Energy Storage Journal, Issue 37 — Autumn, 2022

PRICE PROBLEMS AHEAD

As EV battery makers scramble to source new supplies of raw materials and step up research into cheaper chemistry options, the International Energy Agency warns price increases are inevitable.

DESIGNER VIEWPOINT

The EV industry is on high alert over a spike in raw battery material costs but that’s not to say that the efficient use of artificial intelligence programming and deployment can’t benefit companies’ bottom line.

GETTING THE LCOE RIGHT

It’s time for a deeper re-assessment of the levelized cost of RFB storage. Vanadium redox flow batteries may be state-of-the-art in terms of being technology-ready but the price of the electrolyte is still a sticking point. anding its lithium capabilities

Report: lithium-powered so-called ‘green energy’ revolution is increasingly hazardous for shipping safety

Finance: Juanita Anderson | email: juanita@batteriesinternational.com | tel: +44 7775 710 290

Subscriptions and admin: admin@energystoragejournal.com | tel: +44 1 243 782 275

Design: Antony Parselle | email: aparselledesign@me.com

Reception: tel: +44 1 243 782 UK company no: 09123491 “Europe geopolitical realities”. 2022 Convention

A FLOW BATTERY REVOLUTION

The revolution that stalled (or may just be about to)

What if many of the assumptions people have made about the so-called EV revolution are based on false premises?

Let’s go through two of them.

Premise number 1: the price of lithium batteries will continue to fall until they are below the price of lead ones. This will underpin the EV revolution — cheaper batteries mean cheaper cars: consumers will vote with their feet.

The falling cost of lithium batteries has been one of the core principles behind the belief that EVs will overtake internal combustion vehicles.

There was good reason to think this realistic: from 2010 to 2020, the price of lithium ion battery packs fell by almost 90%. The average price of a lithium ion battery pack stood at an eye-watering $1,200/kWh in 2010. In 2020 it was around $105/kWh.

But that’s taken a huge hit in the past year. In 2021 Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysts warned that the higher costs of raw materials could push the average price of a lithium-ion battery pack up to $135/kWh.

But that was before the supply chain problems around the world kicked off after the pandemic and, now the energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

During the first quarter of 2022, the average cost of lithium ion battery cells shot up to $160/ kWh. One recent study estimated that this year, between March and June, global cell prices have risen by 20%-30%.

S&P Global Mobility predicts it could cost car

S&P Global Mobility predicts it could cost car manufacturers up to $8,000 more to make an EV battery pack by the end of 2022.

manufacturers up to $8,000 more to make an EV battery pack by the end of 2022. Part of the first premise: cheaper batteries mean cheaper cars: consumers will vote with their feet is now the opposite.

More expensive batteries means dearer cars: consumers, already concerned that EVs are still more expensive than their ICE counterparts, will vote with their feet — in the other direction.

Premise number 2: EV adoption rates will rapidly climb once phase-out dates for manufacturing ICE cars come in. This is meant to be a corollary of the first. Unfortunately, it is equally flawed.

One British analyst recently said that in the UK, where the sale of new ICE cars will be discontinued by 2030 and hybrid vehicles by 2035, the second-hand car market will receive a huge and unexpected boost in the run-up to the end of the decade.

“At the top tier of the market,” he said, “there is marginal price sensitivity over high-end cars. But when you come to the family saloon level and below, price increases of as little as a couple of thousand pounds will affect buyer decisions. Affordability is key.”

A similar picture is seen in the US where first quarter 2022 sales of fully-electric vehicles reached 5% market share for the first time. However, of the nearly half a million EVs sold in America last year, roughly 70% were Teslas.

The reality is that for most middle-class Americans EVs are still too high to be practical — and look set to stay that way.

This appears to be one of the major worries of its carmakers. “At the end of the day,” one consultant told Energy Storage Journal at the annual Battery Council International meetng this May, “our nation’s automakers just want to sell cars. That’s what they do. They’re not politicians (or they shouldn’t be!)

“They’re worried and acutely conscious of the disincentives that they see coming from the price hikes that they will have to impose on new vehicles — many of which have still yet to see the manufacturing line. More expensive battery packs are just bad news for them.

“Moreover, their enthusiasm for electrification of the nation’s fleet is decidedly lacklustre. They’re having to respond to legislative pressure on CO2 tailpipe emissions and state strictures on what cars we should be driving in a few years’ time.”

The consultant added that CEOs had been actively lobbying the federal and state governments for the last few years to slow down the pace of change.

