued employment of the firm’s workforce in these regions. The Atlas Holdings affiliate has paid $178.6 million to take over most of Exide’s business and operations as well as certain liabilities if they are related to the assets acquired. Although no details were given, Exide is reckoned to have at least 16 non-performing sites. In a statement, the company said: “The Agreement contemplates the continued operation of Exide’s transportation, recycling and GNB Industrial Power businesses.” Tim Vargo, Exide president, chairman and CEO, was brought into the com-
“We believe that, with a clean start and a strong balance sheet, the Exide Americas business has a very bright future, and we are looking forward to investing in its growth.” Paroo Station re-opens, aims to be world’s top 10 lead producer Canadian mining company LeadFX announced on April 17 it had secured C$2 million ($1.4 million) financing to re-open its Paroo Station lead mine in Western Australia, which will rank it as one of the world’s top 10 lead producers, the firm claims. With the addition of a hydrometallurgical process at the mine, transport costs will be reduced and it will be possible for its lead to be processed in secondary lead smelters — which is where battery makers get most of their lead supplies. The funding will come
from InCoR Technologies — which has in turn licensed its hydrometallurgical technology, which will be added downstream for processing the lead concentrate so it can produce LME grade lead ingots as a second phase development, the firm said. “Company investigations suggest its carbonate concentrate is amenable to processing in secondary lead smelters that recycle used lead acid batteries, and would be used as a supplement or replacement of ULAB paste in secondary lead smelters,” LeadFX said.
36 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
pany in December 2018. Six months later the company announced it had completed a ‘comprehensive new financing and capitalization’, with $150 million of new international notes issued through a new subsidiary, Exide International. The firm was understood to already be poised to sell off its EMEA/Asia-Pacific business at the time. As the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Vargo told Batteries International that Exide was focused on keeping plants running and continuing battery production, but ultimately the virus, the Vernon recycling plant issue and the large portfolio of non-performing assets just proved too costly. “We are gratified to have generated strong interest in our Americas business and delighted to have reached this agreement with affiliates of Atlas, an investor with significant operational and financial resources and a proven track record of building strong, high-performance organizations,” said Vargo. “Under new ownership, our Americas business will continue delivering highquality energy storage solutions and service to our customers, maximizing future growth and profitability.” Atlas Holdings owns several businesses in industries including automotive, power generation, building materials, food and beverages, packaging, pulp and paper, and metals. The company has not responded to a request for an interview, but in a statement managing partner Jacob Hudson said: “We are very excited about acquiring the assets of Exide’s Americas business. “We believe that, with a clean start and a strong
balance sheet, the Exide Americas business has a very bright future, and we are looking forward to investing in its growth.” In early July Exide said it had entered talks for its American business operations to be bought by EX Holdings, a Quexco subsidiary, In what Exide called a ‘stalking horse’ bid for the Americas business, the agreement gives the firm a binding bid of around $170 million, along with the assumption of certain liabilities. Exide is not the only battery firm that has attracted interest from private investment firms. In 2013, for example, investment firm Charlesbank took up a majority stake in Trojan Battery from the Godber family. That year too Polypore International, the owner of Daramic, sold its stake in Microporous to investment firm Seven Mile Capital Partners for $120 million. The company has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings three times in its 132-year history. It said the final straw this time came with the Covid-19 pandemic this year. The split of the businesses and the sale of its EMEA/APAC operation — news of which Batteries International broke in a special news bulletin a year ago — has been in the pipeline for some time. The ability to split the firm up was largely the construct of its then CEO Gordon Ulsh in 2005, who took over immediately after its first trip into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He devised a common nomenclature across the firm’s operations. With that in place it became possible to devise common metrics for performance.
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Leoch buys 100% of UK partner DBS Leoch For the record, Chinese lead battery manufacturer Leoch has bought the UK battery distribution firm DBS Leoch in its entirety, the firm announced in March. The companies already had a partnership that began in January 2018, when the Chinese giant — which is the fourth or fifth largest lead battery maker in China — made an undisclosed investment in what was then called DBS Energy. The UK firm, which had been distributing Leoch batteries to the UK market for seven years, then changed its name to DBS Leoch. It is now called Leoch Battery UK. “This agreement will enable Leoch to significantly grow its battery business from the industrial and leisure sectors in the UK,” the company said. “Our further investment
Massive lead-zinc deposit discovered in southern China
in Leoch Battery UK will allow us to increase our penetration in the UK market and provide more added value services to our clients in the region,” said Fred Hapiak, president of Leoch International Holding. In November, one of the UK’s largest independent suppliers of industrial cleaning machines, Industrial Cleaning Equipment, agreed to use Leoch’s Superior Lead Carbon AGM batteries in all of its equipment at 26,250 sites in the UK. The SCLA batteries were selected because they were found to retain their performance levels where other batteries dropped off to around 80% of capacity within four months’ use, ICE’s operations manager James Boyland said. Leoch Battery UK is to launch a range of lithium batteries later this year.
A huge zinc-lead deposit equivalent to the size of six large lead-zinc mines has been found in China, according to the Chinese government’s news agency, Xinhua, in April. The deposit, in southwestern China’s Guizhou Province, could be worth more than 70 billion yuan ($9.9 billion), the agency said, referencing the province’s Department of Natural Resources. “Ninety-two major ore bodies have been delineated with an average lead ore grade of 2.27% and 6.76% for zinc in the Shuitang Township, Hezhang County, equivalent to six large lead-zinc mines due to the thickness of the ore body,” the agency said. “The reserve of lead and zinc is estimated to reach
over 3.27 million tonnes, along with gold, silver, gallium, cadmium, germanium, selenium, sulfur, copper and other important mineral resources.” Globally, almost 5 million tonnes of lead are mined each year, according to the International Lead Association. China is already the largest global producer, with 1.4 million tonnes a year, followed by Australia, which produces 641,000 tonnes annually, and the US, which produces 444,000 tonnes, according to the data portal Index Mundi. Around 85% of all lead produced — both mined or recycled — is used in battery making, according to the ILA. Around 75% of the lead used to make batteries is recycled lead.
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www.cellusuede.com Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 37
NEWS
Amara Raja in evaluation testing of Gridtential bipolar batteries Amara Raja Batteries, the Indian battery giant announced on June 1 that it had entered into a formal technology evaluation agreement with Gridtential Energy to assemble and test Gridtential’s silicon joule bipolar reference batteries. “This will use Amara Raja’s active material to determine improvements in cycle life, energy density, battery efficiency, charging rates and manufacturability, says John Barton, CEO of Gridtential. Jayadev Galla. The unique silicon joule bipolar technology from Gridtential holds significant potential to deliver enhanced value to our customers. Samudrala Vijayanand, the firm’s CEO said: “We look forward to seeing the results our teams can achieve working together on realizing more of the performance potential of lead-based batteries.” Many commentators believe that bipolar batteries could be key to opening up new vistas of business for the lead energy storage in-
dustry given the huge leaps of performance possible in terms of extended cycle life and greater power for less weight. The two leading contenders in the race to advance the bipolar business is Gridtential, based in Santa Clara, California and Advanced Battery Concepts working from Clare, Michigan. Bipolar batteries have a long history of showing enormous potential but fabrication in scale has been very difficult to crack. The key question Barton is addressing is what he calls ‘industrialization’ — put simply taking a technology that works on the work bench and moving it to the production line. Both Barton and his head of operations and strategy Doug Wilson believe their combined decades of experience in the manufacturing and engineering of silicon wafers are being brought to bear on Gridtential’s product. “The semi-conductor business is one of the most rapid-
Gridtential and LOLC in evaluation agreement Gridtential, the bipolar battery developer, is working with LOLC Advanced Technologies on prototyping lead batteries using
Gridtential’s Barton: tremendous progress in simplifying development processes
both Gridtential’s silicon joule plates and adding graphene, a battery additive, to active materials, the companies announced on June 23. The graphene additive — AltaLABGX — will be supplied by Ceylon Graphene Technologies, a joint venture set up between LOLC and the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology. “Preliminary work indicates that the combination of these elements will lead to higher performing batteries in energy density, charging rates and cycle life,” said Gridtential.
38 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
ly evolving industries in the world, we’ve had to create manufacturing processes for products that are developing so fast that previous iterations are obsolete within a couple of years,” Barton told Batteries International. “Over the past 18 months we have made tremendous progress in simplifying the bipolar battery development processes, making it possible to build initial batteries in a partner facility within a few weeks and with commercial production possible in a 1218 month timeframe. The bipole material is available in scale through a solar wafer supply chain which as an industry currently produces 25bn wafers per year. He believes that the early trials by licensees is now paying off and that turnkey proposals are emerging. “Most of our partners are currently progressing with a combination of existing equipment which can support bipolar production complimented with modified special purpose tools,” he says. “We have active conversations with battery companies as a few outside of the battery industry. The processes are straightforward from an equipment design perspective, but each supplier has a unique approach and value proposition to their design. The automation vendor status ranges from ‘still iterating’ to complete turn-key systems proposals. “We have reference batteries in the hands of a number of OEMs and battery partners and all of our licensees are able to independently produce batteries. While we don’t comment on the status of our partner’s commercial launch plans, our own internal plans are for larger volume beta site OEM testing later this year.”
The evaluation program that Amara Raja and up to nine other disclosed and undisclosed battery firms is the pathway to signing a full licensee agreement and full commercialization of the product. Barton says: “Our development onramp starts with an evaluation program. This consists of reference batteries, development kits and includes a limited noncommercial sale licence. Using our development kits, battery companies can build their own bipolar batteries with our platform and their active material after a few simple training sessions. “We know from our years of product development that rapid iteration between experiments shortens learning cycles and reduces the product development timeline. The development kits assemble and tear-down with simple fasteners making analysis easy. So, the reference batteries can go under test immediately, while our partner’s internally built development kits and learning cycles proceed in parallel.” Barton says the partners can pick the initial platform based on target application: whether for energy (stationary storage or back-up, LSEV, personal mobility, and industrial) or power (which addresses transportation applications such as 12V start-stop SLI or 48V for the mild hybrid automotive markets). The evaluation program can be completed in three to six months depending on the partner resources allocated and performance targets, he says. Gridtential says its bipolar battery can deliver two to five times longer life at 80% DOD, twice as much energy for the same weight and faster discharge times.
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NEWS Slump in metals prices due to Covid leads to split in Recyclex A German sub-group of the French lead battery recycler Recylex has applied for so-called protective shield measures — similar to the US Chapter 11 bankruptcy law — as a result of the Covid-19 virus, the company said on May 14. The German subsidiaries are Weser-Metall, a secondary lead smelting firm, Harz-Metall, a lead and zinc recycler, zinc oxide and dust producer Norzinco and chemicals company PPM Pure Metals, which focuses on high purity metals. It means Recylex will be left with its lead-acid battery recycling operations, Recylex A and C2P SAS, plus a 50% stake in Recytech SA, from which it will still supply Weser-Metall. Protective shield measures became law in Germany in 2012. They give time to ex-
isting management, working with an independent supervisor, to restructure and find a way out of financial difficulties. The firm updated its financial situation on May 13. This showed its net debt stood at €44.3 million ($49 million). Recylex SA’s gross debt amounted to €52.8 million. This amount includes the €16 million loan from Glencore International, the EU commission cartel fine with €24.6 million and other financial debts of €12.2 million (including a debt of €2.8 million to Recylex GmbH) resulting from the Continuation Plan procedure which ended in 2015. Its net cash position amounted to €8.5 million. “The rapid developments caused by the SARS-Cov-2 [Covid-19] pandemic have
effects we can no longer influence,” said Recyclex chairman and CEO Sebastian Rudow. “The slump in the zinc price and the deteriorating economic outlook are now taking away the going concern perspective of Harz-Metall. As a result, the entire German management has been forced by German law to rule for insolvency for all German companies of the group. “With the protective shield procedures, the operationally active entities of the German subgroup will be entering a new path to face the challenges of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. I am expecting that the special restructuring benefits provided by German law in these procedures will enable the entities to continue their business operations and to
pursue their restructuring according to a path individually chosen by them. “The improvement of our processes, the establishment of new customers and above all sustainable profitability are the primary targets to secure the foundation of the Group within its reduced perimeter and to be empowered to build on it with future investments. “In the short term, however, Recylex SA has to find solutions to be able to pay off its debts in the future and, at first, to subsist the pandemic.” Recylex, which donated protective gowns and masks to the Villefranche Hospital in Saone, France to help fight the virus, has also asked mining company Glencore to extend the term of a €16 million loan to the recycler.
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40 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
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Quemetco to pay $600,000 fine for emissions violations Quemetco, the lead battery recycling company based near the City of Industry in California, US, has agreed to pay a $600,000 fine for violating emissions regulations, the local regulator said on May 8. The South Coast Air Quality Management District posted on its Facebook page that a settlement had been reached with the company after violations were identified during inspections of the plant between 2017 and 2019. “The violations include not minimizing dust emissions; reporting requirements; emissions of lead, arsenic, and 1,3 butadiene that exceeded rule limits; and not
maintaining negative pressure in the building enclosure. Due to the arsenic and lead emissions-related violations, Quemetco was ordered to temporarily reduce operations at its facility.” Daniel Kramer, spokesperson for Quemetco, told Batteries International: “The SCAQMD settlement agreement resolved all historic, outstanding NOVs with the South Coast Air Quality Management District without litigation. “Contrary to some reports, the settlement does not mandate a reduction in production. It paves the way for future permit modifications that will allow the facility to operate more ef-
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tween 20 and 24 hours a day. It already processes 10 million used lead acid batteries a year and produces 120,000 tons of lead. The facility is near the former Exide Technologies recycling plant, at Vernon, which was shut down in 2016 for alleged health and safety violations and pollution. Exide has always refuted the allegations, saying come of the contamination has been proven to have come from sources such as aviation fuel and paint.
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Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 41
NEWS
ZAF Energy wins $2.5m nickel-zinc deal, offers to license technology to LAB makers ZAF Energy, the nickelzinc and zinc air battery technology company, said on June 10 it has signed a $2.5 million deal with the US Department of Defense to supply large batteries for potential marine applications. While a competitive technology to lead-acid batteries, Kirk Plautz, VP sales & marketing with ZAF, said it could benefit lead battery makers because they could easily adopt the technology themselves as a response to lithium-ion battery technology. “We will be licensing out the technology in 2021, and lead battery manufacturers will be some of the licensees because it will be
an enhancement for them,” Plautz said. “Some 70% of the process involved in making nickelzinc batteries is the same as in making lead-acid batteries so they could easily make it themselves. “Lead battery manufacturers are seeing an erosion in their business due to lithium, so as NiZn will compete with lithium in applications such as data centres, industrial and marine, where safety and cost are the driving factors, lead battery makers can also use this as an option to compete.” The contract was signed with ACI Technologies, a scientific research body that operates the US Navy’s Center of Excellence in
Electronics Manufacturing Productivity Facility. This focuses on developing and applying new electronics technology at the lowest possible cost. The company is going to focus on nickel-zinc technology for transport and data centre applications, while its new subsidiary, Æsir, will develop the zinc-air battery technology and concentrate on military, medical, aircraft and speciality batteries. In February 2019, lead battery equipment designer and manufacturer Wirtz Manufacturing invested an undisclosed sum in ZAF, saying it was keen to help bring the firm’s technology to the marketplace after seeing the performance im-
News in brief New Korean lead battery maker operational in US by year end Korean battery firm Hankook AtlasBX’s new manufacturing plant should be operational and making batteries by the end of the year at its site in Clarksville, Tennessee, the local paper Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle reported on July 10. The firm, which made its first AGM battery in Korea in 2005, now makes a range of industrial and automotive batteries with the technology. It has been reported that the Clarksville site will produce 2.4 million batteries a year. The company says it will make standard sealed maintenance-free batteries, with a dedicated line for AGM batteries. Batteries International reported in November 2018 that the firm had been given the go-ahead to open a plant, the first for five years with the previous one being in the state of Georgia in 2013. It will also be the first plant in the US to be built and operated by Hankook AtlasBX, a sister company of Hankook Tire, which already has a plant just opposite the new battery factory. The Leaf-Chronicle quoted Frank Tate, executive director of the ClarksvilleMontgomery County Industrial Development Board, as saying the Korean company was adding staff to the site
42 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
every day while testing equipment and procedures. Tate said that since trial production runs had been carried out, beginning last autumn, the county’s air monitors had not detected any air lead concentrations outside the federal Environment Protection Agency and National Ambient Air Quality Standards. EnerSys expands thin plate pure lead range EnerSys, the lead battery manufacturer, has expanded its TPPL portfolio with 12V versions of its CORE and PURE batteries so they may now be used in smaller machines in sectors such as food production and logistics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the company said on July 16. The new bloc batteries are suitable for small traction motive applications such as small AGVs, cleaning machines and ground handling vehicles in airports. The firm’s CORE and PURE batteries for larger materials handling vehicles, such as forklift trucks, were released in February. They both mix TPPL technology with carbon in the active material formulation in updates to traditional lead-acid batteries and an alternative to lithium-ion in materials handling applications.
provements and cost savings it delivered. The money was to be used to increase manufacturing capacity in ZAF’s Joplin facility. At the end of April ZAF announced it had raised $22 million from ‘key, strategic investors’ to meet growing demand from large-scale data storage, telecommunications, health care and commercial trucking sectors. The investors are Elevage Capital Management, Catalus Capital, Holt Ventures and Coventry Asset Management. “ZAF will use the funds to accelerate the commercialization and adoption of its nickel-zinc battery technology and expand its manufacturing capacity,” a company statement said. “ZAF’s NiZn chemistry can reduce the footprint of lead acid data centre IPS systems by 40% and because it lasts twice as long as lead acid, it will reduce the number of batteries consumed by up to 75%. “The battery also yields twice the energy density of lead acid batteries at less than a quarter of the cost, making them smaller, lighter and less expensive. The batteries use sustainable, abundantly available materials that are both fully recyclable and non-toxic to the environment in disposal situations, providing long life and economical solutions for many applications.” This latest investment would allow ZAF to expand capacity from hundreds of batteries a month to thousands a month, the firm said, with a full production line that meant licensing and joint venture partners could validate the quality of the technology for commercially scaled factories. ZAF Energy was incorporated in 2011.
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NEWS
European Parliament calls on EC to level playing field for all battery technologies MEPs on June 29 called on the European Commission to amend regulatory burdens on energy storage technologies in the drive towards a clean energy transition — emphasizing that all battery technologies should be given equal consideration, and even emulate lead batteries in recycling. At a meeting of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee, Austrian MEP Claudia Gamon presented a report which calls on the Commission to, among other things: • Reduce the regulatory burden for market entries • Continue to provide support for research • Abolish certain network charges which it says are sometimes levied twice • Shorten approval procedures — essentially, cut red tape. Several times the report, which is an amendment to the EU’s ‘Comprehensive European Approach to Energy Storage’, makes it clear that all battery technologies should be given continuous support; and lead-acid bat-
teries are highlighted as a model to be followed in battery recycling. “The European Parliament acknowledges that well functioning collection and recycling schemes as well as closed-loop processes, in line with the circular economy principles, are already in place for a range of battery technologies, especially in EU-based automotive and industrial battery chains, eg lead-based starter batteries, and believes that those schemes could be considered as a blueprint for battery recycling,” the report says. “The Parliament is convinced that a range of battery technologies, including those with already well established value chains in the EU, will play an important role in ensuring a stable and flexible electricity supply,” it says, calling for an expansion of the European Battery Alliance and Strategic Action Plan on Batteries “to cover all available battery technologies.” The report is part of the European Parliament’s push towards zero-carbon emis-
sions, and it sees energy storage as an essential element of an energy efficient, renewables-based economy. It say it needs to take “into account all available technologies as well as close-to market technologies, keeping a technology neutral approach to ensure a level playing field”, while expressing regrets that “infrastructure or larger storage projects which are crucial to the energy transition often face strong resistance and delays at local level”. The report also raises concerns about the EU’s lithium battery manufacturing capacity and its reliance “on production sourced outside Europe with limited transparency”. The lead-acid battery industry has faced challenges in recent years from the EC, for example with proposals to add four lead compounds indispensable in making lead batteries to its REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) prioritization list, effectively banning their use.
Nyrstar’s Port Pirie lead smelter required to cut emissions by 20% A new licence agreed by the Port Pirie lead smelter owner Nyrstar and Australia’s Environment Protection Authority on June 30 caps emissions by 20% to just 0.4 micrograms/ decilitre per cubic metre. The company also has to submit a comprehensive ‘Lead in Air Monitoring and Reporting Plan’ by July 24, which includes daily measuring and monitoring of TSL (Total Suspended Particulate) lead in air, and report its data to the EPA.
The conditions, to begin on July 1, will last for 12 months at the site, one of the largest primary lead smelters in the world. Mitsui Bussan Commodities, the metals futures arm of Mitsui & Co, published an article by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which quoted EPA chief executive Tony Circelli as saying the reductions would help to reduce the health effects of lead in the air of the community. “We will require an
44 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
updated Environment Improvement Plan from the operators to address lead and wastewater emissions,” he said. Port Pirie, owned by Nyrstar, only returned to full production in November 2019, after a series of outages in June. This caused lead prices to soar by around $250 a tonne, at one point reaching $2,100. Nyrstar is majority owned by the Trafigura Group, and Port Pirie has been in almost continuous operation for 127 years.
The ILA and EUROBAT in February 2019 persuaded regulators to drop the proposals, which they have done — but this is only until the next review. Despite fears that lead metal itself could be added to the prioritization list, the ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) has not added it this year, but that could still happen in 2021. “The MEP report makes a welcome change in effectively supporting the industry for once,” said one industry commentator. Gert Meylemans, director of communications for EUROBAT, said the organization has always emphasized to MEPs the importance of all technologies playing a role in the decarbonization process. “EUROBAT advocates that all four ‘families’ of battery technologies — lithium, lead, nickel and sodium — can provide distinct and important functions for grid operators and have the potential for significant technological economic improvements,” he said. “We are pleased to see that the reference to ‘a range of battery technologies’ has been included in the report.” Alistair Davidson, director of the Consortium for Battery Innovation, said: “This is an important report by European parliamentarians. They have rightly highlighted that battery energy storage is a priority for a low carbon future and to help boost a green recovery. “The key point is they recognize that all battery technologies have a role to play and advanced lead batteries — made in Europe, and recycled in Europe — often offer the best solution for a range of storage applications.” The report was adopted by 53 votes to three and 15 abstentions.