Oddly enough another figure at the BCI conference said that there was mounting opposition — but behind the scenes— by electric utilities to the decarbonization of the vehicle sector. “They’re not anti-environmental in the slightest — most are embracing the low-cost renewable energy being generated by renewables. They’re just worried about having to ramp production up by as much as a factor of five in the next seven years and beyond.

“Any transition to EVs looks set to be bumpy to say the least.”

And utilities may have to. This year 12 states have announced that they are seeking to set a target date for the nationwide phase-out of ICE car sales. California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington are all pushing for a nationwide ban of gasoline and diesel-powered light-duty vehicles starting in 2035.

In the free-for-all that characterizes state governments and individual cities in the US, there is even talk that California’s ICE ban will be accelerated to 2030 and, irrespective of that, the cities of Oakland, Culver City and Berkeley are already targeting a 2030 deadline.

Additionally, the premise that cheaper EV batteries are inevitable in the long run is flawed — at least for this coming generation. The shift away from fossil fuels to renewables has meant that global demand for raw battery materials — namely nickel, lithium, copper, and cobalt — will be increasing rather than otherwise.

John Shepherd, Editor

Nebreda takes over as CEO of Fluence

(employees) all over the world, who work so hard to create the success this com pany has enjoyed,” he said.

Fluence Energy president and CEO Manuel Pérez Du buc announced he was step ping down from the post effective August 31 — to be succeeded by board member Julian Nebreda (pictured above).

Pérez Dubuc said he would also resign as a direc tor of the company.

“I want to express my gratitude to the Fluence board, our executive leader ship team, and our ‘Fluents’

“I congratulate Julian, my long-standing friend and colleague, for taking over the lead of this transforma tional company as it enters its next chapter, the future is bright for Fluence.”

Nebreda has been a mem ber of the Fluence board since September 2021 and will retain his board seat.

Most recently, Nebre da was executive VP and president of US and global business lines for the AES Corporation, which formed Fluence in 2018 with Sie mens.

Nebreda was responsible for renewables’ growth in the US for AES through its

clean energy business and he previously led the South America and Europe busi ness units for AES, includ ing various publicly-listed subsidiaries.

Meanwhile, Fluence said Krishna Vanka would join the company as senior VP and chief digital officer as of August 29, to lead the expansion of Fluence’s ‘soft ware-as-a-service’ business Vanka was most recently chief product officer at a start-up that provides infra structure, maintenance, and network solutions for elec tric vehicle chargers.

Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of MyShoperoo, which Flu ence said was ranked sixth among the most fundable start-ups in the US.

Dedo joins board of Li-Cycle

North American lithium ion battery recycler Li-Cycle said on August 8 it had appointed Jacqui Dedo as an in dependent director of the board.

Dedo has more than 40 years of experience across the automotive in dustry with a focus on strategy devel opment and customer value and has previously served as chief strategy and

supply chain officer for Dana Holding Corp.

She also sits on the boards of plas tics converting industry firm Cadillac Products Automotive Company and the Workhorse Group, which is an OEM for commercial electric delivery vehicles and delivery drones.

Li-Cycle CEO Ajay Kochhar said:

Sion Power said on June 15 that Mack Treece had been appointed as the company’s CFO.

Prior to joining Sion, Treece was CFO and then chief strategic alliances offi cer at EOS Energy Storage.

Sion CEO Tracey Kel ley said Treece’s extensive strategic and financial ex perience in the energy sec tor “will be essential as we enter into the next stage of commercial EV develop ment”.

The company is develop ing its Licerion technology as an “advanced approach” to lithium-metal batteries, which Sion claims contain twice the energy in the same size and weight battery, compared to a traditional lithium-ion batteries.

“Jacqui is a proven leader in the auto motive industry and we look forward to leveraging her experience and in sights as we continue to build a more circular supply chain for electric ve hicle batteries.

“As we indicated at our 2022 annu al meeting, we are committed to en hancing the balance of independence, diversity and skills of the board as LiCycle continues to execute on its growth strategy.”

Celina Mikolajczak has joined advanced materials company Lyten as chief battery technology officer, the company announced on July 21.

As the leader of Lyten’s Battery Product Innovation Group, Mikolajczak is re sponsible for advancing the development of the LytCell lithium-sulfur battery to full commercial readiness and optimization.

She brings decades of EV battery development experience from cell engineering and manufac turing positions at bat

tery companies including Tesla, Panasonic and most recently QuantumScape.

Mikolajczak has exten sive experience in research ing and delivering commer cially viable and qualified battery architectures to the EV marketplace.

Her technical consult ing practice at Exponent focused on lithium ion cell and battery safety and quality. She then took a senior management posi tion at Tesla focused on cell quality and materials engineering.

In 2019, she joined

Panasonic Energy of North America, where she became VP of engineering and battery technology.

As chief battery technol ogy officer, Mikolajczak joins Kevin Rhodes, VP of battery development and former chief engineer

at AVL, Jim Paye, VP of product management and former head of R&D at A123 Systems, and Zach Favors, VP of battery R&D and former CTO of NexTech Batteries in heading up Lyten’s Battery Product Innovation Group.

Mikolajczak will also partner with Greg Deve son, who was recently promoted to COO after serving as president of automotive. He oversees the firm’s operations engineering, manufactur ing, program management, and materials teams.

Treece is new CFO at Sion Power

Celina Mikolajczak

Lyten appoints Mikolajczak as chief battery tech officer

Freyr Battery names Brose as VP for US

Freyr Battery said on Au gust 23 it had appointed Michael Brose to the new post of VP of US opera tions, to lead the expansion of its battery cells business in the region.

Prior to joining Freyr, Brose was VP of operations for manufacturing com panies including, most re cently, working as the Chi cago-based plant manager for chemicals and materials supplier WR Grace.

Freyr CEO Tom Einar Jensen said the US was a “central element” of its ex pansion roadmap — more so following the signing into law of the Inflation Reduc tion Act by the president, Joe Biden, on August 16.

Brose said: “This is a piv otal time for the battery

industry and for the de velopment of clean energy solutions in major end mar kets such as the US.”

Experience in operat ing and managing chemi cal manufacturing facili ties, “emphasizing efficient processes and high safety

standards”, would under pin Freyr’s investment in clean energy growth in the US, Brose said.

Freyr has started building the first of its planned fac tories in Norway and has previously announced its potential development of

industrial scale battery cell production in Finland and the US.

The company plans to de velop up to 43GWh of bat tery cell production capacity by 2025, with an ambition of up to 83GWh in total ca pacity by 2028.

SES appoints Pilkington as chief legal officer

Kyle Pilkington has been appointed chief legal of ficer at SES effective July 1, the company has an nounced.

Pilkington, who was previously VP for legal, is based in the US and suc ceeds Joanne Ban on the company’s executive team.

SES said Ban is retir ing from the position due to health reasons but will continue to serve SES as an advisor to the CEO.

Pilkington’s career to date has included advising public and private compa nies in the US and interna tionally on a wide variety of transactions and other corporate matters.

Prior to joining SES, Pilk ington served as associate general counsel at Interna tional Game Technology, where he was responsible for securities and corporate governance matters. Before that, he spent 14 years in private practice at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Baker McKenzie and Sullivan & Cromwell in New York,

Sydney and Singapore, spe cializing in cross-border transactions, securities law and capital markets trans actions.

SES founder and CEO Qichao Hu said Pilkington brings a wealth of global

experience, particularly in securities laws matters and the effective oversight of legal, governance and regulatory matters.

“He will play a key role working with me, our board and the rest of our

team as we continue to grow and strengthen the company. We also thank Joanne for all the valuable contributions over the past few years and wish her speedy recovery and great health.”

San Francisco EV charging network company Volta announced several key appointments on June 13 including Vincent Cubbage as interim CEO.

Volta said it had hired Stephen Pilatzke as its first chief accounting officer while Brandt Hastings, formerly interim CEO and chief revenue officer, had been promoted to the post of chief commercial officer.

Additionally, chief strategy officer Drew Lipsher was promoted to

chief development officer.

Cubbage is a former CEO, president and chairman of Tortoise Acquisition Corp II, which completed its initial business combination with Volta in August 2021 — at which time he joined the Volta board.

Cubbage has served as co-chair of the Volta board since March 2022. In his new role, Cubbage will continue to serve as a member of the Volta board, but will not be cochair while he is interim CEO.

Effective with Cubbage’s appointment, Kathy Savitt, a director and previously Volta’s cochair, has become the board’s sole chair.

Cubbage is Volta’s new interim CEO in board shake-up

Michael Brose

Vincent Cubbage

California utility plans two new V2G, V2H programs

to the grid and provide power during an outage.

PG&E said it expects its findings will help deter mine how to maximize the cost-effectiveness of bidi rectional charging technol ogy in providing a variety of customer and grid ser vices.

US utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) said on May 5 it will de velop three new pilot pro grams in California to test how bidirectional EVs and chargers can provide pow er to the grid.

The pilots will be in addi tion to similar programs in collaboration with General

Motors and Ford that were announced in March.

PG&E said the new pilot projects will test bidirec tional charging technol ogy in a variety of settings, including in homes, busi nesses and with local mi crogrids in high fire-threat areas.