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NEWS IN BRIEF EnerSys launches range of TPPL batteries for ‘hazardous environments’ International battery manufacturer EnerSys has launched another range of TPPL batteries for materials handling applications, the NexSys ATEX range, the firm said on May 20. The range allows materials handling vehicles to work safely in hazardous areas where there is an explosion risk, the firm says. “Critically for hazardous environments, the batteries’ electrolytes are non-spillable, as they are absorbed into the AGM separator material,” EnerSys says. “They can recharge faster than gel and flooded batteries, with opportunity charging possible as well.” The term ‘ATEX’ is derived from the French ‘ATmoshpères EXplosives’, which applies to atmospheres made potentially explosive by the possible presence of dust or gases likely to ignite or explode, as in oil and gas, mining and chemicals industries, where handling and logistics operations are likely to encounter such environments. “These batteries combine a lot of the benefits of flooded and VRLA gel batteries,” said Mattia Bianconi, application manager Motive Power EMEA with EnerSys. “They are based on our standard NexSys batteries and extend the same advantages to users in hazardous environments, such as mining and tunnelling, chemical and pharmaceutical plants, oil and gas, military and aviation, waste management, printing and paper, among others.”
Aqua Metals regains Nasdaq compliance Aqua Metals, the alternative lead battery recycling firm, announced on June 30 that it had “regained full compliance with the minimum bid price requirement in Nasdaq Rule 5550(a)(2) by achieving a closing bid price for the company’s common stock of at least $1 per share over a minimum of 10 consecutive business days”. According to the Nasdaq rule, if a company’s share price drops below $1 a share and remains below that for a set period of time the firm will be delisted from the exchange. Aqua Metals’ share price
46 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
plummeted from $1.35 a share to $0.81 on December 2, following a fire at its plant in Nevada at the end of November. In early April it hit a record low of $0.33. As of July 1, the share price stood at $1.20. At its peak in March 2017 the shares traded at $19.92. Separately, the firm announced on June 22 that it had successfully performed a test run of its updated and improved electrolyzer. Cotton said in a conference call at the end of April he was optimistic that the company would be able to fund its forward plans despite the virus outbreak and a major fire in December 2019, which ravaged operations, destroying all 16 AquaRefining modules and much other equipment at the firm’s site in Reno, Nevada. He said he hoped the firm would be ‘debt free by the end of the year’. On May 4, Aqua Metals said it had received another $2.5 million as an insurance payment, bringing the total amount so far received to $12.5 million. Out of this, $3,875,000 had been used to pay off a Veritex Bank loan, it said.
Growing sales in China’s auto sector should boost lead battery firms News that the Chinese auto sector was recovering better than expected should give hope to lead battery makers in the country, whose production rate stayed at just over 60% of average capacity for a second consecutive week, the Shanghai Metals Market reported on June 12. Media reports quoted Shi Jianhua, deputy secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers on June 11, as saying car sales were up by double digits in May, on top of a rebound in April. Shi said the month’s sales were 14.5% up on a year ago, far exceeding expectations, with April’s increase of 4.4% over April 2019 ending 21 months of declining sales. “As long as there isn’t a second wave of Covid-19 cases in autumn and winter, China’s auto market will keep doing well,” Shi was quoted as saying, although he warned that the authorities would need to put policies in place to improve consumer confidence. For the first quarter of 2020, sales were down by 42% on Q1 2019, he
said, which was the worst quarter in Chinese history for the auto market. The news should cheer up battery makers, whose operating rates have slowed considerably since the coronavirus crisis, with the SMM reporting drops across leadacid battery producers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hebei provinces for the second straight week as of June 12. In fact the second week was marginally down on the first week of June, falling a further 0.18% to 63.42% of capacity, the SMM said. “It is understood that end-users’ demand for lead-acid batteries remains subdued,” said the report. “Producers of electric bicycle batteries and auto batteries extended promotions for finished products or scaled back operations, so as to clear in-plant inventories. “In Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, where a slew of e-bike battery enterprises are located, sluggish end-users’ consumption, cautious purchases by distributors and producers cash-in inclination in the middle of the year prompted local battery mills to control inventories and cut operating rates.” In lead batteries for energy storage, the SMM said operating rates were relatively higher as exports resumed to overseas customers. Globally, growing demand for electric and hybrid electric vehicles would spur a rise in market value for the lead-acid battery sector to $54.4 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 4.3% by then, according to Data Bridge Market Research. Advances in manufacturing processes would act as a driver to the market, it said.
Cellusuede adapts lead pasting fibres for pandemic shields Cellusuede told Batteries International at the end of May that it “has been utilizing our manufacturing expertise for providing precision, shortcut fibres to swab manufacturers for COVID-19 testing during this pandemic. “The fibres we provide are very similar to typical lead-acid pasting fibres, but are altered in such a way that allows the swabs to be effective in collecting nasal secretions. We are very pleased to be able to support the health industry during these difficult times.”
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NEWS IN BRIEF Remy Battery bounces back after fire Remy Battery, the family-owned battery and battery accessories retailer in Milwaukee, US, said on May 18 it expects to be back up and running after a fire destroyed part of its HQ and retail premises in February. The pandemic has caused some delays in making insurance claims, but the firm says the old building has been completely cleared out in preparation for the re-build. “We hope that these issues will be resolved as states begin to eliminate restrictions,” the company said. The fire, in which no one was hurt, broke out at one of two premises owned by Remy Battery, which was founded in 1931 and has had the shop at Lincoln Avenue since 1947. It tore through the firm’s shop and HQ, which at the time was closed indefinitely. Luckily much of the firm’s inventory was in a separate warehouse. “We are projecting that we will have our original retail building stocked with new product and back up and running by the end of fall,” the firm said.
Five illegal containers of used lead batteries prevented from entering Malaysia For the record, Malaysia’s Environment and Water Ministry on March 30 stopped an illegal attempt to import five containers of used lead-acid batteries, the US-based NGO BAN (Basel Action Network) reported on April 3. The ministry managed to stop the five containers coming onshore at Port Klang, thanks to information shared by the Australian government, and issued a notice to the shipping company to send the shipment back to Australia, its point of origin. It said under the Basel Convention the shipment was classified as hazardous waste and that delivery had been made without the approval of the Department of Environment, which abides by the rules of the Basel Convention for Malaysia, the report said. No other information was given about the source of the used lead batteries. BAN was created in 1997 by Jim Puckett. It was originally a project
48 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
of the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange which he also co-founded. An NGO based in Seattle, Washington, the organization says it is ‘the most steadfast supporter of the UN Basel Convention, which restricts the international hazardous waste trade’. In 1989 the United Nations created the Basel Convention on the control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, which required all countries to obtain prior consent from a receiving country before exporting hazardous waste.
Water Gremlin offers nonVOC Gremlin Green Water Gremlin, the US battery terminal manufacturer, is now offering products with non-VOC (volatile organic compounds) coatings which are known as Gremlin Green. Water Gremlin was censured and fined last year by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for affecting the local air quality through the use of trichloroethylene to clean parts before assembly. Since January Water Gremlin has stopped using TCE and its use is likely to be banned shortly for across the state. Kurt Gifford, vice president of sales at Water Gremlin, says impressions of the firm have changed over recent months. “In these uncharted times of Covid-19, there was once a push to shut down operations at Water Gremlin, we are now considered an essential business supplying terminals to back up storage batteries and even the ventilators in the medical industry.”
Abertax designs prototype ventilator for Covid care For the record, battery monitoring systems designer Abertax has designed a prototype ventilator that can be used by two Covid-19 patients at a time, president George Schembri told Batteries International in late April. Following a request from the Maltese government’s health authorities, the company is adapting its BMS and adding a respiratory function to enable oxygen to be supplied to two patients at once, while the equipment at the same time monitors the entire operation in safety and according to patients’ requirements.
“The expertise of our engineers in R&D, including our CEO Malcolm Tabone, in sensor and battery monitoring technology, coupled with design, programming and manufacture of similar advanced equipment, has proved to be instrumental through this collective effort,” said Schembri.
GreenSeal Alliance adds Royal Power GreenSeal Alliance announced in early June it had welcomed Royal Power Solutions to the grouping. Royal Power offers a variety of products such as terminals, busbars and other components to help in the global trend of increased electrification. Royal Power joins 20 other suppliers in the battery industry to promote lead batteries using GreenSeal Technology.
US Navy calls on Exide for battery back-up for submarines GNB Industrial Power, the stored energy division of Exide Technologies, has agreed to provide another five stationary back-up battery banks for the US Navy’s submarines, the company said on June 30. The deal is part of a five-year contract that GNB has with the Department of Defense for main storage lead-acid battery systems for the US Navy’s fleet of submarines, and continues a series of supplies that go back to 2005. GNB supplies the navy with its Absolyte VRLA AGM batteries, which are almost maintenancefree and a good fit for submarine applications, the company says. The Los Angeles (SSN 688)-class submarines are nuclear powered and equipped with a back-up propulsion system that consists of a diesel generator plus batteries to provide emergency electrical power. On May 21 Exide, — see fuller story in this news section — which has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings for the third and last time in the company’s history, announced the US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware had authorized it to continue paying employees, manufacture and deliver products to customers and pay suppliers for goods and services for the duration of its sale and restructuring process.
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ALTERNATIVE ENERGY STORAGE NEWS
Gravitricity to build demonstrator site for its gravity storage system UK gravity storage system firm Gravitricity has signed an agreement to build a 250kW demonstration system at Port Leith, in Scotland, it said on May 8. The £1 million ($1.25 million) project involves using excess electricity from the grid to winch 12,000-tonne weights up a 16m high rig, then releasing them to send power back to the grid when needed. The weights are made of steel and filled with iron ore. Gravitricity has signed a
land rental agreement with Forth Ports to build the demonstrator. While this project will be tested using a tall grid from which the weights will be lowered and raised, the ultimate aim is to make use of existing disused mine shafts, which have the required height for dropping the blocks and releasing energy. “This grid-connected demonstrator will use two 25-tonne weights suspended by steel cables. In our first test we’ll drop the weights together to gener-
ate full power and verify our speed of response,” said lead engineer Miles Franklin. “We calculate we can go from zero to full power in less than a second — which can be extremely valuable in the frequency response and back-up power markets. “We will then run tests with the two single weights, dropping one after the other to verify smooth energy output over a longer period. Together, this two-month programme will confirm our modelling and give us valu-
able data for our first fullscale 4MW project, which will commence in 2021.” The demonstrator should be up and running by late December, the firm said. To finance the demonstrator, Gravitricity raised more than £750,000 in a crowdfunding campaign. It has also received a £640,000 grant from the UK government agency Innovate UK. Dutch winch specialist Huisman is working with the company to build the prototype and identify potential sites in Europe.
MRI scanning to develop sodium battery design Magnetic resonance imaging could be a key resource in developing a new generation of sodium batteries — a possible successor to the current lithium-ion batteries — according to research announced in mid-June by the University of Birmingham. A team, led by Melanie Britton in the university’s
School of Chemistry, has developed a technique, with researchers from Nottingham University, that uses MRI scanning to monitor how sodium performs in operando. The technique, which was developed to detect the movement and deposition of sodium metal ions within
a sodium battery, will enable faster evaluation of new battery materials, and help to accelerate this type of battery’s route to market. Although sodium appears to have many of the properties required to produce an efficient battery, there are challenges in optimizing the performance.
Highview Power wins £10 million grant from UK for first commercial liquid air installation Highview Power, the UK liquid air energy storage company, said on June 18 had been given a £10 million ($12.5 million) UK government grant for its first commercial CRYOBattery, to be installed in northern England with Carlton Power. The 50MW/250MWh cryogenic facility, using a decommissioned thermal power station, will deliver long-duration storage to the National Grid just outside Manchester, the UK’s third largest city. “It will provide grid services to help integrate renewable energy, stabilize the regional electrical grid, and ensure future energy security during blackouts and other disruptions,” said the company. “Highview Power and Carlton Power plan to co-develop up to four additional CRYOBattery projects in the UK, totalling more than 1GWh.” Highview Power was the only energy storage technology company to be awarded a grant from the UK Depart-
50 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
ment for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s Storage at Scale competition. The Trafford Park project is scheduled to begin later this year and start operating commercially in 2022. It will use existing substation and transmission infrastructure, with income coming from several markets, for instance arbitrage, grid balancing and ancillary services such as frequency response. Highview Power says its systems can provide weeks of storage as opposed to just hours. Its systems are scalable and can deliver up to 2GWh of energy, with a lifespan of 30 years, the firm says. “At giga-scale, CRYOBatteries paired with renewables are equivalent in performance to — and could replace — thermal and nuclear baseload power in addition to supporting electricity transmission and distribution systems while providing additional security of supply.”
Key among these is understanding how the sodium behaves inside the battery as it goes through its charging and discharging cycle, enabling the points of failure and degradation mechanisms to be identified. The team also included scientists from the Energy Materials group in the University of Birmingham’s School of Metallurgy and Materials, and from Imperial College London. “Taking the battery apart introduces internal changes that make it hard to see what the original flaw was or where it occurred. But using the MRI technique we’ve developed, we can actually see what’s going on inside the battery while it is operational, giving us unprecedented insights into how the sodium behaves,” says Britton. “This technique gives us information into the change within the battery components during the operation of the battery, which are not available to us through other techniques. This will enable us to identify methods for detecting failure mechanisms as they happen, giving us insights into how to manufacture longer life and higher performing batteries.”
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ALTERNATIVE ENERGY STORAGE NEWS
Oxis to turn Mercedes Brazil plant into lithium sulfur battery factory UK-based Oxis Energy, the lithium sulfur battery designer and developer, said on May 12 it had signed a 15-year lease with Mercedes Benz Brazil to transform the automaker’s site in Juiz de Fora, Brazil into what it says is the world’s first lithium sulfur battery manufacturing plant. Oxis claims its Li-S technology will revolutionize the rechargeable battery market, with a theoretical energy density five times greater than lithium. Oxis is partnering the Minas Gerais Development
Company in the venture, and the two have already worked together with several Brazilian companies using the Li-S cells in regional aircraft, buses and trucks. In the first phase of development the aim is to enable the production of five million Li-S cells a year, with the option to extend and double capacity. The design and engineering of the plant and machinery layout will be done by Nordika Pharmaceutical of Brazil, and upgrading will begin immediately,
Oxis said. “Within five years, this factory will be a centre of excellence, producing world-class lithium sulfur cells and battery systems,” said Oxis Energy CEO Huw HampsonJones. “Exporting worldwide to a range of markets: aviation, defence, HEVs, light commercial vehicles and large marine vessels, our aim is to aid the Brazilian government in eliminating all ICE buses over a period of 25 years, equating to the production of more than four billion cells.
“Brazil has the third largest bus market in the world, with 700,000 ICE buses in circulation.” Separately, on May 11 Oxis announced it had appointed Scott Davis to manage cell production at its new manufacturing plant in Wales, where the company will make enough cathode and electrolyte to support the production of 500,000 cells, with room for expansion. Davis joins the company from Belgian gelatin producer PB Leiner, where he was production manager.
Form Energy ‘aqueous air battery’ in long duration storage project Form Energy said on May 11 it had signed a contract to deploy a 1MW/150MWh pilot project — the longest duration energy storage of its kind and with the potential to be a game-changer for the electrical industry — in Cambridge, Minnesota in the US. Form Energy says it will use an unspecified “aqueous air battery system” to provide the duration. Typical lithium--ion battery systems provide two to four hours of storage compared to Form’s 150 hours. “Long-duration solutions will play an entirely different role in a clean electricity system than the conventional battery systems deployed at scale today,” says Jesse Jenkins, assistant professor at the US Princeton University. A true low-cost, longduration solution that can sustain output for days would fill gaps in wind and solar energy production that would otherwise require firing up a fossil-fuelled power plant. A technology like that could make a reliable, affordable 100% renewable electricity system a real possibility.
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“This duration allows for a fundamentally new reliability function to be provided to the grid from storage, one historically only available from thermal generation resources,” says a Form Energy spokesperson. “Our aqueous air battery system leverages some of the safest, cheapest, most abundant
materials on the planet and offers a clear path to lowcost, long-duration energy storage.” This system will be the first commercial deployment by Form Energy’s of its proprietary energy storage system. “Commercially viable long-duration storage could
increase reliability by ensuring that the power generated by renewable energy is available at all hours,” says Great River Energy chief power supply officer Jon Brekke. “Such storage could be particularly important during extreme weather conditions that last several days.”.
Schmid finalizes JV to build 3GWh vanadium redox flow battery plant in Saudi Arabia German technology group Schmid on May 6 finalized a joint venture with Nusaned Investment, owned by Saudi Arabian chemical manufacturing firm SABIC, to manufacture 3GWh of vanadium redox flow batteries in the kingdom. Over the next two months, the Riwaq Industrial Development Company will also join the JV, which has been named Everflow. According to SABIC, the joint venture aims to set up a 3 Gigawatt-scale manufacturing facility in Dammam 3rd Industrial City to produce energy storage systems to pair with utility-scale renewables installations. The VRFB systems will also provide back-up for telecoms towers, mines, remote cities and off-grid locations, along with grid integration and the establishment of mini grids. “As per the new energy mix announces
this year, Saudi Arabia will aim to install 57.5GW of renewable capacity in the kingdom by 2030,” says SABIC. “Utilityscale energy storage systems will be critical to ensure that the new renewable capacity is stabilized and connected reliably to the grid. The kingdom could also leverage this technology in upcoming mega projects.” Schmid, which has 1,000 employees around the world, has a foothold in a range of different technologies and chemicals, from PV to automation to laser and plasma technologies, printing and energy storage, in which its main focus is vanadium redox flow batteries. It has taken a year since the JV was signed and announced in May 2019 for the plant to be awarded all the necessary approvals and satisfy closing conditions. Now the JV has been given the go-ahead, production should begin next year, says SABIC.
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 51
BESS NEWS
Vistra plans addition to Moss Landing to make ‘largest battery in the world’ Vistra announced on May 19 that it plans to expand the size of the battery energy storage systems at its power plant site in Moss Landing, California. The company has entered a 10-year resource adequacy agreement with the utility Pacific Gas and Electric for a new 100MW/400MWh battery to complement the 300MW/1,200MWh battery already being built. When the Moss Landing battery comes online, Vistra says it will be the larg-
est battery of its kind in the world. This is subject to approval by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).This was filed on May 18 with a decision on its approval to be announced by September. “Our Moss Landing site provides a unique opportunity for extensive battery development with its existing infrastructure and the physical space needed for even more potential growth,” says Curt Morgan, Vistra’s president and
chief executive. “Utilizing our existing power plant sites allows us to cost-competitively develop renewable and battery storage assets as we rotate our power generation portfolio toward carbon-free technologies,”. This announcement brings Vistra’s total to 436.25MW/1,745MWh of battery energy storage under contract in California: Moss Landing – Phase I (300MW/1,200MWh) Moss Landing – Phase II (100MW/400MWh)
Battery storage to be yet more critical for electricity grids, says Wood Mac Batteries will outnumber gas peaker plants across Europe by 2030 thanks to the dominance of wind and solar power generation, a June 3 report from market analysts Wood Mackenzie says. They will also be a vital option in balancing grids and maintaining flexibility. The report names Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain as sourcing the majority of their power from VRE (variable renewable energy) wind, solar and other re-
newables as early as 2023, and by 2040 Europe will have added another 169GW of wind and 172GW of solar power to its mix. “As that variable output surges, Europe has four options for balancing out its grid: pumped hydro, gas peakers, energy storage and interconnectors,” says the report, by principal analyst Rory McCarthy. “Only the final three of these are likely to be the focus of new investment.”
The growth in VRE has been made possible by increased government subsidies, falling technology costs and reduced investment risk, says the report, while it cautions there may be other longer-term effects to deal with. “Now the majority of VRE volumes are being deployed through government renewables auctions with an attractive risk/return profile, but with little or no value placed on flexibility,” it says.
KES project spells end of line for coal generation in Hawaii Plus Power, a developer of utility-scale battery storage projects, announced on May 26 that its 185MW/565MWh Kapolei Energy Storage project had been selected by the Hawaiian Electric Companies as part of the utility’s transition to renewables. The June 2022 completion of the KES project will ensure that the AES coal plant — the last- remaining coal-fired generation in Hawaii — will end operations in September 2022. Plus Power says this project is also the largest renewable energy procurement by the US state. It supports the state’s goal of shifting from fossil fuels to completely renewable energy generation. The announcement follows the second phase of a competitive RFP process in
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which Hawaiian Electric selected 16 renewable energy and battery storage projects across three islands. Plus Power’s KES project is in Kapolei, on the island of Oahu, and is the largest battery storage project selected. The project will provide load shifting and fast-frequency response services to Hawaiian Electric, enhancing grid reliability and accelerating the integration of readily available renewable energy. Plus Power started work on KES in early 2019 in cooperation with the project’s landowner, Kapolei Properties, an affiliate of the James Campbell Company. Construction of the Kapolei Energy Storage facility should start in summer 2021, subject to approval from the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission.
Oakland (36.25MW / 145MWh) In addition to its California projects, the company’s 10MW/42MWh Upton 2 Battery Storage Facility came online in December 2018. It is the largest solar-plus-storage system in Texas. Pending the receipt of CPUC approval, Vistra says it anticipates construction on the second phase of the Moss Landing battery energy storage project will start this July and commercial operations will begin by August 2021. Phase I remains on schedule to begin operations this December. “The priority is to push renewables into the system first, and deal with the consequences later.” The report predicts that coal will be the biggest loser, disappearing completely from Germany’s power mix by 2038, followed by nuclear, whose footprint will halve in Europe by 2040. Large gas-fired capacity will also decline massively, with a 60% reduction by 2030. And as conventional assets all decline, the need for balancing and flexibility increases. The report cites hourly supply in Spain as a case in point, where on low VRE days gas has to be the main source of power, with its ability to be flexible, and on high VRE days there is more wind and solar generation than the system requires. “This means you either curtail power from these resources, or use other sources of flexibility to manage the imbalance, such as exporting power through an interconnector to another power market, or charging one large or lots of smaller batteries,” says the report. “At times of high VRE, with little conventional plant running, ie huge volumes of spinning turbines on the system, the system loses inertia and becomes unstable.”
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BESS NEWS
IESA pushes case for clear legal frame for Indian energy storage The India Energy Storage Alliance called in a letter to the Ministry of Power on June 5 for energy storage to be given a clear legal framework as it emerges as one of the fastest growing in the world. The letter put forward suggestions to the MoP to amend the 2003 Electricity Act and, if accepted, would redefine the energy storage sector and emphasize its importance as it aims to install 50GWh of advanced energy storage manufacturing capacity in India. Among the proposals are to redefine energy storage in law to acknowledge its flexibility and applications; advocate a Storage Purchase Obligation for distribution companies; allow ancillary services under regulatory approval and with certain power quality standards; require all states to produce
roadmaps to improve and supply a range of features such as EV charging integration and demand response; allow the aggregation of open access electricity; and add a number of missing definitions to the Act, such as ‘renewable energy’ and ‘storage’. In the letter, from IESA executive director Debi Prasad Dash, concerns from the group’s members are raised that recent technology developments are missing from the Electricity Act and are needed to allow it to start ancillary services and frequency regulation, as well as enable EV charging infrastructure, V2G and microgrid integration. The proposals would make India’s electricity grid ‘more resilient and reliable’, Dash says. “IESA will be actively engaged with the ministry
whenever required to create a robust power sector that will support the push towards rapid development and self-reliance. “With the investing climate never better than it is presently, at least in terms of government support at both central and state levels, the storage push can’t come sooner. In view of the above, it is highly important to include direction from the Electricity Act to frame policy framework required for adopting storage technologies in suitable areas.” Clarity in law is vital for the battery storage industry in India, which is a rapidly growing feature of India’s energy picture. A commentary from the International Energy Agency in January said it would likely need more battery storage than any other country as it pushes for renewables.
NYISO sets out most aggressive clean energy mandates in US New York State’s grid operator, NYISO, has set the most aggressive clean energy mandates in America, according to its CEO Richard Dewey in his introduction to the Power Trends 2020: The Vision for a Greener Grid report, released in early June. “The importance of a reliable grid electric system has never been more apparent,” he says. “Looking forward, chief among our priorities are the steps necessary to prepare for the grid of the future… There is no precedent for the level of change needed to meet these objectives. “2020 has proven to be a year unlike any other in recent memory. Through these challenges, the NYISO remains committed to engaging stakeholders, market participants, policymakers
and the public to support an electric system that is reliable, efficient, affordable and clean. “The NYISO firmly believes that it must continue to enhance the benefits of its wholesale markets and system planning while maintaining grid reliability for New York’s electric energy consumers.” What the report refers to as Energy Storage Resources, including batteries, flywheels, capacitors, vehicleto-grid, thermal, pumped hydro and compressed air storage, are listed in the NYISO’s ‘Market Enhancement Opportunities’, along with carbon pricing, enhancing energy and ancillary services, and distributed energy resources. “In 2018, the NYISO developed market rules for
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integration of energy storage resources in wholesale markets,” says the report. “FERC [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] accepted these rules, which are expected to be implemented this year. Following the success of its energy storage resource design, the NYISO is exploring Hybrid Storage Resource market participation options (for co-locating energy storage resources next to power generation sources). “The ESR participation model will allow storage resources to self-manage their energy levels or use the NYISO’s energy level monitoring capabilities. “The option of relying on the NYISO’s capabilities to monitor and manage energy storage levels is intended to optimize storage resource
“With ambitious plans to use renewables — particularly solar PV — to satisfy rapidly increasing electricity demand, India will be the country with the greatest need for additional flexibility in the coming decades,” says energy analyst Claudia Pavarini, who wrote the commentary as part of an IEA World Energy Outlook series of reports. “In 2018, India’s investment in solar PV was greater than in all fossil fuel sources of electricity combined. Batteries are ideally suited to meet these rising flexibility needs … renewables make up two thirds of all additions to global power generation capacity through 2040, and solar PV becomes the largest source of installed capacity around 2035. “These trends will drive a significant increase in the use of battery storage, led by India, which is projected to account for more than one third of total deployment by 2040.” availability for periods when they can best support bulk power system reliability.” The NYISO says it is working with stakeholders to create innovative rules for integrating energy storage technology and DERs onto the grid, including limited ESRs that can provide capacity to the grid for two hours. The only kind of batteries specified in the report, however, are lithium batteries — no other chemistries are mentioned. Doling said NYSERDA was technology agnostic, and other battery technologies are being considered. “The R&D side of NYSERDA has an interest in funding non-lithium technologies because lithium is good for four to six hours’ duration but if it’s more than eight hours it becomes cost prohibitive. That’s where other battery technologies become more attractive,” he said.
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SMART GRID STORAGE NEWS
Consortium to roll out smart grid control system for UKPN customers Software to control electricity networks operated by UK Power Networks designed by a consortium of three companies is to come online this year, the group said on June 11. The software, designed by Smarter Grid Solutions, Nextant and GreenSync, will be rolled out to all of UKPN’s eight million customers in London, East Anglia and the southeast of England without a single physical alteration needed.
“That’s the beauty of the solution,” said a spokesperson from SGS. “We are using software and smart controls to avoid those physical changes. The software will be installed in UKPN’s data centres to support operations across all three of their licence areas. “It uses a combination of forecasts, historical data and real-time sensing from the grid to advise on the need for flexibility, coordinate flexibility procurement from
customers, and delivery at the point of need through coordinated control.” The software enables energy devices such as solar panels, wind turbines, EV charging points and batteries to be controlled when the grid is under stress by using telemetry and communications methods to gather data and implement controls instead of adding reinforcements. “In addition, the system will enable the forecasting, analysis and dispatch of in-
EnergyHub, Vivint join forces to link utilities with residential storage Distributed energy resource provider for utilities EnergyHub is working with Vivint Solar to manage behindthe-meter batteries to tie up with grid services in the US, the firms said on June 17. The batteries, to provide demand response and load shifting for the grid, will be managed through EnergyHub’s Mercury DERMS platform.
Vivint Solar, which has more than 196,000 solar installations in the US, provides residential solar-plusstorage systems that use lithium-ion batteries from Korean manufacturer LG Chem. EnergyHub works with more than 40 utilities across the US. “Residential battery programs are a win-win for
utilities and their customers,” said Jordan Winder, vice president of New Products for Vivint Solar. “Our partnership with EnergyHub helps utilities build portfolios of clean, reliable resources while rewarding our customers for contributing to the health of their local grid.” Despite the global Covid-19 crisis, the energy stor-
Simpliphi Power ties up with Heila in VPP demo Simpliphi Power, a lithium battery supplier, announced on June 3 a partnership with start-up Heila Technologies, a developer of self-managing microgrids, in a trial virtual power plant project. The firms will deploy solar plus storage systems in a demonstration project in Louisiana, US, along with the Southwestern Electric Power Company. The plan is to manage an intelligent network that will control the batteries to interact with the grid or island itself during power outages. “Under a single platform, SWEPCO will be able to leverage the storage + solar systems to correct power factor, perform peak shaving and manage overall supply, all while improving customer resiliency,” says Simpliphi CEO Catherine Von Burg. The Heila platform automatically responds to changes in any of the connected components of the system or electric grid in a distributed intelligent network that is controlled centrally. Simpliphi will provide the 3.8kWh
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batteries and inverters for the pilot, while Heila’s EDGE controller acts as a battery and energy management system. The PHI batteries measure and report voltage, current and temperatures and give real-time state-of-charge and health so that faults can be detected instantly. They can be operated by Heila either in grid-connected or off-grid mode, and fully control the flow of power to and from the grid, load curtailment and so on. Utility or grid operators can set performance objectives at aggregate level and record data to streamline operations. “This project will serve as a model for other stakeholders who are interested in the benefits of decentralized energy generation and storage working as a virtual power plant,” the companies said. “Building resiliency for utility customers using renewable power generation plus storage will be key as the southeast US continues to see an increase in extreme weather events.
novative advanced power electronic devices — soft open points and soft power bridges — to provide further flexibility in balancing supply and demand on congested circuits,” said the consortium, which has been working with UKPN for more than a year. A study of the software by Wood Mackenzie has called it ‘one of the most advanced grid planning and operations digitalization efforts in the electricity industry’. age market is still expected to grow to 2025, with the residential sector accounting for the largest share by application and most demand coming from Germany, Australia and the US, according to Energy Storage Market – Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2020-2025) by Report Linker. “The residential sector is expected to dominate the energy storage market over the forecast period,” the report says. “The residential usage of energy storage systems is gaining importance on account of growing need to offset power blackouts, which result from growth in power demand from the existing power infrastructure. “Residential energy storage system business models are still at the early development stages in most markets. However, residential customers are expected to become actively involved in modifying their energy spending patterns by monitoring their actual consumption in real time.” The report says India is one of the most promising countries for growth, and that North America is likely to see a high growth rate because of favourable government policies and increased spending by the residential sector on rooftop solar installations.
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 55
SMART GRID STORAGE NEWS
Largest V2G project in world starts in Turin, Italy Work has begun in Turin, Italy on the largest vehicleto-grid project in the world, partners Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Engie EPS said on May 20. The automaker selected energy group Engie EPS to build the infrastructure for the project, which is being installed with compliance to safety regulations necessitated by the coronavirus outbreak. Phase 1 of the project, the construction site for which is now open at the Drosso logistics center, will accommodate 64 two-way fast charging points, controlled centrally in a system designed and built by Engie. The 32 V2G columns, with two charging points on each, will be installed by the end of July, with the infrastructure extended to interconnect up to 700 electric vehicles by the end of 2021, the companies said. “In its final configuration, the project will be capable of supplying up to 25MW of regulatory capacity,
making it the largest V2G facility every built in the world,” said FCA. Carlalberto Guglielminotti, Engie CEO, said: “We are continuing to build the country’s future in partnership with FCA, by developing the technology required for the electricity grid to support deployment of electric cars. At the same time, the project will also help to stabilize the network.” “By aggregating with other FCA assets at Mirafiori in Turin — including 5MW of solar panel capacity — this V2G infrastructure will become a true virtual power plant, indeed the most innovative one in Italy,” said FCA. “It will have the capability to provide a high level of resource optimization to the equivalent of 8,500 homes and a wide range of service to the network operator, including ultrafast frequency regulation.” Robert di Stefano, head of EMEA e-mobility at FCA, called the project a
“laboratory to experiment on and develop an offering to add value in the energy markets. “On average, cars remain unused for 80%-90% of the day,” he said. “During this long period, if connected to the grid by V2G technology, customers can therefore receive money or free energy in exchange for the balancing service offered, without compromising their mobility needs in any way.” Vehicle-to-grid technology is slowly gaining ground across Europe. In a webinar hosted by the International Renewable Energy Agency in January, Francisco Boshell, IRENA’s team leader for renewable energy technology standards and markets, said total storage capacity in EVs would total 14TWh by 205. This is more than enough to support a grid system powered by wind and solar. This was 5TWh more than in stationary batteries, he said.
Small-scale VPP planned for Maryland Delmarva Power, a utility serving the Delmarva Peninsular of the US states of Maryland and Delaware, has selected Sunverge for a proposed behind-the-meter virtual power plant project on the Elk Neck peninsula in Cecil County, Maryland. “The project is expected to increase overall grid reliability, distributed energy resource integration, and allow for potential participation in the PJM wholesale electricity market,” says Sunverge. “The VPP will enable additional grid services, including peak shaving and reactive power support. The project is planned to have 0.55MW/2.2MWh capacity
and is projected to create $2 million in value over a 15year period.” Sunverge CEO Martin Milani says: “We are confident that Sunverge’s advanced DER Control and aggregation solution will demonstrate the value of aggregating residential behind-the meter systems for the Maryland electricity grid and participating residential customers. “It will provide autonomous and aggregated energy storage, with the goal of providing additional grid reliability and resiliency benefiting Delmarva Power’s entire service area. “The combination of real-time dynamic load flex-
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ibility and grid services is a powerful tool for managing the grid of the future and integrating the growth of distributed energy resources.” The VPP will provide backup power during outages to homes on a peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay. These homes are in a heavily forested area and served by a four-mile long overhead and underground distribution feeder. Sunverge was selected from five vendors in the competitive bid process for the project. The proposal is under review by the Maryland Public Service Commission and still subject to its approval.
UK consortium completes control platform for V2G management UK consortium VIGIL claims to have designed the first comprehensive communication and control platform for regulating EVs when connected to the grid, it said on April 30. The project, by Aston University, ByteSnap Design, Grid Edge and Nortech Management as VIGIL, is an off-vehicle energy distribution management system that regulates EV charging and discharging with energy dispatch, avoiding the risk of overloading or outage at times of peak charge or discharge. “During the project, bidirectional power flows between EVs, buildings and electric networks were monitored and controlled in real time. Now, the VIGIL platform operates in full control of how, when and the rate at which EVs are charged/discharged with the simultaneous consideration of multiple constraints,” the consortium said. Each member of VIGIL had its specific part to play. Nortech developed the controller to monitor voltage levels and available capacity; Grid Edge provided distributed energy asset optimization methods and controls; ByteSnap Design developed a smart charge point communications controller, RAY; and Aston University researched the impact on EV battery performance and degradation when used in V2G applications. Dunstan Power, director of ByteSnap Design, said they already had their first commercial customers. “We believe that platforms such as VIGIL are the future of energy management in tomorrow’s transport infrastructure based on electric vehicles,” he said.
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COVER STORY: STOP-START, EFB, THE BASICS The rise and rise of stop-start cars has been accompanied by a growing need for better batteries. Initially AGM batteries met this need. Now cheaper EFBs are selling in volume. It’s a huge potential market.
The joys of enhanced flooded batteries Stop-start cars are not new. Nor are they that revolutionary. But they are the template for the way that the automotive industry will reckon as the new standard. Or at least until the time when pure electric vehicles become, as some people believe, the norm. Most of the thinking behind them goes back to the oil crises of the early and late 1970s. When the price of oil leapt from $22 a barrel to $55 overnight and then jumped at the end of the decade to $125 everyone realised that the era of the gas-guzzler would have to come to an close. The race between car manufacturers — and it was a race — to increase the miles per gallon was off. (Or litres per 100 kilometres if working in Europe.) It was helped by the start of a new wave of environmental awareness where the legislative teeth of the European Union and the US started to bite. The US Congress passed the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in 1975. The law called for a doubling of passengervehicle efficiency—to 27.5 miles per gallon —within 10 years. Car manufacturers across the world tried everything to meet the new standards. Since then everything from being able to automatically check the pressure of the tires to adding two ex-
tra gears have been tried. In Europe, in 1997, the New European Driving Cycle was introduced. This looked, among other things, at the emission levels of car engines while stopped in traffic. In European traffic it reckoned that roughly a quarter of the time the engine was idling. (As opposed to around 11% in the US.) It is now recognised that fuel economy gains of between 3% to a potential 12% (almost certainly unrealistic) can be made during this period. But returning to these early days, Toyota was the first — and first by a long leap — automotive manufacturer to understand that switching off the engine when the car came to a halt in traffic could save petrol. In 1974 it launched the six-cylinder Toyota Crown in 1974 — the first stop-start vehicle in the world — which claimed up to a 10% fuel saving in traffic. The nearest possible contender for seeing the potential of the technology was Volkswagen which introduced a stop-start car in the early 1980s for some of its Polo range. Research units across the world looked at the issue. In Australia, CSIRO, the country’s research agency, spent time investigating the possibilities of stop-start in terms of the de-
mands it made on the battery. In May 1978 David Rand’s CSIRO Novel Battery Technologies Group produced a report — Effect of Variable Load Profile, Including Regeneration, on Capacity of Lead-Acid Batteries — but this was never taken further. Despite Toyota’s early look at stopstart — and the Vo l k s w a g e n Group and Fiat’s introduction of stopstart cars in the 1990s — the technology only entered mainstream car manufacturing much later. Honda and Toyota helped lead the way in the late 1990s with Indian car maker Mahindra & Mahindra launching a microhybrid system in May 2000. Citroën took it further in 2006 and BMW, Fiat, GM, Land Rover introduced the product line in 2008. Ford, Renault and Vauxhall following suit in 2010 and the rest of the industry falling in line shortly afterwards. But the big problem has always been the battery — a fact recognized from the beginning.
As a rough rule of thumb an EFB battery costs about a third more than a regular SLI battery and a third less than the higher performing AGM battery. The more expensive the battery, however, is compensated for by slower aging and greater cycle life. 58 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
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COVER STORY: STOP-START, EFB, THE BASICS Under the previous regime the SLI was only used for the sudden influx of power to start the engine. The rest of the time it would be permanently topped up while the engine was running. KEY FEATURES OF EFB TECHNOLOGY Enhanced flooded batteries have two main characteristics, namely scrim and acid circulator. The scrim is a polyester element added between the plate and the separator. Its purpose is to prevent the erosion of mass by holding the reactive material in its place. This results in an enhanced deep cyclic resistance and a superior charge acceptance. The acid circulator
prevents the stratification of the acid. This modification uses the inertial movements of the vehicle to maintain a constant circulation of the acid. Also due to the homogenous density levels of the acid, charge acceptance and overall battery life are improved. The technology often comes with adequate thermal stability, making it suitable for hot climates. Very low water consumption, is also sought in most cases, this is provided by the lid design.
In the following pages related research pieces by Hammond, Exide and a profile of Microporous’s developments in EFB take the story further.
The battery problem is how it can meet the new demands being made of it. Under the previous regime the SLI was only used for the sudden influx of power to start the engine. The rest of the time it would be permanently topped up while the engine was running. With automatic stop-start systems, the engine is switched off several times during the journey and is only topped up when the car is moving. For those minutes, the battery continues to supply all of the electrical appliances in the car — from heavy duty heating or air-conditioning in the car to the windscreen wipers and to the radio — with energy. So when the engine restarts the battery needs to be able to top itself quickly and from a partial state of charge. Even though it is still normal practice for most cars to use a
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conventional SLI battery to operate under this continuous discharging and charging regime, battery life is limited. Claims for how much this shortage of cycle life is has become a lively topic between those that produce more expensive battery variants and the current market. Two different battery types offer superior battery performance in terms of the dynamic charge acceptance required — AGM and EFBs. As a rough rule of thumb an EFB battery costs about a third more than a regular SLI battery and a third less than the higher performing AGM battery. The more expensive the battery, however, is compensated for by slower aging and greater cycle life. EFB batteries are an enhanced version of standard wet-flooded technology. The primary benefits of EFB technology are improved charge acceptance and greater cyclic
durability when operating in a reduced state of charge, Yuasa says that as an approximation, its EFB batteries will provide 270,000 engine starts, compared to 30,000 starts from a standard flooded product. EFB technology relies on improvements to existing flooded technology through the addition of carbon additives in the plate manufacturing process. AGM batteries benefit from the inclusion of unique design features not found in wet-flooded batteries. These include glass mat separators, recombinant lid technology and higher pack pressures to facilitate improved cyclic lifespan. AGM batteries are better suited to meeting the demands of higher specification vehicles that might include technologies such as stopstart, regenerative braking and passive boost.
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 59
H MMOND
EFB ANALYSIS: HAMMOND GROUP
THE CHANGE CATALYST
Development of a novel expander for enhanced flooded batteries Government requirements for improved automotive fuel efficiency have driven continuous changes to the automotive industry’s electrical subsystem designs. It is well-documented that these changes lead to negative
EFBs: THE CONTEXT Today’s automotive industry has placed a strong emphasis on improving fuel efficiency to reduce CO2 emissions and meet more stringent regional regulations. This reduction is primarily achieved by electrification of various components which places additional demands on the battery system. In addition to the typical starting, lighting, and ignition requirements, batteries must now maintain optimal performance with increased electrical loads and regenerative charging. These changes necessitate improvements to charge acceptance and cycle life while maintaining CCA and reserve capacity performance. The battery industry’s answer to these performance challenges is the enhanced flooded battery (EFB), and key to unlocking the full potential of this new battery design is the use of performance additives. The R&D team at Hammond Group Inc has developed a novel EFB expander and validated its benefits through head-to-head full-scale battery tests and controlled laboratoryscale experiments. The R&D team comprised: Marvin Ho, Maureen Sherrick, Dave Petersen and Gordon Beckley.
60 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
plate battery failure modes. Much work has been done in the industry to improve the negative electrode through use of new additives and battery designs. As new materials are introduced, it is necessary to balance the improvement of the targeted characteristics. In this case, the goal is to improve charge acceptance and cycle life while maintaining existing performance characteristics including cold cranking (CCA), reserve capacity (RC), and water consumption (WC). Unfortunately, many additives cannot achieve this goal without a detrimental effect on the existing performance characteristics. Research and development of expanders for enhanced flooded batteries (EFBs) has been underway for years. Much of the work has been primarily focused on carbon additives however, there has been some work focusing on organic additives. Optimizing the selection and loading of both organic and carbon additives is key to enabling improved charge acceptance and cycle life performance without harm to the other performance characteristics (CCA, RC, WC). Hammond’s R&D team has developed a novel expander for enhanced flooded batteries. Controlled experiments in the laboratory have confirmed improved charge acceptance and cycling performance with no loss to other battery performance characteristics versus a Control EFB expander. Experimental testing The Control EFB expander was sent to battery manufacturers for qualification in full-scale battery builds. Batteries manufactured with the Control
EFB expander were compared to industry and manufacturer standards. These qualification tests found that charge acceptance (CA) and cycle life were acceptable, but in some instances, the CCA performance and the water consumption (WC) were suboptimal. Another design iteration was undertaken to improve the CCA and WC while maintaining the performance gains achieved in CA and cycle life. The culmination of this effort is the AE-EFB02 expander which contains a novel combination of organic materials and carbons which were selected from the advanced material screening tool developed by Hammond R&D team. To compare performance versus the Control EFB expander, negative electrodes were pasted with the following parameters: Control EFB: 1.45% loading rate versus oxide; paste density: ~4.3 g/cc AE-EFB02: 1.75% loading rate versus oxide; paste density: ~4.2 g/cc Paste for both mixes was applied to Ca/Sn alloy book mold cast grids such that the dry cured active material weight was 10.0 grams +/- 0.2 grams (grid dimensions are 2” x 1.5” x 0.054”). Both variables were assembled into cells with group elements of both five plates (3P/2N) and three plates (2P/1N). Control positive electrodes were used for all cells. Cells were formed using a two-shot process and analyzed according to this test matrix. (below). The relative performance of AEEFB02 versus Control EFB at the cell level were combined with the Control EFB full-scale battery test results to extrapolate the expected full-scale battery performance for AE-EFB02.
Element grouping
3 Plates (2P/1N)
5 Plates (3P/2N)
Tests performed
Reserve/Crank qDCA High Temperature Float 60˚C
Peukert analysis 17.5% DOD Cycling
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H MMOND
EFB ANALYSIS: HAMMOND GROUP
THE CHANGE CATALYST
Summary of Control EFB test results Test
Criteria
Customer 1
Customer 2
EN50342-1, 6.1: C20
Specification (60Ah)
Pass
Pass
EN50342-1, 6.2: CCA
Specification
Acceptable*
Pass
EN50342-1, 6.4: Charge Acceptance
> 20xI20 (A)
Pass
N/A
EN50342-1, 6.9: Water Consumption
< 3 g/Ah after 42 days
Pass
Acceptable*
EN50342-6, 7.3: DCA
> 0.4 A/Ah
N/A
Pass
EN50342-6, 7.4: 17.5% DOD Cycle test
> 15 units (1275 cycles)
Pass
N/A
Note
* Acceptable to customer’s internal spec
* Acceptable to customer’s internal spec
Table 1: A comparison of two battery manufacturers’ testing results versus test specifications.
Full-scale battery testing results Batteries were built with the Control EFB expander and tested by individual battery manufacturers. Table 1 above shows the summary of test results. As can be seen, the Control EFB expander meets the customers’ expected EN50342-1 performance criteria. Although Control EFB provided
good performance in most of tests, the expander is still not robust enough to deliver consistent performance in various battery designs and manufacturing processes. This drove Hammond R&D team to further develop and refine the expander formulation resulting in the novel AEEFB02 expander.