Financial incentives will

be offered to those taking part in each of the projects with “additional benefits for those in disadvantaged communities”, the utility said.

All three projects are to be rolled out in 2022 and 2023. This tests the ability of EVs to send power back

According to the utility, the 400,000 EVs registered in its service area — along with the fast-growing number of EVs across the state — “represent a flex ible grid resource, which could offer cost savings associated with operating and maintaining the grid as well as for customers who own an EV or are a part of a bidirectional EV-enabled community microgrid”.

Additionally, using EV batteries for residential and commercial power could reduce the need to build new standalone en ergy storage systems, PG&E said.

Generate Capital acquires esVolta battery storage jobs

North American lithium ion energy storage devel oper esVolta has been ac quired by Generate Capital for an undisclosed sum, the firms announced on July 21.

Generate said the deal would boost its plans to ex pand into the front-of-me ter battery storage market by adding a “fast-growing and experienced team with a pipeline of attractive proj ects”.

Founded in California in 2017, esVolta has a portfo lio of more than 900MWh of operational and utilitycontracted projects in the US and Canada.

The BESS company is de veloping projects in Texas, Arizona, Montana, Cali fornia, Virginia, Colorado, Washington and New Mex ico.

Generate, which was launched in 2014, invests in assets and conducts eq uity raises every 18 to 24 months to attract corporate equity from global infra structure investors.

Generate founder and CEO Scott Jacobs said: “Battery storage is critical to building a sustainable energy system and ensuring grid reliability as we scale up renewables and acceler ate the energy transition.”

Nearly 70,000 workers were employed in the US battery storage sector in 2021, according to latest data published in June by the Department of Energy’s Office of Policy.

The 2022 US Energy and Employment Report said jobs in batteries made up 80% of all stor age technology jobs — an increase of 4.4% from the previous year.

Employees involved in battery storage numbered 69,698, which USEER said was nearly nine times the 7,901 employed in pumped storage hydro power — the next storage sector in terms of jobs.

According to the report,

more than half of work ers in the battery storage sector (53%) were in construction, followed by manufacturing (18%), “various professional services roles” (17%), wholesale trade distribu tion and transport (11%), while 2% were listed un der the category of other services.

Jobs in the US energy sector overall in 2021 increased by more than 300,000 from 7.5 million total energy jobs in 2020.

The Department of Energy said the findings of the USEER showed that energy sector jobs outpaced overall US employment in 2021.

Plans for 22 large-scale solar and battery stor age projects for some 2,408MW in New York State were announced by governor Kathy Hochul on June 2. The projects would attract more than $2.7 bil lion in private investment.

EDF Renewables North America was awarded three of the contracts, amounting to a combined 1GW of solar plus storage in New York.

The EDF projects include 20MW of co-located bat tery storage facilities at

Rio

Rio Tinto is to invest $10 million in a battery met als partnership with Nano One.

Nano One said on June 9 that the equity investment boost would accelerate its multi-cathode commercial ization plans, support cath ode active materials manu facturing in Canada and the commercialization of its One-Pot and M2CAM technologies.

The partnership follows Nano One’s announcement on May 25 of its C$10.25 million ($8 million) acqui sition of Johnson Matthey

each of three sites — the Columbia, Ridge View and Rich Road solar en ergy centers — represent ing nearly 40% of the total 2,408MW of procurement announced.

Hochul said: “These projects will allow us to exceed our goal of obtain ing 70% of our electricity from renewable resources and will further cement New York as a national leader in the fight against climate change.”

Hochul said the decision marked the state’s largest

land-based renewable en ergy procurement to date.

In June 2020, New York State’s grid operator, NY ISO, announced the most aggressive clean energy mandates in America, ac cording to its CEO Rich ard Dewey.

Last July, New York’s Queens borough was given the go-ahead to deploy a 100MW/400MWh battery storage facility system as part of a 300MW portfolio of projects to be rolled out by utility Con Edison by 2023.

South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (LES) is teaming up with two German research insti tutes to develop a next generation electrolyte and a “green process” for lithium ion battery manufacturing, the BESS and auto batteries giant announced on June 7.

LES said it is partner ing the University of Münster and Forschun gszentrum Jülich as part of a research program funded by LES’ Frontier Research Laboratory.

Battery Materials (JMBM) Canada.

Nano One CEO Dan Blondal said the Rio Tinto agreement would build on the JMBM Canada acquisi tion and support the min ing group’s own growing battery metals business.