Performance results of three-plate cell design Figures 1 and 2 show the reserve capacity and cold cranking performance of Control EFB versus AE-EFB02. The initial reserve capacity for AE-EFB02 is higher than that of Control EFB. By the third reserve capacity measurement, they become equal. The cold cranking test is run at -18˚C and consists of a discharge of 10 amps (representing ~8C rate) ending at 1.2 volts per cell. AE-EFB02 has marginally higher performance versus the Control EFB in both tests.
BENEFITS
Figure 1: Reserve capacity comparison of Control EFB with EFB02 (Average of 4 cells)
Figure 2: Cold cranking data comparison of Control EFB and AE-EFB02 (average of 4 cells)
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A novel EFB expander (AE-EFB02) developed by Hammond Group was tested and compared with an industry accepted expander (Control EFB). AE-EFB02 demonstrates benefits which improve the performance of EFB batteries in the following areas: • Superior DCA performance • Reduced water consumption rate at high temperature • More stable performance (potential) of the negative electrode during 17.5% DOD cycling AE-EFB02 expander paves a new pathway for EFB batteries to attain the goals of high DCA and reduced water consumption. AE-EFB02 will further extend the cycle life of EFB batteries if used in combination with positive plates containing lifeextending performance additives such as Treated SureCure 140 (4BS crystal seeds).
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 61
EFB ANALYSIS: HAMMOND GROUP Hammond’s R&D team has developed a novel expander for enhanced flooded batteries. Controlled experiments in the laboratory have confirmed improved charge acceptance and cycling performance with no loss to other battery performance characteristics versus a Control EFB expander.
Figure 3: Water consumption index comparison of Control EFB versus AE-EFB02 (average of 4 cells)
Figure 4: qDCA comparison of Control EFB versus AE-EFB02 (Ic and Id only) with average of 4 cells
Figure 5: Peukert discharge results of Control EFB versus AE-EFB02
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H MMOND THE CHANGE CATALYST
Figure 3 shows the water consumption indicator for both expander formulas. The results for this test are achieved by floating the cell at 2.45 VPC at 60°C for 72 hours. The sum of the amp hours charged during testing is considered to be the water consumption indicator of the cell and is recorded for comparison. The AE-EFB02 achieved a lower water consumption indicator which indicates superior EN50342-1 water consumption performance versus Control EFB. Figure 4 compares the charge acceptance between variables using EN50342-6, section 7.3. Only Ic and Id analyses were performed in this study. With both formulas, a significant different in charge acceptance is observed depending on if it being compared to discharge history or charge history. These results meet expectations since the expander variables are designed for superior charge acceptance in EFB applications. The AE-EFB02 variable had higher performance in both categories when compared to Control EFB. Hammond’s development of this novel EFB expander with higher DCA performance and lower water consumption opens the door for battery manufacturers to provide improved EFB performance. Performance results of five-plate cell design Figure 5 shows the results the Peukert analysis. All cells were discharged using four different rates ranging from 0.15 amps (~20 hours rate) up to 1 amp (~2.5 hours rate). The results are nearly identical for both formulas, showing a slight improvement for the AE-EFB02 variable. Cycling test (17.5%DOD) was run according to EN50342-6, section 7.4 but adjusted to the cell level. Figure 6 shows the results of the full discharge that is performed every 85 cycles. The cycling test was stopped at 850
These qualification tests found that charge acceptance and cycle life were acceptable, but in some instances, the CCA performance and the water consumption were suboptimal. www.batteriesinternational.com
EFB ANALYSIS: HAMMOND GROUP cycles for further investigation. It is evident that AE-EFB02 has a higher capacity through the test until approximately 800 cycles is reached. Figures 7 and 8 are the half-cell voltages near end of test (850 cycles) during discharge for the negative and positive plates. It is evident that the Control EFB cell was limited by the negative electrode at cycle #838, and AE-EFB02 was limited by the positive electrode at cycle #834.
The health of the negative plates containing AE-EFB02 expander was significantly better than the negative plates containing the Control EFB expander during 17.7% DOD cycling testing. If AE-EFB02 were to be used in tandem with a positive plate additive such as 4BS crystal seeds, the positive plate life and hence the life of the battery would be significantly improved.
Figure 6: Twenty-hour capacity results for Control EFB versus EFB02 during 17.5% DOD cycling
H MMOND THE CHANGE CATALYST
Hammond’s development of this novel EFB expander with higher DCA performance and lower water consumption opens the door for battery manufacturers to provide improved EFB performance.
Marvin Ho is Hammond’s CTO and vice president of research & development responsible for the advancement of lead-acid battery electrochemistry through the development of innovative performance additives and lead oxides. With over 25 years of experience in energy storage technologies such as fuel cells, nickel based and lead-acid battery systems, he has worked with several leading research institutes including IEEES at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Trinity College in Ireland.
Figure 7: Positive half-cell voltage results for Control EFB versus AE-EFB02 during 17.5% DOD cycling
He has held leadership research positions at Trojan Battery Company and China Storage Battery prior to joining Hammond Group Inc. He earned his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of South Carolina and has published numerous times and holds eight patents. customerservice@hmndgroup.com
Figure 8: Negative half-cell voltage results for Control EFB versus AE-EFB02 during 17.5% DOD cycling
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For additional information or to request a sample of AE EFB02, please email customerservice@ hmndgroup.com.
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 63
CONFERENCE IN PRINT: EFB
Challenging AGM batteries in stop-start vehicles Stop-start cars, although the norm in Europe for the past decade, still account for less than half of new auto sales in North America. But this is a growing market and a key potential source of new business for the battery industry. Stop-start vehicles put an extra load on the battery making the standard SLI product virtually obsolete. Originally AGM batteries were reckoned robust enough to deal
with these requirements but the trend now is to use the much cheaper EFB (enhanced flooded batteries). Exide Technologies, the international battery firm, decided to investigate how its new Exide Marathon EFB technology compared against other battery technologies available in the North American replacement market. It hired an independent, but unnamed, third-party research company to do just this.
This shows that EFB performed equal to AGM in the real world drive cycle segment where full SOC is not achieved and the recombination current input is not significant. This means that active material charge recovery (SOC) is equal if not better with EFB than AGM. ($&'%") ! + * *
EN 50342-6 Dynamic Discharge Acceptance IDCA (IDCA = Weighted Summation of Ic + Id + Ir)
($&'%") ! + * *
Dynamic charge acceptance test The relatively new EN 50342-6 dynamic charge acceptance test was developed to provide a measure of " $ " $ " $ & & " & $ & the charge acceptance capability of the battery under different states of operation. ($&'%") ! These include fully charged (Ic) and ($&'%") ! partially discharged (Id) â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;staticâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; states EN 50342-6 Dynamic Discharge Acceptance IDCA (Deconstructed IDCA) following a 20-hour rest followed % by a third sequence that is meant to % $ represent a one-week real world drive # $ cycle at 80% SOC (Ir). " Charge current inputs from these # ! three test portions are then weighted " and added together to generate a DCA
! current value that is then normalized by the battery capacity to produce a
Amps/AH figure of merit. In the testing, both EFB and AGM yielded superior IDCA values over a standard SLI battery but a further break down of the numbers before the applied weighting is more revealing.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a long-standing belief in the US that AGM batteries are the only batteries that can be used in start-stop vehiclesâ&#x20AC;? says Mike Judd, the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chief operating officer. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This research challenges that belief and positions the capabilities of Exide EFB technology ahead of AGM in several key performance areas.â&#x20AC;? The research found that Marathon EFB batteries kept pace with AGM batteries, but also exceeded performance in three critical areas for automotive battery performance: longer battery life, high heat tolerance and mid-depth cycling resilience. â&#x20AC;&#x153;For automobiles without startstop systems, Exideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s EFB provides performance advantages over standard flooded batteries with 6x greater cycle life and 2x greater charge acceptance, providing ample energy for todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s modern vehicles equipped with advanced safety and entertainment features,â&#x20AC;? says the firm. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is not an Exide story but a story about choice and technology that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re bringing to the market â&#x20AC;Ś the real story is about driving acceptance of EFBs in the US market and the benefits this technology can bring.â&#x20AC;?
64 â&#x20AC;˘ Batteries International â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2020
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CONFERENCE IN PRINT: EFB â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a long-standing belief in the US that AGM batteries are the only batteries that can be used in start-stop vehiclesâ&#x20AC;? says Mike Judd, the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chief operating officer. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This research challenges that belief and positions the capabilities of Exide EFB technology ahead of AGM in several key performance areas.â&#x20AC;? AGM yielded superior charge acceptance in the fully charged and discharged static sequences of the test. This higher current input is partially driven by the inherent recombination reaction in AGM as it reaches full charge. Although this recombination reaction is integral to non-spillable AGM operation, the added current does not materially impact material conversion and battery capacity return.
Deconstructing the DCA test, it was shown that EFB performed equal to AGM in the real world drive cycle segment where full SOC is not achieved and the recombination current input is not significant. This means that active material charge recovery (SOC) is equal if not better with EFB than AGM. In operation, increased charge acceptance means that the battery will be ready for the next stop-start event. In the case of SLI type of operation,
&!-
&!-
50% DOD cycle life â&#x20AC;˘ Relative # of cycles
"!!*!)!(!'!&!%!$!#!"!!-
$* (/
17.5% PSoC cycle test â&#x20AC;˘ Cumulative discharge capacity
capacity walk down can be mitigated in stop and go commuting operation leading to longer battery life and a reduction in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;discharge only, no trouble foundâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; failures. 50% depth of discharge test The 50%% depth of discharge test is the industry standard for characterizing the deep discharge cycling capability of a battery. While most vehicle applications do not see significant occurrences of deep discharge, this can also be used as another measure of the total potential realizable energy available in the battery. It is recognized that AGM holds an advantage in deep cycle applications of 50% and greater due to its electrode compression characteristic. What was surprising was the EFB was able to yield at least 80% of the AGM cycle life in the 50% DOD test. Although its deep cycle capability makes AGM the technology of choice where the battery is used as the main source of energy, such as powering 12V or 120V accessories, EFB can be very competitive when looked at from $/cycle value view. It is clear that either AGM or EFB provide significantly more deep cycle life capability than the typical SLI battery. 17.5% depth of discharge test The 17.5% depth of discharge test is the industry standard for characterizing the ability of the battery to operate under a partial state of charge application. This test is not only a simple measure of the batteries mid-depth cycling capability, but is also designed to stress the cycle to cycle recharge capability of the battery. Partial state of charge operation is common in stop-start applications but is also evident in SLI applications with heavy electrical loads in a stop and go
$* (/ Enhanced flooded batteries can be very competitive when looked at from a dollars
per $%##cycle value view. It is clear that either AGM or EFB provide significantly more $$## deep $### cycle life capability than the typical SLI battery.
,## +## *## )## (## 66 â&#x20AC;˘ Batteries International â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2020 '## &## %##
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CONFERENCE IN PRINT: EFB
$%## $$## $### ,## +## *## )## (## '## &## %## $## #
Over an 18-week regime the total average capacity output of EFB was 50% greater than AGM for an equally sized battery. This indicates that EFB can not only yield as many cycles as AGM but hold its total capacity to a higher level without decay.
Overcharge/thermal test at 50°C â&#x20AC;˘ Energy absorption
Overcharge/thermal test at 50° C â&#x20AC;˘ Current and temp vs time
It is well known in hotter environments that a primary failure mode for AGM products is the lack of thermal stability leading to water loss. This lack of thermal stability limits the life of AGM in these environments so that the customer does not realize the potential value of their AGM purchase (ie paying for more and receiving less). This AGM weakness is recognized by the US military, who have incorporated an overcharge/thermal runaway test to their AGM test requirement regime. Under this regime, the battery is asked to accept as much current as possible until the energy absorption rate collapses and the battery is no longer functional. The primary failure mode on this test is a significant rise in battery temperature and eventual water loss failure. When this test is run at 50°C, a reasonable but not extreme under-thehood temperature, it was shown that an EFB battery was able to blunt this temperature rise and absorb 52% more energy than a comparable AGM battery before collapse. Translated to operation, this implies that an EFB will last 52% longer than an AGM in high temperature environments before thermal stability and water loss failure is realized.
$* (/
Thermal stability tests
17.5% PSoC cycle test â&#x20AC;˘ Average cumulative discharge capacity
commuting environment where the battery is supporting the alternator output. The testing showed that an EFB battery can yield 10x+ the amount of cumulative energy output (AH) as a common SLI battery. This suggests a significant benefit of EFB in the more demanding SLI applications. What was more surprising was that EFB also fared well versus AGM on this test. Over an 18-week regime the total average capacity output of EFB was 50% greater than AGM for an equally sized battery. This indicates that EFB can not only yield as many cycles as AGM but hold its total capacity to a higher level without decay.
reasonable but not extreme under hood
When this test is run at 50°C â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a temperature â&#x20AC;&#x201D;an EFB battery was able to blunt this temperature rise and absorb 52% more energy than a comparable AGM battery before collapse. In practice an EFB will last 52% longer than an AGM in high temperature environments before thermal stability and water loss failure is realized. www.batteriesinternational.com
Batteries International â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2020 â&#x20AC;˘ 67
WIRE LEAD STRIP FOR PUNCHED GRIDS FOR BATTERIES PRODUCTION
• Various capacity: 6.0 tph - 12 tph - 18 tph • The only process for the production of positive and negative grids • The only upgradeable equipment • Strip width up to 360 mm (wider strip can be produced upon request) • Grid thickness starting from 0.60 mm (thinner strip can be produced upon request) • Furnace Set designed to continuously remelt the scraps resulting from the punching process • Metallurgical characteries of the Properzi wide strip include: - Effective weight Reduction - Increase of specific Performance - Grid with elevated mechanical characteristics
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INSIDE MICROPOROUS Microporous has rapidly been expanding its range of lead battery product offerings. New product lines now include absorbent glass mat separators and pasting papers, more effective products for enhanced flooded batteries, a new venture into pasting paper and a huge rise in dynamic charge acceptance with its DCA Booster Mat product.
Covering all the bases Separators have come a long way in the last 150 years. Some of the first iterations were little more than speciality rags; later, wood veneers found popular use and were still being used into the 1970s. But the first truly industrial separator came from the predecessor firm of what is now Microporous. The turning point in their development was the first rubber separator created by the American Rubber Company in 1934. Its patented product was Ace-Sil — a product that, with a life expectancy of some 20 years (far longer than almost all lead batteries will last) is still in use today.
Since then American Rubber has gone through a series of take-overs and name changes before finally being acquired by Polypore International (owner of separator giant Daramic) in 2008, then spun off again in December 2013 as an independent firm. This followed a divestiture order by the US Federal Trade Commission, which had ruled that the earlier Polypore/Daramic acquisition had been uncompetitive. It was then bought by investment firm Seven Mile Capital Partners for $120 million. At the time of the acquisition Seven Mile said that its investment was going to be a long-term one
“We have been looking to add AGM separators to our product portfolio for a while and finally found a great company with Zisun” — Jean-Luc Koch www.batteriesinternational.com
(and not the normal venture capital investment time, which is shorter). In early 2014 a new management team for Microporous was formed — several of whom had been part of Daramic at some periods in their career. The new chief executive is Jean-Luc Koch, who had spent 13 years at Daramic, starting as a senior sales manager in the late 1990s and leaving in 2010 as vice president of global operations, procurement and engineering. In all, Koch has nearly a quarter century of experience in the lead battery business. His previous background had given him an appreciation of the need for customer support as well as an understanding of the need for continued innovation. The then vice president of sales, Steve McDonald, said at the time of the new-found independence: “We had received a clear message from customers that they wanted Microporous to return with a focus on improving technology through R&D, and to be more customer-centric. “For the past six years, as part of Daramic, we haven’t been given the opportunity to work on R&D projects with our customers. That is now going to change.” At the time of the take-over the firm operated one manufacturing line in Piney Flats, Tennessee and two in Feistritz, Austria, which had been commissioned just days before the Daramic acquisition. Since then the Feistritz operation has installed one additional line. It now has around 85 employees. In mid-2018, a major expansion of the Piney Flats facility was undertaken, and it now employs around 180 staff. The aim was to install a new polyethylene separator manufacturing plant that would further boost PE production in the US. The current capacity of all three Microporous plants together is around 150 million square meters a year (or around 1 billion linear metres).
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INSIDE MICROPOROUS
In mid-2018, a major expansion of the Piney Flats facility was undertaken, and it now employs around 180 staff.
CORPORATE CULTURE
From the first days of Microporous, Koch has laid great emphasis on engineering a positive corporate culture. Although most organizations are happy to talk — and at length too — about a ‘customer-facing approach’, Koch has a different understanding of this. “I’m looking for more than enthusiasm so much as people who actively enjoy their job and want to contribute their ideas and energy to what we’re doing,” he says. ‘To work
72 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
as a large extended family. “We want an organization where we all look forward to coming to work. Not people that are looking at the clock and waiting for the time to go home. People that are both keen to come up with new ideas but have the energy to take them through to fruition.” Microporous’ public announcements of new senior hires always include mention of joining ‘the Microporous family’.
The Piney Flats expansion culminated in the commissioning of the facility this March and an announcement this June that it was fully operational. “This is not just our newest but our most technically advanced battery separator manufacturing facility,” Jean-Luc Koch told Batteries International at the time. “This will triple our PE separator capacity in the US. “The quality and efficiency of the process control package are all part of our new high-tech automation systems.” But talking to Jean-Luc Koch later, his vice president of global sales, Claudia Lorenzini, and vice president of technology David Mihara, it’s clear that Microporous has been steadily developing more ambitious plans than simply upping production levels. In the last two years the separator product range has been radically extended with a host of future improvements being researched. Microporous has spent well over $1 million a year on R&D over the past six years. Key to one avenue of future development was a partnership with Zisun, announced in May last year — this is a minimum 20-year exclusivity agreement and memorandum of understanding that covers the development, manufacturing and distribution of glass micro-fibre battery separators and pasting papers globally. Zisun, based in Chongqing, China, is the largest fully integrated producer of glass micro-fibres and media in Asia, and has fully-owned and controlled access to raw materials, glass micro-fibre manufacturing with both rotary and flame attenuated process technologies, and automated wet-laid media production lines. “We have been looking to add AGM separators to our product portfolio for a while and finally found a great company with Zisun. The high quality of raw materials is important for AGM separators,” says Koch, who had been seeking the right firm for some time. “Zisun has its own glass micro-fibre
Zisun can provide outstanding production capabilities but has little knowledge of the lead battery market, where Microporous can provide its own expertise. www.batteriesinternational.com
INSIDE MICROPOROUS production and control of all the raw materials, plus high-end glass microfibre and wet-laid process capabilities. This makes them an ideal partner for us,” says Koch. The partnership makes sense tactically. Zisun can provide outstanding production capabilities but has little knowledge of the lead battery market, where Microporous can provide its own expertise. “It’s a good alliance of knowledge and skills,” says Koch. “Microporous has a great customer base for flooded lead-acid batteries worldwide who are interested in an alternative high quality supply source for the AGM battery market. The partnership allows Microporous to offer an immediate and competitive source for high-end AGM separators and pasting papers.” In the past three years Koch has been steering the company towards providing better separator products for the huge and still growing stopstart automotive market. Roughly 70% of all new cars across Europe and around 40% in North America are stop-start. In the US that number is rising rapidly. These cars need to have batteries that run in a partial state of charge which, until a few years ago — with the arrival of EFBs — meant that car manufacturers could only use regular existing batteries. Problems such as
“Customers are already asking for high temperature oxidation resistant separators … but I’m particularly excited by our antistratification research on flooded batteries” — David Mihara cycle life were an issue for these batteries and the only alternative was AGM batteries, which were more expensive but lasted longer. Even today, regular flooded batteries rather than EFBs are used on a large proportion of stop-start cars. Until
CARBON AND THE BOOSTER MAT One of the basics of separator design is that the thicker the backweb the more resistant it will be to conductivity. But one seeming anomaly has been found by Microporous where the addition of a booster mat — an added layer containing a proprietary carbon mix — to the separator has boosted direct charge acceptance by some 300%. “This innovation can also be applied to other markets and applications, says Divya Tiwari, technical manager at Microporous who has been working on the project. Tiwari, who joined six months after Mihara, was one of the first hires he made as incoming CTO. They had both worked together at NorthStar Battery. “Previous studies have shown that mixing carbon into the NAM has its drawbacks and we looked for a
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better solution,” says Tiwari. She says the work had four main aims: to improve the DCA in batteries; to do this without negatively affecting cold cranking amps; to do this with minimal impact on water consumption; and to eliminate the need for special NAM formulations. Mihara himself says he is particularly excited by the Booster Mat. “It’s another dimension of research that is opening up. Implementation with customers has been delayed by the Covid crisis but we’re back on track with making batteries at a customer’s plant at the end of July. “We have been able to optimize both the application method and formulations. Pending successful results, we have two further customers who are very keen to build and test product. The goal is to have product to them by mid-September.”
recently Microporous served the market with its DuroForce Ultra brand, which it launched in 2008. The arrival of Mihara in January 2018 kick-started the research and development of a new generation of separators. Mihara had previously spent four and half years, most recently as chief technology officer, at charismatic firm NorthStar Battery (recently acquired by EnerSys). Before that he spent 4½ years as head of global R&D at Exide Technologies. He has been involved in the battery industry for the past 35 years. In 2019 Microporous launched two new product ranges as well as its DCA Booster Mat (see side panel). For the start-stop/micro hybrid market it relaunched a new and totally upgraded CellForce separator, branding it CellForce ULR (ultra-low resistance). “The key focus was on reducing the resistance, which’ll give higher charge acceptance with a leap in battery efficiency,” says Mihara. “But this isn’t just for use on stopstart vehicles. Opportunity charging is becoming a way of life in other environments too. Many of the improvements can also be extended to other applications.” Microporous’ testing has shown that electrical resistance had been reduced by 30%. Mihara believes there is much more that can be achieved and the possibility of mix and match tailoring of certain features such as lower water loss. “One of the exciting things about CellForce ULR is the response we’re having with our customers,” says Lorenzini who, aside from heading up strategic planning and markets, is also a key figure in mediating between customer needs and how they can be met. “We’re well aware that new products will continue to need to focus on high efficiency rib configurations to reduce acid stratification, water consumption control and the use of carbons for yet higher charge acceptance,” she says. Lorenzini has a lot of experience of the battery industry. She joined Austrian separator firm Jungfer Separators in 1996. This was acquired by Daramic in 2001. She joined Microporous in September 2015 and is one of the four other people who are part of Koch’s senior management team. Mihara says further areas of research are promising. “Customers are already asking for high temperature (75°C) oxidation
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INSIDE MICROPOROUS resistant separators, which will go through the VW test. But I’m particularly excited by our anti-stratification research on flooded batteries. “That said, the future of the battery industry is achieving yet greater charge acceptance. This is the way that we can fight off the challenge of lithium.” The second new product line launched in 2019 is called GlassForce — an early fruit of the new manufacturing alliance with Zisun. GlassForce products come in two forms: as an AGM separator with a wide range of specific surface areas, and as pasting paper. The difference in the AGM surface areas is dependent on the application it is designed for — the higher BET surface area values (1.6m2g-1 to 2.2m2g-1) are for the more demanding applications, think telecoms, UPS, ESS, aviation and marine). The middle BET values (1.3m2g-1 to 1.6m2g-1) are for automotive applications such as SLI and start-stop. The smallest surface area (0.9m2g-1 to 1.3 m2g-1) are for motorcycles, powersports and e-mobility. As part of the strategy in launching GlassForce, Koch hired Brad Reed as vice president for corporate develop-
ment in September last year. Reed has wide experience on the lithium side of the battery business — he worked for Celgard from 1988 to 2006, most recently as vice president and general manager, when the firm was acquired by Daramic’s parent Polypore. The third recent key hire by Koch was Bill Brown in 2018. He became chief financial officer in June 2019. Brown and Koch have known each other many years — they were the two key figures in the divestiture of Microporous — and he worked as CFO for the newly independent firm from 2013 to 2015. As an add-on to this, Microporous has also launched GlassForce PP pasting papers. This is a new line of business for the firm. These serve as a processing aid in the lead pasting process and prevent plates sticking together during the curing, allow vacuum pick-up of the plates and hold the wet paste to the grid better. This was one of the early fruits for the collaboration between Zisun and Microporous as they are made from glass micro-fibre blends. “They have gone out to battery
“New products will continue to need to focus on high efficiency rib configurations to reduce acid stratification, water consumption control and the use of carbons for yet higher charge acceptance” — Claudia Lorenzini
In the last two years the separator product range has been radically extended with a host of future improvements being researched. Microporous has spent well over $1 million a year on R&D over the past six years.
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INSIDE MICROPOROUS manufacturers for long-term testing,” says Mihara, who says that initial feedback has been positive. “They are particularly useful for high speed TPPL manufacture. One battery manufacturer insists
on receiving both the AGM separator and the pasting paper. Tactically, Microporous has shied away from the approach of the separator giants, ENTEK and Daramic, who have partnered customers or
competitors in Asia and opened up greenfield sites. The firm remains committed to its two locations in the US and Europe, and to extending its manufacturing footprint to Asia over the next few years. “The preferred option is through a strategic JV alliance”, says Koch. “We had been very close to concluding a venture but ultimately had to step back. We are still in discussions on other ventures and will proceed only if strong strategic long-term interests are clearly vetted and mutual trust fully granted. “I’m very bullish on the future of Microporous. We’ve come a long way in just six years. “I’m not just bullish about the future of lead acid batteries, but very bullish,” Koch says. “Despite all the talk, we’re an industry that is not going to disappear over the coming decades, but we have to remember that the key to our future is that we mustn’t stop investing in its development.”
The firm remains committed to its two locations in the US and Europe and to extending its manufacturing footprint to Asia over the next few years.
The current capacity of all three Microporous plants together is around 150 million square meters a year (or around 1 billion linear metres).
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CONFERENCE IN PRINT: TPPL Thin Plate Pure Lead is a well established battery technology used in a wide array of different application scenarios. Martin Walsh, product director for motive power EMEA at EnerSys, describes the evolution of the product and its present and future uses.
TPPL battery technology: the basics, the applications The early engineering work that led to TPPL took place at Gates Inc almost 50 years ago, where experimentation was done on thin plate technology by utilizing patented gas recombination techniques. These thinner plates meant that TPPL batteries could provide higher current peaks and were also quicker to recharge than competing batteries. In 1973, the company launched Cyclon — a spiral wound TPPL product developed for high-energy, low maintenance applications. This is still used in some medical
KEY TPPL FEATURES TPPL plates have a thickness of a third to a quarter of standard batteries, so more plates can be accommodated. This provides a large reactive surface area and low internal resistance, with power densities hence boosted. Consequently, TPPL batteries can be recharged within a short period of time and they can deliver high current peaks, without any voltage drop. These batteries are maintenancefree, with no water topping-up required (due to AGM). In addition, their gas emissions are extremely low. They have a long cycle life, especially when subjected to repeated micro cycles of discharging followed by partial opportunity charging. Low self-discharge rates allow battery storage for extended periods. TPPL also facilitates very high cell pack compression, which provides unsurpassed vibration resistance, as well as enhancing cyclic capability for transport applications.
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apparatus today, as well as featuring in the trackside equipment found on rail networks. Gates launched its SBS product in 1983, which was a flat plate TPPL design. Gates was later acquired by Hawker which, in turn, was acquired by the company that was eventually to become EnerSys. Since then EnerSys has been responsible for driving forward TPPL-based batteries’ technological progression. Gates also began to produce cell-based AGM technology, which would allow products to be manufactured that were not flooded with electrolyte and did not require water topping up. AGM relied on effective utilization of the oxygen recombination. EnerSys has subsequently enhanced this nowmature technology and leveraged it as the basis for its industry-leading TPPL products. Early successes for TPPL would be seen within the avionics and defence sectors, but it was the telecom industry that would be the impetus behind the largest proportion of shipments for a long period of time — its high cyclic capabilities proving the key marketing point.
Figure 1: Example of a Cyclon battery
In 2007, the SBS EON product range was launched. This was primarily targeted at off-grid telecom hybrid sites, where batteries would be cycled daily and sometimes multiple times within a day. Enabling faster charging, XFC products were subsequently released to attend to the motive power market (for materials handling and warehousing purposes). In 2013, both the SBS EON and XFC product ranges were extended to provide units with greater capacity. Three years later a programme was launched to develop batteries to address a wider range of materials handling applications. These were branded as NexSys. Pivotal to these products was a sophisticated new algorithm that allowed the battery to move from a fast charge to a normal charging rate along with an optimized life cycle. Following on from this, the range would be expanded to larger cells of up to 140Ah. By this time TPPL represented more than 10% of the entire EnerSys battery portfolio and this percentage was set to rise still further. Development of carbon-enhanced TPPL would be another important
Unlike conventional batteries, which must be recharged every six to 12 weeks during storage, TPPL-based units can be stored for up to two years at 20°C when starting from a fully charged condition.
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CONFERENCE IN PRINT: TPPL milestone, enabling hybrid (multiple power source, without grid power) telecom power applications to be attended to. It meant that battery life could be increased by 50% compared with regular TPPL batteries. The first carbon-enhanced TPPL batteries were brought to market in 2018, for the telecom sector. Versions for motive power applications have been released more recently. Continued engineering advances here underline the fact that even with growing interest in lithium-ion batteries there is still going to be a need for lead-acid batteries based on TPPL in the future.
Lead purity: the key Positive grid corrosion is always present in a lead-acid battery because the positive grid is operating in a sulfuric acid environment at a voltage in which it is thermodynamically favoured to oxidize. As the grid corrodes, it loses its conductivity. This will make it less effective at allowing current flow. Because the corrosion product (an oxide of lead) is less dense than the original metallic lead, the grid volume increases over time. As lead along the surface of the grid, and in the grain boundaries of the lead, is converted to lead oxides, stress is created on the remaining metallic lead, causing grid growth. This growth can cause the PAM to lose electrical contact with the grid. Both these dynamics will eventually result in battery failure. This grid corrosion occurs in all lead-acid batteries, but at a rate controlled by several factors. Some, such as float voltage and temperature, relate to the specific application and operation. However, lead purity also impacts the rate of corrosion. Highpurity lead has a lower corrosion rate than lead with alloys (especially alloys such as calcium or antimony, which are often used in battery grids). Calcium is added to lead to increase the grid’s strength and to make the grid structure easier to handle during processing. However, the corrosion rate is higher for lead-calcium alloys and tends to follow the calcium-rich grain boundaries. Corrosion can relatively quickly extend through the thickness of the grid, thereby reducing grid integrity. TPPL technology, which has a high-purity lead construction, significantly delays these issues.
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Figure 2: Example of positive grid corrosion
Continued engineering advances here underline the fact that even with growing interest in lithium-ion batteries, there is still going to be a need for lead-acid batteries based on TPPL in the future. Figure 2 shows a comparison of pure lead and lead calcium positive grids after accelerated life testing. Note that there is some loss of metallic lead from the TPPL grid, but it is homogeneous along the surface and maintains current carrying capacity. In contrast, the calcium grid shows a complete loss of integrity, reflecting the increased rate of corrosion. Other lead-acid battery designs based on alloys such as calcium tend to use thicker grids, effectively providing sacrificial material to extend the battery life as the corrosion eats the grid away. Alternatively, they may have thin grids and accept the reduction in battery life that comes with this. Using thicker grids to extend the life of alloyed grids can be of value when grain boundaries are correctly managed, but it results in thicker plates. These do not discharge as efficiently as thinner ones because the active material at the plates’ centres will only have limited access to the electrolyte.
With the non-alloyed TPPL design, the use of thinner electrodes means that a greater number of electrodes can be fitted within the cell. More electrodes translates into more electrode surface area (or, critically, more reactive electrode surface area). The higher reactive surface area results in better active material utilization. As the discharge rate increases, the effectiveness of a thick electrode to utilize the active material at the centre of the plate drops significantly. From a user perspective, this means that with thin plate batteries, smaller units can be used to achieve the same run times, and as discharge rates increase so does TPPL’s worth. The bottom line is that TPPL products can use thinner grids without shortening battery life, because corrosion rates are reduced. This results in thinner electrodes and thus higher capacity levels. The factors that control active material utilization efficiency during discharge also operate during recharge. With a larger reactive surface area available, TPPL offers the opportunity to reduce the recharge time of a UPS battery after a discharge event (provided that adequate recharge current is available). For example, TPPL products such as the SBS and DataSafe XE battery series do not require current limiting, provided that the charge voltage is appropriately regulated. The TPPL battery will readily accept 1C (100A for a 100Ahr battery) until it approaches 80% to 85% State of
As lead along the surface of the grid, and in the grain boundaries of the lead, is converted to lead oxides, stress is created on the remaining metallic lead, causing grid growth.
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CONFERENCE IN PRINT: TPPL Charge (SoC) while maintaining a very high level of energy efficiency. That means the battery can achieve 80% SoC in around 50 minutes following a full depth discharge (and 100% SoC in less than 2.5 hours). Under the more typical condition of less than full discharge, the recharge times expected will be shorter. A lead-acid battery electrolyte is a mixture of water and sulfuric acid. In the battery’s internal environment, the water is thermodynamically favoured to decompose to oxygen and hydrogen. These gases will either exit the battery causing dry-out (a failure mode) or react with other materials in the cell. If the reaction is with the grid, the result is grid corrosion and shortened life. Reaction with the active material causes self-discharge of the battery. However, the rate of decomposition is heavily influenced by other factors. Electrolysis tends to require a metallic surface for a catalyst and usually occurs very slowly on a pure lead surface. Conversely, metallic impurities tend to promote electrolysis. The suppression of electrolysis on TPPL’s high lead purity surfaces significantly reduces gas generation rates, thus mitigating battery dryout. The rate of gas generation does not depend just on the plates’ lead purity. This is also influenced by the purity of all the materials used in cell manufacturing (whereas grid corrosion is most directly impacted only by alloys within the grid metal). These other materials include the electrolyte and anything that comes into contact with it. With very high purity levels for all internal materials, TPPL exhibits extremely low gassing rates. There is also a difference between gas generation and emission. Many AGM designs now offer high oxygen recombination efficiency, allowing low gas emission from the cell into the environment. Nevertheless, internal gas generation may still be high, leading to permanent positive grid corrosion. There may also be a recombination reaction which discharges the negative electrode — and this will manifest itself as increased float current. Additionally,
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The TPPL battery will readily accept 1C (100A for a 100Ahr battery) which means the battery can achieve 80% SoC in around 50 minutes following a full depth discharge (and 100% SoC in less than 2.5 hours). the recombination reaction is exothermic, so it adds to the heat load that must be dissipated. AGM-based batteries using TPPL technology offer a reduced rate of gas generation. This, in turn, lowers the operating temperatures and float currents, as well as curtailing positive grid corrosion. Furthermore, the lower selfdischarge rate compared to conventional batteries mitigates issues associated with long supply lines to remote installations and eases inventory management.
Latest developments EnerSys continues to work on energy storage solutions for hybrid applications. These involve powering off-grid telecom networks either only by diesel generators and batteries or via intricate arrangements of renewable energy sources (such as wind turbines or photovoltaic arrays).
Development of lead technologies will continue into the future, both for the established transport and UPS segments and for emerging markets too.
The EnerSys development programme has involved adding advanced carbon compounds to the existing TPPL negative plate expander formulation. The result is a significant improvement in cyclic performance coupled with an ability to run at a controlled PSoC, where the battery is deliberately operated in a PSoC so as to minimize operating expenditure. The battery is periodically returned to a full SoC when predefined trigger points are reached. Another upshot of the carbon is that the battery can be subjected to higher ambient temperatures. Time spent on recharging and generator operation is reduced. The recharge strategy has been optimized for prolonged battery life — up to 1.5 times that of a normal TPPL battery — and minimal TCO. Development of lead technologies will continue into the future, both for the established transport and UPS segments and for emerging markets too. These include Energy Storage Systems and so on. There will also be a greater emphasis on system engineering and modular kit development in the years ahead. Figure 3 summarizes the development roadmap for next generation lead-acid batteries.
Figure 3: Roadmap for advanced lead-acid battery development
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CONFERENCE IN PRINT: TPPL
TPPL across industry sectors Warehouse and factory vehicle motive power Applications from food retailers through to car manufacturers depend on vehicles such as forklifts, order pickers, pallet trucks, cleaning machines, automated or laser-guided vehicles and personnel carriers. It is commonplace for these vehicles to be electric — with batteries providing the motive power. To maximize productivity, forklifts need to be continuously available. However, as recharging is often necessary after a shift, then either the vehicle must be taken out of service or the battery changed. If batteries could be partially fast charged during shifts, without needing to be transported to a dedicated charging room, productivity levels could be significantly improved. Batteries that can be charged without gassing and do not require water top-ups save time, reduce acid spill and safeguard against explosion risks. They will reduce costs and also have less impact on the environment. Additionally, warehousing operations are keen to minimize energy usage relating to battery charging and the maintenance work needed due to overcharging. Other factors that contribute to the overall total cost of ownership (TCO) include the battery operating cycle lifetime, recharging requirements during storage, and reliability and degradation due to corrosion. TPPL meets all of these criteria. The batteries are sealed, with minimal gassing and no need for water top-ups. It can deliver a very high rate of discharge, and supports fast, efficient charging too. Because of this, operating in Partial State of Charge (PSoC) mode becomes possible. Opportunity charging — operators can use occasions such as shift changes or lunch breaks to charge at high currents for short time periods — can be used to bring discharged batteries to a high SoC quickly. A weekend full recharge with cell equalization will return the battery pack to full SoC, without any decline
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in the battery’s cyclic capabilities. TPPL also offers improved power density figures. Energy consumption is reduced, as the batteries require lower overcharging. Up to 30% energy savings can be achieved by using TPPL batteries when accompanied by suitable chargers. Spare battery stockholding becomes easier, with less capital investment required. Unlike conventional batteries that must be recharged every six to 12 weeks during storage, TPPL-based units can be stored for up to two years at 20°C when starting from a fully charged condition. Truck and bus batteries Although engine starting currents have not changed, ever-increasing electrical demands placed on vehicles (including running GPS devices, heaters, Wi-Fi on buses, and the like) is leading to elevated battery failure rates. With its high energy density, TPPL technology can provide considerably more usable capacity on demand, and a superior cycling life compared with competing products. This enables these batteries to cope with multiple engine starts, and meet the heavy demands associated with auxiliary power, on-board systems, hotel loading and other modern fleet vehicle requirements where conventional batteries have failed. Additionally, TPPL batteries can be discharged to a lower SoC compared with conventional types, while still being able to provide a successful engine start. They can run for far longer without requiring an engine start, resulting in fuel savings, reduced carbon footprint and NOx emissions. For starting, they can provide a cold crank amps (CCA) rating of up to 1500A. Reserve power in data centres Traditionally, data centre operators have specified UPS battery autonomies of typically 15 minutes, to allow power to be restored or generators to start up and phase-sync with the system. However, today generators
can be switched on and brought up to speed much faster and loads can be transferred a lot quicker. Such reductions create a desire to minimize battery size and weight, as well as curbing the capital costs in respect to mechanical and electrical infrastructure. There is also a trend toward reduced temperature management in battery charging rooms, because the electronics are more robust and there is potential for cost savings to be made. However, higher temperatures will reduce battery life — therefore, a trade-off between operating expenses and early battery replacement will be called for. Battery requirements for the critical UPS market are: • Optimization around discharges shorter than five minutes so that battery size and weight may be lowered • Reduced requirements for temperature control in the battery room • Long life, even at increased operating temperature levels • Ability to recharge quickly • Minimal gas generation and emission (due to confined space, possibly with little airflow) • Low self-discharge rates, for increased storage in event of delay in project deployment • As low a TCO as possible. TPPL technology has been used to develop UPS-oriented batteries. These are smaller, lighter and more able to handle multiple hits. They consume less energy, while also providing longer life and higher reliability. Through these characteristics they can help keep long-term expenses down — with lower initial purchasing cost, longer periods between replacements, reduced energy consumption, plus less frequent maintenance of the battery string. There is also more choice for where batteries can be located, along with only minimal temperature control requirements. Armoured land vehicles In addition to strong performance levels, TPPL batteries have been enhanced for use in combat and tactical vehicles. Features that are incorporated into these units include integrated flame arresters, high shock resistance, superior cold-cranking capabilities and an operational temperature range spanning from -40°C to +80°C.
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The Battery and Energy Storage
CONFERENCE WATCH MONTHLY The definitive guide to battery energy storage conferences and meetings for the year ahead
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID TECHNOLOGY Vehicle-to-grid technology is not new. And on paper, it’s a no-brainer: you discharge your car battery — and are paid to do so — when you’re not driving to boost the grid at peak times; then you use that grid resource to charge up your car when power is cheap, in time for the morning commute. It all makes sense in theory, but it hasn’t happened yet. Sara Verbruggen looks at the first steps being taken in the UK to try to make the potential a reality.
The V2G revolution the nexus of power, consumer and grid If you’re pencilling out a business case for a 50MW grid battery, you might find your sketch changes rather radically before the diagram is finished. Now imagine you have not one big battery but many small ones to think about — except you can’t guarantee they will always be available to the grid at the same time, or for how long, or even where they will be. On top of that, some of the revenue streams you need to access to earn income may not be reliable. You might find you’re soon screwing up that business case sketch and throwing it in the bin. Even though the V2G market is embryonic, things could change very rapidly — the work being done now could mean that in a couple of years’ time V2G will be able to shift out of neutral, with the UK for one taking it up a gear and into the fast lane. Electric cars have historically been regarded as a threat to the grid’s stability. A large load, coinciding with peak electricity demand, would need huge investment in works to expand and upgrade the distribution network. But if the EV batteries could be turned into little energy storage devices at the very times the grid needs
a boost — to then recharge cheaply when parked overnight, that threat is no longer real. Using bidirectional charging technology, plus cloud-based software and communications infrastructure to enable smart charging, V2G technology allows the grid to tap into the EV battery’s available reserves to help balance supply and demand, and give back to the vehicle when it’s needed.
Nissan drives the V2G concept
Nissan, which has sold more EVs than any other automaker, was an early proponent of V2G. Ten years ago, when it began selling the Nissan Leaf in Europe, the company quickly realized that energy suppliers were not the biggest fans of EVs. “There are 32 million passenger cars in the UK. As significant volumes of EVs start being driven, each with a battery that’s anywhere between 7kW to 11kW, you have a problem from the grid’s perspective if these loads cannot be managed,” says Nissan Energy’s European managing director Francisco Carranza. “We started looking at how electric cars could be ‘grid friendly’. “Going forward the business model
There are 32 million passenger cars in the UK. As volumes of EVs start being driven, each with a battery that’s anywhere between 7kW to 11kW you have a problem from the grid’s perspective if these loads cannot be managed. 86 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
has to be self-sustaining. We need to have a system where V2G can respond to various intraday trading and grid services signals.” With millions of pounds in funding made available from the UK government, studies and pilots have been undertaken to identify and address the barriers to a V2G market. After initial discussions with various energy suppliers, about three years ago Nissan identified a core group of collaborators to work with, including Octopus EDF, and Eon. These came together with other key stakeholders (primarily DNO UK Power Networks) and National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO), to start exploring the V2G market and identify the issues and challenges. “One thing we discovered is the payback for V2G is too long. It can be between five and 10 years, depending on several factors, like whether it is a commercial fleet vehicle or if the vehicle is privately owned. Payback has to occur within the same length of time as a vehicle leasing agreement,” Carranza says. A V2G market and mass adoption relies on establishing bidirectional charging infrastructure, much as the availability of conventional charging infrastructure has underpinned the adoption of EVs. It also needs changes in energy market regulations to make it easier for behind-the-meter EV batteries to access various revenue streams. Carranza says: “The regulatory framework is changing but it is still a long way from being one that supports
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID TECHNOLOGY “When we ran tests on a couple of types of chargers, they were industrial looking, more like air-conditioning units than a sleek consumer appliance.” a fully decentralized energy system encompassing lots of small, distributed assets at the end of the grid. “However, we see within two years a market will exist for V2G services and the business case will be better defined. You need as many revenue streams as possible for V2G to be able to access. Key to it also is artificial intelligence-based software that can pick those revenue streams.” When it works with energy companies and enterprises interested in rolling out V2G programmes, Nissan has a set of criteria that have to be met to provide warranties for the batteries in its EVs. “Only bidirectional chargers validated by Nissan can be used by the operator introducing V2G services. We know precisely how the chargers we validate perform. The battery also has to meet certain cycling parameters, so we have set a limit and we won’t authorize any more than this,” says Carranza. Typically, 70%-75% of total battery capacity can be used, which is based on being able to charge up to 100% and discharge to a minimum of 25%. This is roughly 30kWh of usable capacity on a 40kWh battery in the newer Nissan LEAF models, to comply with the Nissan warranty.
Europe on a similar path to UK
Broadly speaking, European markets are on a similar trajectory, adding more variable renewable generation and closing centralized fossil fuel power plants, which is driving demand for grid balancing services. “UK, France, Germany, Netherlands. These are all promising markets for V2G. More recently Italy has also started to make moves in this area to procure more grid balancing type services,” Carranza says. “By 2025 the V2G market will begin to get established in more volumes. By then we should have the right market in place for the services and revenue streams. But we also need the rest of the EV industry to adopt V2G. Others, such as Mitsubishi and Renault, are in the process of adopting this technology, while Volkswagen is also looking at it, we understand.” A wider availability of different
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makes and models of V2G electric cars and vans is also going to help drive the market forward, he says. Energy retailers Octopus and OVO Energy have been involved in government-backed pilots for V2G among their domestic energy customer base. Octopus has a simple proposition: to incentivize customers to enrol in its Powerloop V2G pilot. Customers plug in before six o’clock in the evening and stay plugged in until at least five o’clock the following morning, to complete a cycle. If they complete 12 cycles within a month their energy account is credited with £30 ($38). Using the company’s specially developed app, customers are able to indicate when they need their car, leaving the energy company to plan the 12 sessions around the driver’s schedule. At this early stage in the V2G market, such simple propositions appeal to customers, according to Octopus’ director of technology and innovation, Claire Miller. Octopus, like many companies seeking to provide a V2G offering, wants to be technology agnostic when it comes to the charger, with different makes able to integrate with its platform. Miller says efforts such as the Open Charger Protocol (OCPP), which lets chargers talk to the world, is underpinning more open standard approaches, which will benefit the market as a whole. The hardware itself has required refinement, too. “When we ran tests on a couple of types of chargers, they were industrial looking, more like air-conditioning units than a sleek consumer appliance.” Eventually Octopus started working with Wallbox and the partnership has grown over the past few months. The Barcelona-headquartered company was set up by ex-Tesla executives in 2015, to design, develop and produce intelligent chargers for homes and businesses.
Initially Octopus aimed to start with 135 participants in its V2G programme, but has increased this to 185-200. Because of the coronavirus pandemic and government lockdown in the UK, installations are on hold. But once the chargers are installed, Octopus will be able to gather realworld data into consumer behaviour that will feed into any future rollout. Octopus’ PowerLoop offering is one of the most comprehensive available on the market. From £299 a month, customers can lease a new Nissan Leaf with a 40kWh battery, warrantied by the carmaker, on a 100% renewable electricity tariff. PowerLoop also includes a Wallbox charger and installation, a smart meter, and a mobile app to let customers control their charging schedule, plus the £30 monthly credit on their energy account if they complete 12 cycles a month. Miller says: “The UK is an interesting market from a customer proposition perspective. More and more, customers are interested in how they are using their energy, whether it is from renewable sources, the ethos of energy providers and also innovation. “Solar probably kicked things off, but we are moving on from that. Essentially what you are seeing is people actively interested in energy and more appreciative and open to technologies and innovations that can enable them to give energy back to the grid. “UK Power Networks is a really good partner for us to be working with, as they have been exploring ways to reduce peak demand and make use of available energy. We are demonstrating a role that technology can play in that and hopefully showing that V2G can be an intuitive way to do this.”
Entering the next phase
As more adopt V2G, in future Miller envisages customers will want to get different things out of it, with some wanting insight into how the battery in their parked car is making money. Different commercial offerings could be defined that suit different levels of engagement. Carranza thinks the commercial model that Octopus has created in its
“We believe the market will go towards this bundling approach, though how soon is more challenging to predict” – Nissan Energy’s Europe managing director, Francisco Carranza Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 87
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID TECHNOLOGY PowerLoop bundle is probably the direction in which other parts of the energy retail market will travel. “That said, it is challenging. You are essentially financing different assets with different profiles. “The advantage of the Octopus Group as a whole is that they have different subsidiaries set up, in leasing, in energy supply, for example. So, yes, we believe the market will go towards this bundling approach, though how soon is more challenging to predict.” According to Vincent de Rul, EDF Energy’s director of energy solutions, V2G is the next phase in the electrification revolution. “But an EV driver primarily wants their vehicle for get-
ting around. Using it as a grid support asset should be an unobtrusive additional benefit.” One of the challenges, he says, is ensuring the needs of energy suppliers and the grid are reconciled with those of the EV driver or owner. “For us, an EV is a battery on wheels, while the owner or driver needs to know they have enough mileage for their journey the next day or week.” In October 2019 the company launched Dreev with its partner, California-headquartered V2G start-up Nuvve. Dreev is focused on developing V2G programmes and services that use Nuvve’s bidirectional charger and related technology.
“Dreev was set up to investigate the customer proposition and commercial proposition for V2G,” says de Rul. “A key part in all of this is the EV manufacturer.” Dreev has partnered Nissan, however, de Rul says: “The technology and capability for V2G need to be embedded in future EV models, but it is an area that all major car makers are now looking into.” To test V2G technology in the real world, two of EDF’s UK sites, including Hove in Sussex, have been installed with Nuvve’s chargers. In 2018 EDF announced it would roll out 1,500 V2G chargers in the UK. Since then the company has re-
OVO ENERGY — PROJECT SCIURUS Through the Innovate UK-funded V2G project Sciurus, Ovo Energy is recruiting up to 1,000 households to take part. Here it shares its progress so far with Batteries International. The V2G offering is made up of three core components: a customer energy proposition, a bidirectional V2G charger, and an intelligent energy platform to manage the charging and discharging of the charger in sync with the needs of the energy system. “We have been installing V2G chargers at a rapid rate, making us the largest residential V2G trial in the world,” says OVO Energy senior commercial manager Nick Arnott. “As per current government advice, we’ve paused home visits to keep our customers and our team safe during the coronavirus outbreak so we are not currently installing V2G chargers. All trial participants have a Nissan LEAF or the Nissan ENV200 van.”
OVO Energy senior commercial manager Nick Arnott
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Key partners and stakeholders OVO Energy is leading Sciurus and has developed the tariff. Indra has led V2G charger technical development and manufacture. Kaluza has developed the app and control algorithms and is working with Indra to integrate the bidirectional chargers with its software platform. Nissan is also a key project partner, to certify the V2G charger with its electric cars and vans to ensure compliance with battery warranties. “We have worked with Nissan to ensure that our V2G optimization and control protects the customer warranty, which still leaves us with plenty of usable storage and flexibility to use for arbitrage,” says Arnott. Nissan dealers have also been an important source of trial participant recruitment. Cenex is leading on research and dissemination. DNOs are also key stakeholders to allow installations to happen across the UK, and National Grid ESO is critical in terms of exploring future revenue streams. BEIS, OLEV and Innovate UK are the government stakeholders. The customer proposition Customers can sign up to OVO Energy to receive a free V2G charger installed at their home, and
a payment of £75 on signing up to the proposition. As well as being supplied with energy, under the terms of their tariff they will be paid for export, receiving a £0.30 pence credit on their bill for every kilowatt hour exported to the grid. The charger technology The V2G charger offered by OVO Energy has been designed and manufactured in the UK by Indra Renewable Technologies. “This unit has seen phenomenal cost reductions since when we started looking into V2G three years ago,” says Arnott. Built from the ground up and field tested through project Sciurus, Indra is now exploring supply partnerships to roll it out in other programmes and use cases. The software app Kaluza has developed the app used to give customer control in project Sciurus, which can also be white labelled for future customers. “The app provides information to the user in the form of charging and discharging history, broken down into half hourly periods. It also provides the customer with the means of setting their schedule, minimum and maximum state of charge and allows the customer
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID TECHNOLOGY fined its initiative. “Initially we are starting with commercial fleets and are in late stage talks with potential business and other enterprises,” says de Rul.
Commercial fleet operators
“We found that commercial fleets provide a more straightforward way to implement V2G and capture grid service revenues,” de Rul says. “For a start, commercial and other enterprises will already have half hourly meters installed, whereas domestic consumers will need to have them installed to enrol on a V2G programme. “Having that half hourly consumption profile is important as it matches the wholesale energy market, enabling
to boost charging, thereby overriding the schedule and charging at full power,” Arnott says. Results and findings so far “We have learned a lot in project Sciurus to date. The most interesting customer insight from this data is the significantly higher level of engagement in V2G than under other forms of EV charging. Customers plug in every day, as opposed to twice per week,” says Arnott. OVO Energy has also found that customers plug in for longer because they understand the value of doing so and they engage with the technology significantly more than in standard EV charging, or smart charging, according to Arnott. Arnott describes many of the V2G customers as EV enthusiasts who are also aware of their carbon footprint, with a significant percentage of the adopters having their own renewable generation at home, such as solar PV panels. User feedback is extremely valuable. “We are already implementing features that have been suggested by our customers. As with any technology, we need to engage constantly with our user base, be transparent and understand how we can solve challenges to improve user experience,” says Arnott. Revenue streams In Sciurus OVO Energy is primarily accessing the price arbitrage revenue stream.
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For the past few months EDF and Nissan have been gathering data on the impact of EV batteries used for V2G services. The partnership involves EDF sharing information with Nissan on the charging and discharging profile of the battery while it is being optimized for providing grid services. more accuracy when accessing the different revenue streams.” Giulia Privitera, low carbon technologies delivery manager at UK Power Networks, sees commercial vehicle fleet operators as potential key adopters of V2G. But they need a clarity on income that can be earned, she says. Electric vehicles cost more than
Using the Kaluza platform, Indra’s V2G charger gives drivers the option to discharge and sell surplus electricity from their EV batteries back to the electricity grid, helping to supply energy at times of peak demand. Kaluza also optimises vehicle charging to take advantage of cheaper electricity when it’s available and when there is more electricity generated from renewable energy in the system. “V2G has the potential to offer a host of benefits to the electricity system and we have been exploring the technologies application in a variety of balancing and ancillary services markets,” Arnott says. OVO Energy is working closely with Nissan to ensure that no battery degradation is caused by V2G charging beyond what would be expected from normal charging using a standard EV home charge point. “This has been dealt with by a combination of formal certification of the V2G charger, and an ongoing review of data from both the chargers and the vehicles,” says Arnott. Sciurus also provides a unique opportunity to do a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of V2G on EV batteries, according to Arnott. While there has been much talk of degradation some studies indicate that V2G could extend battery life over an unmanaged charging scenario, he says. “We are excited to be exploring such a pioneering topic. V2G is a real game changer as we transition to an intelligent, zero carbon grid.
combustion engine equivalents, so participation in V2G programmes can be a way to help offset the cost. They also tend to be driven a lot more than privately owned cars and, depending on the business, may be limited to recharging in specific time frames. For the past few months EDF and Nissan have been gathering data on the impact of EV batteries used for V2G services. The partnership involves EDF sharing information with Nissan on the charging and discharging profile of the battery while it is being optimized for providing grid services. “We are gathering good data on what happens to batteries and this work is ongoing,” says de Rul. EDF has installed technology within its lab in Paris, France to carry out accelerated testing of batteries. “We can simulate 10 years of aging to see what V2G does to the battery, but within a matter of weeks.” Nissan and EDF are also working together on second life opportunities for EV batteries. In a car, an EV battery has an operational lifetime of 10-15 years. It still then has sufficient capacity for use in a stationary storage application. In Sunderland Nissan has installed its old EV batteries in a second life battery, which is optimized through EDF’s software platform. “Key to the second-life opportunity is having better management of the full lifecycle of the battery,” says Carranza. If the operational life of the battery can be extended, in second life deployment, savings can potentially be leveraged to offset the cost of EVs. As more smart meters are rolled out among residential consumers, EDF will support the enlargement of V2G initiatives among the private EV ownership base. De Rul says: “V2G is a challenging market to get right. The location of the battery can change, depending on where the driver has taken it, and you don’t know how much energy is in the battery.
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID TECHNOLOGY “Virtual power plant software platforms will address a lot of these issues. But today it is more challenging to trade aggregated EV batteries enrolled in a V2G programme, compared with a standalone battery.”
ent times of the day for importing and exporting power. “More clarity and certainty over existing revenue streams is needed and commercial products need to be made available. These can be advertised through the Piclo platform, to show where constraints on the network are, to make it easier for flexibility providers and aggregators to target them. “As an industry we need to show that the business case stacks up.”
Addressing barriers to adoption
The entities that operate and manage the UK’s electricity system are critical in any successful V2G deployment. To UK Power Networks, which is the largest DNO in the UK, V2G is just one tool in the box that will be needed to manage the networks as more variable wind and solar generation is built, and mobility and heating sectors continue to decarbonize by switching to electrification. There are up to 300,000 electric and plug-in vehicles in the UK, with about 30% of these plugging into conventional charge points on UK Power Networks’ network, which covers London, the south-east and the east of England. The utility predicts that by 2030 there will be 2.6 million EVs plugged into its network. “We can’t resolve this challenge on our own so partnerships have been really important to finding the solutions,” says Giulia Privitera, low carbon technologies delivery manager at UK Power Networks. “V2G can unlock flexibility at times of constraint on the grid. But you need a very customer-centric approach. There needs to be availability of charging infrastructure to support uptake. You also need to incentivize the market.” UK Power Networks is participating in several V2G pilots, including PowerLoop with Octopus, project Sciurus with OVO Energy, Bus2Grid with Transport for London and BYD and the Nissan-led e4Future, which also includes Eon and ESO and other partners. “These pilots provide us with insight in terms of V2G for domestic energy customers as well as commercial,” she says. Key barriers to mass take-up that are being addressed by these projects include refining the connection process for V2G chargers. “We are in the process of simplify-
Early adopters
“EV drivers want their vehicle primarily to drive around. Using it as a grid support asset should be an unobtrusive additional benefit ... V2G is a challenging market to get right” — Vincent de Rul, EDF Energy’s director of energy solutions ing the connection process,” says Privitera. “There has been no fit-for-purpose connection procedure for these types of chargers. The situation was similar for solar systems, but we are preparing to get ahead of the mass uptake of V2G, by defining a streamlined process that’s specific to V2G.” Arguably the biggest obstacle is lack of clear and reliable revenue streams. “There are existing DNO services, namely active power, peak shaving and load shifting that can be provided by V2G. Work is ongoing to provide the value of those services, through pricing mechanisms, which could be flexibility signals and the low voltage level, or changes in pricing at differ-
Today UK Power Networks has 100 V2G chargers on its network, including those installed as part of the pilots it is involved in. At this stage the early adopters are most on board with V2G. Privitera says they are more interested in embracing innovation and being ahead of the curve than the payback of V2G, similar to early adopters of home battery storage systems. “But commercial fleets need to see a business case. So clarity over existing revenue streams is critical. For fleet operators it is also imperative that their vehicles, enrolled in V2G, are always adequately charged as well.” The work being undertaken has to be fed back to the regulator. UK Power Networks shares the learning from projects and pilots. “Ultimately a market for V2G requires regulatory change. In future we will define more services, other than our basic ones. Sharing learning among various stakeholders – Ofgem, other DNOs – can help to promote nationwide adoption across the country and consistency in V2G offerings too, which will help support mass uptake,” she says. There are many issues to fine tune, not least of which is the stress on EV batteries with utilities drawing from them so often; the battery is one of the most expensive constituents of an EV and it is still not clear if vehicle owners would have to pay the full cost of any replacement battery. However the signs are that moves are being made – and once the world is back on its wheels after the Covid-19 pandemic, V2G should be among the emerging markets.
“Solar probably kicked things off, but we are moving on from that. Essentially what you are seeing is people actively interested in energy and more appreciative and open to technologies and innovations that can enable them to give energy back to the grid” — Octopus’ director of technology and innovation, Claire Miller. 92 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
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EVENT REVIEW: BCI CONFERENCE A new type of conference may be emerging. Battery Council International’s virtual meeting at the end of May could be the start of something new in the way that the organization communicates with the industry.
The shape of things to come Just a week after BCI held its first virtual conference, Roger Miksad, the incoming executive vice president of the organization and Pam O’ Brien another driving force behind the event, sat down to hold a post-mortem. “We reviewed it from a number of different standpoints,” says Miksad. “The size of the audience we attracted, the contents of the presentations and delegates’ reactions. It was interesting because, as we discussed this, Pam and I realised that a virtual conference held other possibilities. “Perhaps one of the most immediate was the idea that we could communicate specific issues to certain parts of our members in a different fashion to what we’d done before.” Part of the problem all virtual conference organizers face is the fact that attending a conference is much more than listening to a few speakers talk about subjects of interest to the battery industry. A large part of attendance is networking and that’s as likely to be as important as a late night dinner or
Marc Zoellner, chief executive of Hoppecke Batteries and president of EUROBAT
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— since it is America after all — a power breakfast that is timed to start with the first light over the wheat fields of Iowa. “The old remark that BCI was just an excuse for the great and the good of the US battery industry to play a few rounds of golf, missed the point,” one battery executive told Batteries International at the reception drinks of the Miami conference in 2011. “It’s also the networking. “Look around this gathering and you’ll have the most eclectic bunch of businessmen, scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, chief executives and inventors that you’ll ever assemble in one room. For them to get together to chat, play golf, shoot the breeze or whatever is also the logic of why we need to go to BCI meetings.” Networking looks likely to be a hurdle that may prove less insurmountable in the future — though always an issue — than initially thought for any virtual BCI congress. The virtual meetings to be held to replace the European Lead
Alistair Davidson, a director of the Consortium for Battery Innovation and International Lead Association
Battery Conference this September will include a meeting room where delegates can spark a chat with other delegates (whose names are visible) from a drop-down menu. As yet BCI’s plans in new forms of virtual conference are still being formed. The huge lock-down that has occurred across the US continues to be disruptive. And that’s despite everyone’s attempts to deploy the often iffy technology of Zoom, Team and others platforms. Towards the end of July, BCI’s regular once-every-two years environmental, health and safety conference had to be changed from a physical event — it was meant to be held in St Louis, Missouri — to a virtual conference. “This virtual format allows all of us the best opportunity to come together to learn, share ideas and gain exposure to the latest updates in environmental, health and safety topics, while ensuring that the current landscape does not hinder anyone’s ability to participate,” BCI announced in late July.
Davis Knauer, a former VP of automotive battery and diversified products engineering at East Penn
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EVENT REVIEW: BCI CONFERENCE “Details and logistics surrounding the 2020 Virtual EHS Conference are in progress and as we know more, we will continue to share information with you.”
v-BCI
The virtual BCI meeting on April 27 was well organized and went off without any glitches. This was all the more impressive given that BCI had little choice in the matter — the sudden rise in Corvid-19 infections caught the US on the hop — and the council had just four weeks to organize it from scratch. “In the end the task was less daunting than we’d expected,” Miksad said later. “But that’s not to say it was easy.” There was an interesting mix of speakers two of whom clearly were there to show the greater internationalization focus of BCI. The choice of the opening speaker — Marc Zoellner, chief executive of Hoppecke Batteries which is headquartered in Germany — was an informed one. Hoppecke is often regarded as the European equivalent of East Penn in terms of invention, stability and and its rapid bursts of growth. Zoellner is also the head of EUROBAT, a European organization that is similar in a great many ways to BCI. It clearly signals that the greater coordination across the Atlantic — very much a longer term legacy of
Nicholas Starita, president of the energy and industrial systems division at Hollingsworth & Vose
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Mark Thorsby, who retired as EVP in 2017 — and a greater campaign to promote lead batteries worldwide is firmly in place. This was reinforced by the next speaker Alistair Davidson, a director of the Consortium for Battery Innovation and also a director of London-based International Lead Association. Davidson again conveyed the idea that battery firms around the world needed to focus on providing a solid front; an industry dedicated to a new generation of price-competitive advanced lead batteries. This was followed by Davis Knauer a former vice president of automotive battery and diversified products engineering at East Penn who gave the findings of an exceptionally interesting study called the Failure Mode Report. It was based on the regular five year study by the BCI Technical Committee that compared failures in standard SLI batteries for light vehicles through the decades. (And here between North and South America too.) Unsurprisingly the effect of higher temperatures under the bonnet was a major cause of battery failure. More interestingly, Knauer explained the reasons for a leap in temperatures from the mid 50°C in 1980 to up to boiling point in 1997. This was a complicated picture given contributory factors also included the rise of more complicated
Ray Kubis, long term veteran of the battery industry and chairperson of bipolar start-up firm Gridtential
energy usage within the vehicle, population migration and the rather wild card of climate change Failure modes in 2020 were given as: serviceable 15% of all failures in around 30 months of life; 45% due to open circuits after 45 months of service; 33% due to plate or grid failure after 47 months; 30% due to short circuits after 53 months and 22% due to worn out or abused batteries after 62 months. There has been little change in how batteries cope with modern demands, compared to those of 25 years ago. However, the big picture, the BCI has data from 1962, shows there has been a huge improvement up to 2005 when the recent data shows a tailing off of improvement. Around 52 months is now an average service life for an SLI battery compared to 34 months in 1962. Nicholas Starita, president of the energy and industrial systems division at Hollingsworth & Vose gave the industrial batteries forecast. Unfortunately although the findings were interesting — in particular which industry sectors were resisting the encroachments of lithium ion substitution — the data was inevitably a little flawed. These had been compiled before the Covid-19 outbreak meaning that the overall trends were more than likely to be sound but any projections such as a CAGR of 2.8% against the historical 3.3% needed adjustment. Starita said the industry should continue developing maintenance free, faster-charging and lower-costof-ownership solutions to fend-off lithium-ion. The closing presentation came from Ray Kubis, a popular and well known figure who is chairperson of bipolar start-up firm Gridtential. As ever his presentation — now a regular talk across other conferences — was an easy one to listen to. Again like Starita his data was damaged by the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. In recognition of this, he reduced demand by 5% on a five-year view. Kubis was positive about the future of advanced lead acid batteries but said he was ever aware that despite overall growth in lead battery sales, lithium ion would continue to eat into market share. The next BCI Convention & Power Mart will be held in Naples, Florida between April 25-27, 2021.
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EVENT REVIEW: BCI CONFERENCE Battery Council International at its virtual conference on April 27 announced that the 2020 Innovation Award this year was Arc Active.
Arc Active wins 2020 Innovation Award This New Zealand firm has re-engineered the negative electrode of the battery to remove the lead grid and replace it with a non-woven carbon fibre fabric called AACarbon. This solves the number one technical challenge facing the industry — achieving high and sustained dynamic charge acceptance while delivering very low water consumption. Two honourable mentions went to Daramic and TBS Engineering: Daramic said it had invested heavily in research to understand how the separator may influence achieving CBI battery targets in partial state of charge cycle life, dynamic charge acceptance, water loss and corrosion. This has led to the development of a separator that increases acid to the negative, prevents active material swelling, and adds carbon that intimately contacts the negative plate. The latest product was launched last September. TBS Engineering has released an automatic plate loader — effectively automation equipment to load positive and negative plates into a stacker without human intervention. The equipment scans a pallet of plates to determine the position of the stacks, lifts the stack and loads the plates into a plate shuffler designed to stop the plates from sticking together. The shuffler then loads the plates into the feeders of the stacker. Plate loading speeds of up to 360 per/min are possible. The other nominations were: 1-800-Battery. This is the first e-commerce marketplace/Saas platform that focuses on the problems of retailing lead acid batteries on the internet. (Saas stands for software as a service.) It says it is the pioneer of a disruptive business model — connecting geolocated consumers with independent retail brick and mortar and mobile service providers. The service was launched last November. Abertax. The company says it
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already has a successful electrolyte level sensor in its product line. This presently carries a lead probe. The latest development replaces the lead with composite carbon fibre. This has health and safety advantages and contributes to a greener environment. CMWTEC Technologie. This is an advanced high rate discharge test machine with integrated impedance and DC internal resistance measurement for automotive lead-acid batteries. This new feature presents a new approach of an end-of-line test machine in terms of its assembly, programming flexibility and the ability to accurately discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable batteries. The product was announced in September 2018. Flow-Rite Controls. The FlowRite sensor suite measures, collects and tracks the characteristics of a deep cycle battery pack. These sensors allow one to manage the care of deep cycle batteries either wirelessly or through a vehicle’s on-board computer. This enables it to monitor, track and control a fleet 24/7. An individual entry from Chittaranjan and Jayanta Ghosh. This is a battery charging method which includes a combination of CC (constant current) and CV (constant voltage) modes to reduce the emission of harmful gases, conserve electrical energy and extend the life of flooded type lead acid batteries during jar formation of VRLA batteries. Initial charging is done in CC mode to achieve a higher state of charge. This product was launched this January. Mega Amps International. EQLYTE (pronounced ee-kew-lite) optimizes electrochemical hydrodynamics within flooded lead acid cells, yielding increased discharge capacity and active material utilization. Electrolyte optimization is conducive to 25%-35% more discharge capacity and improves the PbSO4 solubility, facilitating a more efficient charge and discharge process with less raw material usage. The product was introduced in August last year.
Power Sonic. The e-co2tainer (pronounced Ecotainer) is a mobile unit where drivers can charge their electric cars at project locations. The required electricity is generated with solar panels and wind turbines on top of the unit and a generator placed inside the unit that works exclusively on biofuel. The firm says it is a completely independent off-grid solution. The product was launched last November. PRO Charging Systems. The battery optimization system is an active balancer for multiple batteries in a series configuration. The optimization system will keep the batteries balanced during charge, discharge and rest. This allows for greater run times as well as prolonging battery life by means of energy shuttling, which can be monitored via wireless communication to a phone or tablet with the ProView Link app. Very. A collaboration between Interstate Batteries and Very to design and build an IoT-powered inventory management system to track the location of batteries in retail stores and mechanic shops across the US, this new system allows drivers to use much smaller, more fuel- efficient trucks and drive shorter routes because of the more efficient inventory management the solution enables. The product was launched in July 2018. Wirtz Group of Companies. The RTR is a lead acid battery breaking and separation system and is a complete, fully assembled, piped, and electrically integrated, skidded breaking and separation system that can be shipped worldwide, installed and started up in less than a day, does not require special foundations, and can be run by a single operator. RTR stands for ready to run. The product was launched in September. The judging panel consists of Dick Amistadi, a well known US veteran of the lead industry, Don Karner, president of Electric Applications Inc and a key figure in the liaison work between National Argonne Laboratory and the US lead battery industry, Boris Monahov, former chief technical officer of ALABC before his retirement, and Geoffrey May, a long time consultant to the lead battery business.
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EVENT REVIEW: EUROBAT 2020 EUROBAT’s annual conference had to go virtual this year. It was a well attended and well appreciated event.
2030 roadmap is launched Innovation is one of the buzzwords of the lead battery industry at the moment as an industry seeks to present itself in a favourable light to a sceptical world. It’s a message worth sending when the two words ‘lead battery’ seem to be coming from a different end of the spectrum from words such as the ‘environment’ and ‘old technology’. And EUROBAT’s annual meeting sought — and mostly succeeded — in showing that innovation, lead batteries and the environment can happily go hand in hand with the launch of the 2030 roadmap, Only one speaker (see page 13 in the news section) took a contrarian position on elements of the roadmap although broadly enthusing over the rest of the aims of the document. EUROBAT’s annual meeting has always been one that Europe’s battery community have enjoyed. The format is relatively simple. On a Thursday afternoon, typically in the first week of June, the industry meets to discuss the business of the association. A networking
Battery technologies: performance targets 2020 - 2030 Lead- and Nickel based
dinner follows — normally a very good one — and on the Friday there is a half day of presentations. For most EUROBAT meetings it is perfectly possible to arrive on the Thursday and leave the next day. Very much the opposite of attending a US conference, for example, which quite often takes a working week away from you. This year Covid-19 put paid to the regular format and EUROBAT was forced to hold a virtual conference. It was introduced by Marc Zoellner, the energetic new president of the association. Although a technical glitch kept the key speaker Frans Timmermans, the executive vice president of the European Commission, offline for about five minutes, Alfons Westgeest, international director for EUROBAT kept the meeting rolling. He even made it appear that his discussion on the issues was part of any introduction and not just filling in time. The webinar was shot in a studio which added to the presentational professionalism of the event. It was attended by over 300 people.
Battery technologies: performance targets 2020 - 2030 Lithium and Summary
Lead-based batteries
Lithium-based batteries:
Strengths: + Recycling efficiency + Calendaric life (stationary) + Functional safety
Strengths:
Development potential : - Rechargeability (automotive) - Cycle life time (stationary)
Development potential:
Nickel-based batteries
Comparing the 2030 outlook:
+ Specific energy density + Specific power density + High cycle life - Recycling efficiency (& material sourcing) - Calendaric life
Li-ion: newest chemistry with highest development potential for coming 10 years
Strengths: + Cold temperature performance (NiCd) + Fast recharge time
The established chemistries prove their right of existence due to:
Development potential: - Cycle life - Calendaric life
Battery Innovation Roadmap 2030 Area 1: Automotive Mobility •
Micro-and Mild Hybrid Vehicles use 12V Start-Light-Ignition batteries and 12V StartStop batteries (> 80% new vehicles in 2019). 99% of new cars utilise Pb-batteries. Key areas of development: capture regenerative braking energy, improve dynamic charge acceptance, better temperature robustness Dominant technology by 2030: Pb-based, Lithium to penetrate with few percentages
• • • • •
PHEV and EV traction batteries: mainly Li-on, LFP or NMC Key areas of development: volumetric energy density and preventing thermal runaway Solid state will help to increase the energy content and the security aspects in case of an accident or other high physical stress Dominant technology by 2030: Lithium-based
• •
12V Auxiliary Batteries are used in ICEs and x-EVs to support the 12V on-board net, majority lead-based as an affordable and reliable energy source. Key areas of development: increase cycling life, energy efficiencies Dominant technology by 2030: Pb-based, lithium to penetrate with small percentage
• • • • •
.
Heavy Duty Commercial Vehicles: Total cost of ownership is KPI for fleet operators Key areas of development: support hotelling functions through better energy supply and deep-discharge capability. Dominant technology by 2030: Pb-based
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-
Affordability Proven and reliable functionality Circular economy aspects
Battery Innovation Roadmap 2030 Area 2: Motive Power – Material Handling & logistics •
Material handling & logistics market: mainly Pb batteries in forklifts (+/ 90% market share). Noise and emissions legislation: battery forklifts replace ICE (73GWh by 2030). Lead to remain dominant (2030: 80% market share vs 15-30% for Li). Key advantages for Pb: counterweight and standardisation
• Key areas of development:
Cycle life, charge efficiency, fast charge in a wide temp range and PSOC cyclability.
• Dominant technology in 2030: • Automated Guided Vehicles and Carts (AGV/AGCs): transport systems operating without direct human interaction and powered by lead, NiCd and lithium batteries.
• Key areas of development: high volumetric energy and power density, broad operation temp range and cyclability.
• Dominant technology in 2030:
www.batteriesinternational.com
EVENT REVIEW: EUROBAT 2020 Unlike other years where — with the exception of last year’s meeting in Berlin — quite often huge attention has puzzlingly been paid in the presentations to lithium than lead batteries, the balance was right this year. Two non-technical people topped and tailed the webinar —Timmermans at the start and the Austrian MEP Claudia Gamon who closed the sessions. Gamon later was to present a report at a meeting of the EU’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee, which called on the Commission to, among other things: • Reduce the regulatory burden for market entries • Continue to provide support for research • Abolish certain network charges which it says are sometimes levied twice • Shorten approval procedures — essentially, cut red tape. The report, which is an amendment to the EU’s ‘Comprehensive European Approach to Energy Storage’, makes it clear that all battery technologies should be given continuous support; and lead-acid batteries are highlighted as a model to be followed in battery recycling. The middle section of the webinar was dominated by the details of the 2030 Battery Innovation Road Map, a well written and clear document of the direction the European battery industry should go. Details of the report were given by Christian Rosenkranz, EUROBAT technical cluster leader and vice president for industry and government relations EMEA, Clarios and
•
Railway batteries and railway standby: used in various applications today; mainstream technologies: NiCd, lead and lithium.
•
New applications for battery systems: hybridization and electrification of rail power traction. High energy, power density and cyclability suit lithium systems best and fastest growing battery segment for railway applications. Key areas of development: volumetric energy density, lifetime and operation
temp range.
•
Dominant technology in 2030 traction:
•
Marine sector strong contributor to CO2 emissions and pollution. Lithium used
• •
auxiliary:
for hybrid/pure electric propulsion, lead for on-board auxiliary services. Key areas of development: gravimetric/volumetric energy density and cyclability
Dominant technology in 2030 traction:
THE ROADMAP — IN BRIEF The concluding remarks summed up the thinking behind the roadmap: • All battery technologies are complementary: each has specific features and significant development potential • Different battery chemistries powering numerous applications will continue to evolve according to specific requirements that are developing
Battery Innovation Roadmap 2030 Area 3: Motive Power – Off-Road Transportation
•
Bernhard Riegel, EUROBAT TF innovation leader and director, R&D Hoppecke Batteries. “The roadmap demonstrates the strong innovation potential of all battery technologies in the coming years to cater for the specific requirements of a multitude of applications,” said the conference organizers. “As an essential technology contributing to decarbonization across a number of sectors, including transport, energy, logistics, production and telecommunications, batteries will play a crucial role in supporting the European Green Deal and enabling the ‘green recovery’ from the COVID-19 pandemic.” It would be hard to criticise the roadmap given that it provides the technical background to the innovation potential of the key battery technologies to support and guide policy-makers. It focuses on a variety of critical applications, identifying the key battery performance to improve in order to meet future requirements for the applications they will serve. See selection of slides attached.
auxiliary:
Battery Innovation Roadmap 2030 Area 4: Stationary Energy Storage Batteries Telecom/UPS
• Developing all battery chemistries will maximise the contribution of our industry to meet the zero pollution targets of Europe’s Green Deal by 2050 • If the EU battery industry is to meet future demand — anticipated at 3x today’s volume by 2030 — all four chemistries have to be able to play their role • Having different manufacturing chemistries in our portfolio also provides strategic advantages with regard to Europe’s competitiveness and selfsufficient sourcing and manufacturing
Battery Innovation Roadmap 2030 Area 4: Stationary Energy Storage Batteries RES behind the meter/ESS batteries
Global Telecom and industry (UPS): biggest segments in “stationary” market with highest volume and growth in EU. UPS: data centres and commercial/industrial/health facilities; security, emergency lighting. • UPS
• •
• Telecom
• •
Uninterrupted power supply (UPS): lead is the dominant technology providing instant power if the main power source fails. Existing market with new requirements where Lithium will have 7-18% market share by 2030. Key areas of development: power density, charge acceptance, high temperature float life and fast rechargeability Dominant technology in 2030
Telecom: largest income stream for lead batteries. Technical enhancement of 4G, 5G, and better telecom infrastructure key drivers for lead. Telecom batteries are cells or blocks supplying power to ICT or telecom sites if the main power source is unavailable/insufficient. Key areas of development: energy and power density, energy throughput, charge acceptance and high temp operation. Dominant technology in 2030
www.batteriesinternational.com
•
Renewable Energy Storage batteries behind the meter: supply load when electricity costs are high or renewable power output low. Main drivers: increased self-consumption and need for power continuity. Both lead and lithium compete in this market, each with their own features.
•
Key areas of development: design life and cyclability
•
Dominant technology in 2030
•
Utility grid-scale energy storage (ESS batteries): batteries provide grid stability in multiple ways - store energy quickly or feed in for grid compensation and supply energy to an island power. Depending on requirements and gridfunctionalities, all battery technologies to be used.
•
Key areas of development: cycle life, PSOC operation, power density, high power discharge capability, and round-trip efficiency.
•
Dominant technology in 2030
RES behind meter
ESS batteries
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 99
EVENT NEWS
ELBC registration goes live, programme revealed Registration for the European Lead Battery Conference opened on July 21 and the organizers, the International Lead Association and the Consortium for Battery Innovation, have released a full program of events. This year’s ELBC — traditionally reckoned to be the lead battery event of the year — will be conducted as a virtual conference and exhibition due to the Covid crisis. It will take place between September 22 and September 24. “Although a virtual conference will always be more limited in its format, the good news is that delegates will see same full programme of presentations originally planned” says Andy Bush, head of the ILA. The ELBC has a reputation in providing some of the best technical papers on developments in the lead battery industry. “What we’ve done is to recreate as much of the look and feel of the event as we can,” says Bush. “So when everyone logs in to the conference website they will find themselves in the conference lobby which can then lead them on to three areas. The first will be the auditorium where they will have the opportunity of viewing pre-recorded and live events for each of the three days. “The second is the exhibition area where they will be able to wander around virtual stands and interact with industry suppliers — this will be in various ways. They will have the chance of chatting live with the exhibitors (by video link, audio or text), pick up promotional materials, leave messages and see video clips of products.” “The third room is a networking area where delegates can see who else is present in the virtual room and chat directly with them.” The structure for the three days is a mixture of live sessions and pre-recorded presentations. On the first day there will be a live session for around three hours with six speakers addressing subjects of general relevance to the industry. Video presentations from more speakers will then become available for on demand viewing.
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Full details can be found on https://17elbc.ila-lead.org
The keynote speech in the plenary session will be given by Mark Wallace, the incoming chief executive of battery giant Clarios. For most people in the industry this will be the first time they will have heard him speak. After the plenary speakers there will be a live Q&A session. The second and the third days will consist of pre-recorded technical presentations all of which can be viewed in advance. Each day there will be live panel discussions where the topics of the presentations will be analysed and talked over further. There will be three panel discussions, roughly of an hour’s length, each day. All the presentations will be available after the event for three weeks. As has been the trend for the past few ELBC meetings there will be no over-arching theme. “Our aim is to capture the general state of the industry,” says Bush, “and consider what the future will hold in this current climate. I imagine, however, the issue that will dominate much of our discussions will be how our industry has reacted to the pandemic and what we should be doing in the future.”
ELBC’s strong technical reputation will not disappoint this year, with the programme featuring speakers from across the global industry covering all topics related to lead batteries. Joined by experts from worldrenowned universities and research institutes, the technical sessions will deal with the breadth of lead battery applications from automotive and industrial to energy storage, with a strong focus on innovation. As demand for batteries continues to grow and technical requirements evolve, key research areas dedicated to improving maximizing battery performance through fundamental science studies will feature throughout the three days. Bush says he hopes that this year’s ELBC will reach a wider audience than normal. “We think we’ll attract new delegates who would not otherwise travel to attend a global conference like ours but will be keen to tap into what is effectively the cutting edge thinking of the lead battery industry.” The cost to attend for delegates will be €499 ($570) and to book a virtual exhibition booth will be €2000.
“What we’ve done is to recreate as much of the look and feel of the event as we can,” says Bush. “So when everyone logs in to the conference website they will find themselves in the conference lobby. www.batteriesinternational.com
FORTHCOMING EVENTS Battery Cells & Systems Expo and Conference
SEPA Virtual Grid Evolution Summit
July 8-9 Coventry, UK
July 28-30
Rescheduled for December 2-3, 2020 See December listing for full details
Plugvolt Battery Seminar 2021 July 21 - 23 Bloomfield Hills, MI (USA) Rescheduled for July 13 - 15, 2021 PlugVolt will be hosting its next Battery Seminar in Bloomfield Hills, MI (USA) featuring an entire day of indepth technical tutorials presented by world renowned professors from Top 50 US universities on Day 1, followed by Days 2 and 3 with industry subject matter experts presenting on Automotive and Stationary Storage applications respectively. Attendees will also get an exclusive opportunity to tour A123 Systems new Novi, Michigan (USA) facility. For more event details and to register visit www.batteryseminars.com Contact PlugVolt JC Soman Tel: +1 877 7584 8658 Email: juratesoman@plugvolt.com www.batteryseminars.com
37th International Battery Seminar and Exhibit July 27-30, 2020 Rescheduled from March 30-April 2 V Virtual Event
V Virtual Event There is only one place where all of the top electricity stakeholders, from regulators, ISOs, and utilities to technology providers, academics, and government agencies, put their heads together to determine how we will modernize the electric sector: the Grid Evolution Summit. Grid Evolution Summit is the event for energy professionals who want the tools, insights and expertise to achieve a carbon-free energy system by 2050 Contact www.sepapower.org/grid-evolutionsummit/#tuesday-july-285ef48ea757488
World Battery Industry Expo — WBE 2020 August 16-18 Guangzhou, China WBE (formally GBF ASIA) is one of the professional demonstration and trade platform of battery & energy storage industry, in which hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of professional visitors will gather there. Contact Guangdong Grandeur International Exhibition Group Tel: +86 20289 67766 E-mail: grand@grahw.com www.battery-expo.com/index.php?lang=en
30th Annual Energy Storage Association Conference & Exhibition — ESA Aug 24 - 27 V Virtual Event
Founded in 1983, the International Battery Seminar & Exhibit has established itself as the premier event showcasing the state of the art of worldwide energy storage technology developments for consumer, automotive, military, and industrial applications. Key thought leaders will assemble to not only provide broad perspectives, but also informed insights into significant advances in materials, product development, manufacturing, and application for all battery systems and enabling technologies. As the longest-running annual battery industry event in the world, this meeting has always been the preferred venue to announce significant developments, new products, and showcase the most advanced battery technology.
The ESA Annual Energy Storage Conference & Expo (#ESACon20) is the premier energy storage event that brings together everyone from the energy storage industry. #ESACon20 is a true 360-degree conference experience - gone digital. Featuring one-on-one conversations and interactions, group discussion, demos of real projects and assets, meeting rooms, exhibitor experiences, and networking interactions. All that you expect from an in-person conference.
Contact Cambridge Enertech Tel: +1 781 972 5400 www.internationalbatteryseminar.com
August 25-27 São Paulo, Brazil
www.batteriesinternational.com
30th Annual Energy Storage Association Conference & Expo August 26-28 Phoenix, Arizona. USA Rescheduled from April 8-10 The 30th Annual Conference and Expo is the industry’s premiere conference and networking event. It is the most influential gathering of market leaders, customers, decision makers, and technology innovators. Attending will provide you with new strategies, new connections and innovative ideas that will move your organization forward. Contact Energy Storage Association Tel: +1 202 293-0537 www.esacon.energystorage-events.org
12th Shanghai International Lithium Battery Industry Fair August 26-28 Shanghai, China 12th Shanghai International Lithium Battery Industry Fair will be held on Shanghai New International Expo Centre, China. The exhibitions of new energy vehicles, super capacitors, charging equipment and energy storage will be held at the same time. The show area is expected to reach 30,000 square meters, while more than 600 exhibitors from the whole industry chain will show their latest products and technology at the scene. Furthermore, over 100 visitor groups and 35,000 people are going to visit the site with a purpose to purchase or communicate, making sense to promoting industrial innovation and development. Contact Guangzhou Zhenwei International Exhibition Tel: +86 208 395 3211 Email: cnibf@zhenweiexpo.com www.cnibf.net/en/ Shanghai, China.
Contact Energy Storage Association www.energystorage.org Tel: +1 202 293 0537 events@energystorage.org
ees South America
Rescheduled for November 16-18, 2020 See November listing for full details
Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 101
FORTHCOMING EVENTS 20th International Automobile Recycling Congress — IARC 2020
25th International Congress for Battery Recycling-ICBR 2020
September 2-4 Geneva, Switzerland
September 16-18 Salzburg, Austria
IARC 2020 is the international platform for discussing the latest developments and challenges in automobile recycling, bringing together more than 250 decision-makers in the ELV recycling chain such as car manufacturers, metal and plastic scrap traders, recyclers, shredder operators, policy-makers and many more. A large exhibition area is integrated into the conference facilities, where vendors meet their clients. Cocktail receptions and a networking dinner create an excellent atmosphere to get in touch with business partners and colleagues. Furthermore, the congress will offer interesting two plant tours.
ICBR is the international platform for presenting the latest developments and discussing the challenges faced by the battery recycling industry. The 25th edition of ICBR will bring together many experts and decisionmakers of the battery recycling value chain such as battery manufacturers, battery recyclers, OEMs from the electronic and e-mobility industry, collection schemes operators, service and transport companies, policy-makers and many more. An exhibition area is integrated in the conference facilities where vendors can meet their clients. Cocktail receptions and a networking dinner create an excellent atmosphere to get in touch with business partners and colleagues.
Contact ICM AG Susann Schmid Tel: +41 62 785 10 00 Email: info@icm.ch https://www.icm.ch/iarc-2020
Mexico City hosts Intersolar Mexico in September
to meet regional buyers in the fields of solar, renewable energy and cleantech. Contact Solar Promotion International www.intersolar.mx/en/home.html
European Graphene Automotive Conference
2020 International Zinc Conference Europe
September 10-11 Manchester, UK
September 7-9 Istanbul, Turkey
This year’s conference is set to become the world’s leading exhibition and conference exclusively for graphene researchers and automotive manufacturers to meet and explore new uses of graphene in automotives, and to address the specific challenges associated with the commercialisation of graphene for use in a multitude of new applications. This exhibition and conference will provide a forum for all stakeholders, from researchers and suppliers in the graphene industry, to end user manufacturers, to network and build crossmarket relationships and to discuss the latest developments in graphene use in new automotive applications.
Rescheduled from March 30-April 1 In addition to providing an update on key market trends, including supply and demand for concentrates and metal, sustainable development, first use markets with a focus on hot dip and continuous galvanizing, innovative applications and regulatory issues, this 1.5- day conference offers excellent networking opportunities. The conference will be complemented by an optional plant tour to a galvanizing plant. Contact International Zinc Association Tel: +1 919 361 4647 www.zinc.org/international-zinc-conferenceeurope-2020/
Intersolar Mexico September 7-9 Mexico City, Mexico. USA Rescheduled for September 7-9, 2021 Intersolar Mexico serves as the industry’s go-to source for invaluable technology trends and premier B2B contacts in the promising Mexican solar market. Intersolar Mexico sits at the crosssection of photovoltaics, solar heating & cooling technologies, and energy storage. The event will be the largest gathering of professionals in Mexico for international manufacturers and distributors looking
102 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
Contact IQ HUB www.graphene-automotive-conference.com
The Battery Show North America November 15 - 17 • Novi, MI. USA Rescheduled for September 14-16, 2021 The Battery Show expo brings together more than 700 suppliers showcasing the latest solutions across the transportation, stationary, portable, and industrial sectors. Check The Battery Show 2020 exhibitor list often—it’s growing daily. Contact: Informa Markets Tel: +1 833 202 3467 registration.battery@informa.com www.thebatteryshow.com
Contact ICM AG Susann Schmid Tel: +41 62 785 10 00 Email: info@icm.ch www.icm.ch
17th European Lead Battery Conference and Exhibition (ELBC) September 22-24-exclusively online
V Virtual Event What are the latest market predictions from battery companies and industry analysts for 2021 and beyond? How has the lead battery industry managed through the global health crisis and what is the ‘the new normal’? Want exciting updates on lead battery research and innovation? Find out from delegates and industry experts at the biggest global gathering since the coronavirus pandemic. Meet delegates, industry exhibitors and suppliers, showcase your business and live connect with customers in dedicated booths-all in our virtual conference hall and exhibition space. Contact International Lead Association — ILA Maura McDermott, Event Manager Email: 17elbc@ila-lead.org Tel: +44 (0)20 7833 8090 www.17elbc.ila-lead.org
www.batteriesinternational.com
FORTHCOMING EVENTS Battery Show Europe October 15-17 Stuttgart, Germany The Battery Show Europe, co-located with Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo Europe, is the industry’s largest and fastest-growing trade fair for advanced battery and H/ EV technology. 400+ suppliers from across the battery supply chain, such as A123 Systems, CATL, Leclanché, Voltabox and Bosch Rexroth will display thousands of design, production and manufacturing solutions, including battery management systems, battery pack assemblers/ integrators, materials, components, research, testing and recycling. This free trade fair is an opportunity to source the latest energy storage solutions to reduce costs and improve the performance of battery applications.
Frankfurt, Germany
Battery Experts Forum September 29 - October 1 Frankfurt, Germany Rescheduled for April 27 - 29, 2021 In order to meet the great demand, the Battery Experts Forum will be taking place in the financial metropolis of Frankfurt am Main. With even more exhibition space, additional capacity in the conference halls and a great backdrop, the Battery Experts Forum is growing in the premises of the Forum Messe Frankfurt. Be there when over 100 TOP experts in the battery industry report on the latest technology! Expect high class speakers and top topics. This event is an absolute must for those involved in battery technologies. Contact www.battery-experts-forum.com
Batteries Event 2020 Lyon, France October 7 - 9 For 20 years, the Batteries event has remained one of the World’s most attractive event and the meeting place for technologies (lead acid, NiMH, Li-ion, Post Li-ion), applications (from micro batteries to large format batteries) and the value chain (raw material suppliers, components manufacturers, OEMs, end users, recyclers, investors,)... It will cover all aspects of the battery circular economy, beginning from the production of the battery through raw materials, battery manufacturing, battery use and safety, management and applications, going through market trends, research and development, new
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technologies and finally closing the loop with a focus on recycling, second life and regulations. International battery industry key players such as OEM, battery manufacturers, end users, experts, researchers and recyclers will come together to discuss and exchange on new chemistries, manufacturing process, battery components, battery second life, recycling, producer regulatory obligations in Europe, future expectations and innovations. Contact Avicenne Energy Laurent PILLOT Email: contact@batteriesevent.com www.batteriesevent.com
Battery Tech Expo October 8 Northampton, UK Rescheduled from March 26 V Virtual Event The Battery industry is on the cusp of a power revolution with big technology companies investing heavily in the next generation of battery development and energy storage. The event will provide a unique opportunity to showcase the latest products, technologies and services covering the Battery Management Systems, EV Battery, Battery Storage, Battery Development/ Discovery, Commercial and Mobile Power Device sectors. Contact 10fourmedia Tel: +44 1283 815 719 Email: david.reeks@10fourmedia.co.uk www.batterytechexpo.co.uk
Contact Informa Tel: +44 (0) 20 7921 8166 Email: thebatteryshowcs@informa.com www.thebatteryshow.eu
European Fuel Cell Forum October 20-23 Luzern, Switzerland The 14th European SOFC & SOE Forum will focus on Solid Oxide Technologies: Fuel Cells (SOFC), Electrolysers (SOE) & Membrane Reactors (SOMR). The forum will be the largest European Event in this field. The European Fuel Cell Forum continues to be one of the most prominent meeting platforms for the exchange of scientific and technical information, as well as an ideal event for networking towards future solutions. The technical programme will range from fundamental science and new materials, through cell, stack, and system development, to the latest results from commercial deployment. There are also topics covering manufacturing, lifetime, characterisation, modeling and optimisation. Under the title “industrial achievements” product and novel concepts, P2X, chemical processing applications, standardisation, studies and others such as training and education are addressed. Contact www.efcf.com/2020
Luzern, Switzerland
www.batteriesinternational.com
Oct. 21(Wed) - 23(Fri), 2020
Overview
Coex Hall A, Seoul, Korea
Participation Benefits
Title
InterBattery 2020
24/7 Promotion
Venue
Coex Hall A
Frequent on · off line promotion via Social media and PR news.
Date
October 21 (Wed) – 23 (Fri), 2020
Scale
200 Companies, 500 Booths / 30,000 Buyers
Host
Korea Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy
3 nights at designated hotel for overseas buyer and exhibitors.
Organizers
Korea Battery Industry Association, Coex
Networking Night
Exhibit Items
Rechargeable Battery, Capacitor,
Network and build global partnerships at free-to-attend Networking Night.
Free Accommodation
Materials/Components, Manufacturing Equipment,
Seoul City Tour
Test/Measurement Equipment, Others Concurrent Events Co-located Events
Free Seoul City Tour with a professional guide. Explore Seoul, build global relationships and enjoy traditional Korean food!
The Battery Conference, 1:1 Biz-matching, Networking Night, Seoul City Tour Energy Plus (Scale : 500 Companies 1,100 Booths) . .
Korea Smart Grid Expo Seoul International Electric Fair/ Power Generation Korea
How to Register?
Visit our website ( http://interbattery.or.kr/en/ ) to download and submit an application.
※ In order to control COVID-19 epidemic, InterBattery 2020 Secretariat has prepared for a high standard of hygiene and safety with a well-established emergency management system.
InterBattery 2020 Secretariat
Tel. +82-2-6000-8477/1065
Email. energyplus@coex.co.kr
Website. http://interbattery.or.kr/en/
FORTHCOMING EVENTS ees South America November 16 – 18 São Paulo, Brazil Rescheduled from August 25 – 27, 2020
San Francisco, CA. USA
Advanced Automotive Batteries Conference — AABC USA November 2-5 San Francisco, CA. USA The AABC 2020 program will uncover the underlying technical and business issues that will impact the pace and path of vehicle electrification worldwide. Lithium-Ion batteries are the chief candidate for most xEV applications. Contact Cambridge Enertech Tel: +1 781 972 5400 www.advancedautobat.com/us/
India Energy Storage Week — IESW November 2 - 6 V Virtual Event IESW is a flagship international conference & expo by India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) incorporated in 2019, which was earlier Energy Storage India (ESI). It is India’s premier B2B networking & business event focused on renewable energy, advanced batteries, alternate energy storage solutions, electric vehicles, charging infrastructure and microgrids ecosystem. Contact: India Energy Storage Alliance Tel: +91 9699 719 891 contact@indiaesa.info
Battery Tech Expo Nordic November 3 Gothenburg, Sweden The Battery industry is on the cusp of a power revolution with big technology companies investing heavily in the next
The Business Booster The Business Booster is an annual two-day international networking event that showcases 150+ sustainable energy technologies under one roof. Contact InnoEnergy www.tbb.innoenergy.com
106 • Batteries International • Summer 2020
Glasgow, UK
generation of battery development and energy storage. The Battery Tech Expo Nordic runs 3rd November 2020 in Gothenburg — the hub of the high tech industrial sector and will bring together professionals from across the advanced battery technology industry. The event will provide a unique opportunity to showcase the latest products, technologies and services covering the Battery Management Systems, EV Battery, Battery Storage, Battery Development/ Discovery, Commercial and Mobile Power Device sectors. Contact 10fourMedia David Reeks Tel: +44 1283 815719 Email: david.reeks@10fourmedia.co.uk www.batterytechexponordic.com
All Energy November 4-5 Glasgow, UK All-Energy is the UK’s leading renewable energy and low carbon innovation event, showcasing the latest technologies and services for the energy supply chain and both private and public sector energy end users. All-Energy generates invaluable connections between the buyers and sellers of low carbon solutions across the UK marketplace. With over 75,000 unique web users, 4000 e-newsletter subscribers per month and 12,400 social media followers, All-Energy also delivers a multichannel platform for the industry with access to expert presentations, webinars, reports, interviews and blogs. Contact Reed Exhibitions www.all-energy.co.uk
November 4 – 5 • Berlin, Germany
The special exhibition “ees South America” is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary and mobile electrical energy storage solutions. It will be hosted for the second time at Intersolar South America, taking place at the Expo Center Norte in São Paulo. Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies – from components and production to specific user application - it is the ideal platform for all stakeholders in the rapidly growing energy storage market. The focus at ees is on energy storage solutions suited to energy systems with increasing amounts of renewable energy sources attracting investors, utilities, installers, manufacturers and project developers from all over the world. Contact Solar Promotion International Tel: +49 7231 58598-0 Email: info@solarpromotion.com www.intersolar.net.br/en/home/for-visitors/ about-intersolar/focus-ees-south-america. html
www.batteriesinternational.com
Co-located with
europe
15–17 October, 2020 // Messe Stuttgart, Germany
The leading meeting place for the advanced battery and H/EV technology community
3 500+ 100+
days
exhibitors
For 10% off a conference pass, enter ‘BATT10’ at checkout Key Battery Show companies in attendance
speakers
“
The thing that brings us back is the combination of both decision makers, engineers and the scientists that you get to meet face-to-face. — Jeff Norris CEO Paraclete Energy
Register for your pass at www.thebatteryshow.eu 7945_TBS_EU20
”
FORTHCOMING EVENTS Electricity Transformation Canada November 10-12 Ontario, Canada Rescheduled for November 17 - 19 Electricity Transformation Canada will be Canada’s largest renewable energy conference and exhibition, with the key areas of focus being wind energy, solar energy, and energy storage, while expanding to incorporate complementary technologies. Participants will include utilities, system operators, governments, end-use sectors undergoing electrification, and a variety of energy professionals. Contact Glenna Gosewich Show Director, Energy Events Tel: +1 (647) 560-7000 ggosewich@hannoverfairs.com
Furthermore, international associations, pavilions and specialist components manufacturers will be participating from the Middle East, Asia, the Americas and Europe, so this is a truly global supplier-sourcing opportunity in one compact location. Contact UKi Media & Events www.globalautomotivecomponentsandsuppliersexpo.com/en/
Battery Cells & Systems Expo and Conference December 2-3 Coventry, UK Rescheduled from July 8-9, 2020
November 24-25 Stuttgart, Germany Tier 1, 2 and 3 automotive component manufacturers from around the world will be at the expo to display their very latest technologies and products. Plus numerous other exhibitors will be on hand to discuss how they can participate in cost reduction within supply chains, and how they can offer new, alternative, cost-effective manufacturing and supply solutions.
Coventry, UK
Battery Cells & Systems Expo will bring together automotive manufacturers, electric utilities, battery system integrators, cell manufacturers and the entire manufacturing supply chain. A truly unique showcase, companies from around the world will use the show to launch products and demonstrate their technology to an audience of over 4,000 professionals. Co-Located with Vehicle Electrification Expo and The Advanced Materials Show, this will be a highly concentrated two days of networking, lead generation and education featuring the leaders and innovators responsible for shaping the future of this industry.
Contact IPM Tobias Schmidt Tel: +49 511 473 147 90 www.futurebattery.eu
The market potential for electrical energy storage in India is expected to be tremendous in the future-expecially driven by incoming policies for the emobility industry. With the great success and support of ees Europe, Europe’s largest exhibition for batteries and energy storage, ees India becomes the most powerful energy storage exhibition in India. The exhibition is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary electrical energy storage solutions. Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies-from components and production to specific user applications. Contact Solar Promotion International Kristin A. Merz Tel: +49 7231 585 98 212 www.thesmartere.in/en/ees-india
Contact Event Partners Tel: +44 1273 286 399 Email: alex.oliver@event-partners.org www.batterysystemsexpo.com
Stuttgart, Germany. Home of the Porsche Museum and host city for the Global Automotive Components and Suppliers Expo
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The management conference brings together the entire value system of battery technologies: Across various industries more than 300 users, battery system and cell manufacturers and their suppliers will spend two days exchanging information, making new contacts and enriching each other. The event is rounded off by the innovation exhibition with 30 inspiring showcases as a networking and break-out area.
December 15-17 Mumbai, India
November 23-26 Sydney, Australia
Global Automotive Components and Suppliers Expo
December 10-11 Berlin, Germany
ees India
13th Energy Storage World Forum & 6th Residential Energy Storage Forum
Contact Dufresne Davide Bonomi Tel: +44 203 289 0312 davide@energystorageforum.com www.energystorageforum.com/residentialforum-program
Future Battery Forum
Mumbai, India
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Batteries International • Summer 2020 • 109
ANIL SRIVASTAVA, LECLANCHÉ In this eerie world of uncertainty and what is becoming a most over-used adjective for it — unprecedented — there are still many constants. One of them is the world’s need for energy and the fact that adding storage to it makes perfect sense. At Leclanché, Europe’s oldest battery manufacturer with a more than 110-year history in the Swiss town of Yverdon-lesBains, the business model is always evolving with the market.
Europe’s oldest battery maker powers up both arms of its business Leclanché’s most recent development, says CEO Anil Srivastava, is in e-transport and fleet vehicles alongside the stationary storage business. But today’s crisis now puts everything in a different light. Debbie Mason spoke to Srivastava about the firm’s business plans and Covid-19. “For most of my career, I’ve had the fortune of building high-growth business in IT, telecoms and renewable energies around the world,” Srivastava says. “However, my experience of restructuring and reorienting the AT&T/ Lucent Technologies business after the internet crash of 1999 is most relevant, given today’s circumstances.” Srivastasa had moved to AT&T after working for Hewlett Packard in San Jose — he’d graduated with Masters degrees in finance and electrical engineering with the HP Foundation, which handed him a 100% scholarship in 1989 under its HP LIFE (Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs) scheme. “That restructuring meant selling most of the assets, forming joint ventures, and regrettably reducing a size-
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able number of headcounts. It was very tiring, to take a business worth a couple of billion dollars and sell it out in two and a half years’ time — but there was no choice, it was the internet crash. “Sometimes one has to do the dirty work, but it was a great learning experience and really tested my leadership skills and how to stay compassionate while doing what was necessary. “No one can say for sure what the true impact will be from the Covid-19 crisis. One thing is clear: that its impact will be far wider and more profound than any other crisis we have seen in the last two decades. That said, I am convinced that the business fundamentals will remain strong in the long term. And the ability to preserve long-term business value in restructuring an organization sets apart a leader
from an Excel spread sheet-based cost cutting exercise. “Energy storage was the only thing I hadn’t done before joining Leclanché” Srivastava says. “I joined, took time to understand the company before I took the plunge in 2014 and became CEO at the request of the then largest shareholder of the company. “In many ways, the energy business is now having the ‘mobility transformation’ the IT industry went through in the 1990s. “Back then, the ever-increasing networking speed, and resilience, led to more and more distributed computing. That in turn led to what we know today as cloud-based services. “Learning from this journey I went through in the IT and telecom industry until 2007, coupled with my recent experience in renewable energy gener-
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ANIL SRIVASTAVA, LECLANCHÉ ation, transmission and distribution, I am convinced that the major missing link to energy is deployment of cost competitive, flexible, and resilient storage solutions. What networking was and is to mobile and ubiquitous computing, storage is to the energy transition.” Srivastasa calls energy storage the missing glue to green energy. “With utilities, if anyone is developing systems without storage, I think they aren’t seeing the reality or they are even being irresponsible. We shouldn’t allow any more renewable generation facilities to be installed without storage — whether dedicated or on a shared basis in the T & D network.” He points to the company’s 35.6MW solar plant and 44.2MWh battery storage project on the island nation of St Kitts and Nevis, in the Caribbean, which will provide up to 30% of the country’s power needs. Leclanché designed the power plant, which will deliver the baseload power during peak hours. The project will start construction as soon as the Covid-19 lockdown is lifted. “In stationary storage, Leclanché is a software provider and systems integrator rather than a manufacturer. We use our extensive knowledge of energy storage solutions to propose and implement solutions that address our customers’ needs,” says Srivastava. “We manage the whole project and provide a turnkey solution to the customer using an EPC approach (Engineering-Procurement-Construction).” In addition to solar + storage, Leclanché installs systems for commercial and industrial applications, microgrids, utilities — and fast EV charging, which pairs nicely with its e-transport side.
Opening up in India
With his personal roots back in India, it was always more than likely that Srivastasa would eventually set up in his mother country. A joint venture, Nexharge, has been set up with Exide Industries, one of India’s largest lead-acid battery makers, to assemble lithium batteries with a view to making them from scratch at the plant in Gujarat. Covid-19 has delayed operations, but production is slated to begin in June. The plant will assemble lithium titanate batteries for power applications and lithium graphite NMC batteries for long-range vehicles and
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Leclanche’s solar+storage project on St Kitts — delayed because of the virus
SEEING THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF COVID-19 Srivastava is convinced that any decline caused by the pandemic will be temporary, causing a postponement of several projects — but not the end. “Moreover, this crisis raises lots of questions about European production as well as cleaner energy and zero emission mobility, so there will probably be promising opportunities for European battery manufacturers in the coming years. However, this period will be a challenge for most companies,” he says. “It is too early to draw any final conclusions, however. Every crisis can be an opportunity but also carries risks, and this is no exception. People will turn towards cleaner energies, which could be an opportunity for storage. But projects won’t happen overnight, so we do not expect a big change — rather, an evolution towards more renewable energy. “The context is favourable to changes in sourcing materials and supply. On a B2C level, people are buying more local products. “We can assume that a similar trend on a B2B level will follow and European products will be preferred, providing Leclanché with a competitive advantage, as the sole vertically integrated European battery manufacturer. “However, as far as our supply chains are concerned, we remain heavily dependent on Asian chemical suppliers. Although we had taken
diversification initiatives prior to the crisis, there is still a long way to go before we can qualify European/ local supplies for some strategic raw materials.” As Switzerland, where Leclanché is headquartered, slowly normalizes, the company is looking out for all of its facilities in Germany, Norway, France, the UK, North America and India, and putting lives first. First concern, it says, is the health of its employees and team members. Second is clients, business partners and investors, with whom the company says it will maintain communication. “The current situation is fully unpredictable and impacts all customer and supplier relationships, but as the situation changes, and with every update and new measure taken, we promise to communicate to help keep everyone fully aware,” says Srivastava. “We continue to do everything possible to meet the requirements of our customers. This balancing act would not be possible without their patience and understanding, for which we are very grateful. “We urge everyone to follow all government and public health and safety precautions to have the best chance to emerge from today’s challenges in the safest, quickest and most prudent manner. We look forward to putting this period behind us and to focusing on creating a sustainable future.”
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ANIL SRIVASTAVA, LECLANCHÉ stationary storage, but with a focus on producing cells for electric vehicles, and particularly fleet vehicles such as e-buses and e-rickshaws, a market Srivastasa is keen to tap. “We are still predominantly a stationary storage business, but we are growing in our transport sector and we have multiple contracts in marine, trains and so on — we are perfectly positioned for the fleet market. This is the future,” he says. “Under the JV, Exide has licensed Leclanché technology for exclusive use in India, for which they have paid a good sum — it is the biggest industrial investment by Exide.” The plant is 75% owned by Exide, whose managing director and CEO Gautam Chatterjee said the Indian government’s focus on electric vehicles was a reason for Exide to ‘stay relevant’ by taking on lithium batteries. “We were looking for a company to help develop this and chose Leclanché,” he said. “Initially it will be limited to buses and two and three-wheelers, but gradually this will expand and include all kinds of cars.”
e-Transport perspective
In the e-transport side of the business, Leclanché owns the entire value chain, from the cells produced in Germany to the modules and BMS assembled and developed at HQ in Switzerland. “We are perfectly positioned for the
Inside the Nexcharge JV in India, where production of lithium titanate batteries has been delayed because of the coronavirus
fleet market,” says Srivastasa. “Fleet vehicles need an optimized combination of longer life and good range. And we have spent years in R&D – we were among this first to develop lithium titanate technology and launched the same in 2013. This was good but ahead of its time. “The market needed a high density, medium to low power product to last for 10 years. In 2015, I had to decide to create a new cell which had high energy density but was medium power. “This was a pivotal decision made in 2015 that will lead to tremendous success in the fleet electric vehicle market. Leclanché now offers a warranty of 8,000 cycles @80% DoD, where other comparable cells offer
A FIRE SAFETY FIRST One area in which Leclanché is charging ahead is with the invention of a fire safety system that can detect and neutralize a single dangerous cell inside a battery without forcing the battery to shut down. “No one else had done it before,” he says. Leclanché’s Active Fire Propagation System, he says, is one of the reasons he won Entrepreneur of the Year in the Energy Storage Solutions Industry (western Europe), in the European CEO Awards for 2019. “How it works is that if there’s a temperature rise in any battery module in a vehicle, and you could have 4,400 modules in a ferry, the particular cell is injected with a non-corrosive foam and the rest of the battery can keep going while that one is isolated. “We had a vision, we announced the vision, people were sceptical, we delivered it and they were convinced.”
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The system has been installed in an e-ferry in Denmark and will be placed in most of the firm’s current marine projects, such as Yara Birkeland, the world’s first fully electric and autonomous container ship. It is scalable and can be used in stationary storage, trains, large vehicles – anything but passenger vehicles since they are too small. “It will also be installed on the first seagoing vehicle and passenger ferry that will be fuelled by locally produced hydrogen,” he says.
around half that. “We do so with high energy density cells of 210Wh/kg, giving a good range. Simply put, we offer double the life — at the same cost as our competitors. And it’s not going to end there. “By the end of 2020, using our composite graphite silicon anodes, we are going to produce ultra-high-density cells of more than 270Wh/kg. This will enable us to address the automotive markets. “To better understand this, with the 30% increase in energy density, Leclanché battery systems will help increase the range to 500km per charge, which will favourably compare with a mid-range ICE car.”
Seeking the perfect answer
Lithium technology is the prevalent technology in many sectors — stationary storage, EVs — but Srivastasa accepts that it is not competitive for all applications; indeed, there is no single answer for all needs. “For response time, supercapacitors are the best but they don’t have the duration. Lithium titanate oxide has fast response but it doesn’t have the high energy capacity. Lithium graphite NMC has good energy capacity, but can’t support fast charge. “Yet if you want to store energy for a few days and weeks, lithium-ion based systems are not competitive. For long duration you’ve got to consider hydrogen, flow batteries, kinetic energy, pumped hydro – but they’re not cost competitive for many other applications. “Replacing lithium-ion batteries with new breakthrough technologies such as zinc air, sulfur, etc, will need at least five years of industrialization. In the meantime, we can expect a few pilot projects, proof of concept-type implementations.”
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