The new investment will also support Nano One’s acquisition of JMBM Can ada’s 2,400 tonne per an num capacity lithium iron phosphate production facil ity in Quebec and “indus trial scale piloting of other Nano One CAM technolo gies, and for working capi

tal purposes”, the company said.

The deal also paves the way to launch a study of Rio Tinto’s battery metal products, including iron powders from the Rio Tinto Fer et Titane facil ity in Québec, as feedstock for the production of Nano One’s cathode materials.

Rio Tinto has gradually been ramping up its inter ests in the battery industry, including the purchase of the Argentinian lithium brine project Rincon for $825 million, announced last December.

The work with the university’s Münster Electrochemical Energy Technology unit and the Helmholtz Institute Münster of the Forsc hungszentrum will focus on ways to boost battery cell performance, includ ing its energy density and cycle life.

LES established the laboratory program with the University of California San Diego to develop a new type of an all-solid-state battery, using solid-state elec trolyte and advanced electrode techniques.

Finnish renewable products firm Stora Enso said on July 22 it was branching out into batteries with Swedish giga factory developer Northvolt — to create a “sustainable battery” featuring anode produced using lignin-based hard carbon made from Nordic forest wood.

The partners have entered into a joint development agreement for the project that will use renewable raw materials sourced sustain

ably in Nordic countries.

Lignin is a plant-derived polymer found in the cell walls of dry-land plants, the companies said. “Trees are composed of 20%–30% of lignin, where it acts as a natural and strong binder. It is one of the biggest renew able sources of carbon any where.”

Stora Enso’s pilot plant for bio-based carbon materials, at the group’s Sunila pro duction site in Finland, has

been producing lignin on an industrial scale since 2015 with an annual production capacity of 50,000 tonnes.

Northvolt chief environ mental officer Emma Neh renheim said: “With this partnership, we are ex ploring a new source of sustainable raw material and expanding the Euro pean battery value chain, while also developing a less expensive battery chemistry.”

The battery maker also launched a separate initiative under the program in October 2021 with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology — a national university for base techniques on elements of next-genera tion batteries.

Allianz warns of EV batteries risk to safe shipping

A new report released on May 10 warns that the lithium-powered so-called ‘green energy’ revolution is increasingly hazardous for shipping safety — with EV battery fires contributing to clean-up costs and causing environmental concerns.

According to the Safety & Shipping Review 2022, published by corporate insurance carrier Allianz Global Corporate & Spe cialty (AGCS), the rise in popularity of EVs repre sents “a significant differ ence in risk profile for ship pers when compared with traditional vehicles”.

Following more than 70 reported fires on container ships alone in the past five years, the report says a ma jor rethink of vessel designs, fire detection and fire-fight ing capabilities may also be required.

The report cites the inci dent last February, when a fire broke out aboard the car carrier Felicity Ace in the Atlantic.

The vessel sank in March with 4,000 vehicles, includ ing EVs, worth an estimat ed $400 million-$500 mil lion on board, while being towed to rescue, the report says.

“Given the vessel sank, the exact cause of the fire may never be known. How ever, it is thought the pres ence of lithium ion batteries on board aggravated condi tions.

“EV lithium ion batter ies could potentially ignite if damaged, are susceptible to cargo shift in rough seas if not adequately secured and can also combust with an increase in temperature from a nearby fire or even during on board charging,” the report says.

“Fires require a large vol ume of water to extinguish and cool the surrounding

area, which can, in turn, endanger the stability of the ship. Crews will need to be specially trained and equipped with appropriate detectors and fire extin guishing equipment.”

Captain Rahul Khanna, AGCS’ global head of ma rine risk consulting, says in the report: “The costs of responding to incidents and clean-up are now typically many multiples of the ship’s value.

“Larger vessels mean larger losses. An incident involving a container ship or car carrier can now cost as much as $1 billion, once salvage and environmental considerations are factored in. A major incident involv ing two mega container/ passenger vessels in an environmentally-sensitive region could cost in excess of $4bn.

“We now have ships that are almost too large for the crew to fight fires effective ly. There needs to be an ur gent review of fire detection and fighting protections and equipment on board

large container ships.”

Cargo mis-declaration is another problem, the re port says, citing an incident in August 2021 when a container full of discarded lithium batteries caught fire in the US while being trans ported by road to the Port of Virginia, where it was due to be loaded on to a container ship.

The cargo had been wrongly declared as ‘com puter parts’ and the US Coast Guard said that the

incident could have been catastrophic had the con tainers caught fire after be ing loaded aboard the ship.

Cargo vessels accounted for half of all 27 vessels lost around the world in 2021, according to AGCS.

Energy Storage Journal reported on March 3 that China had called on the In ternational Maritime Orga nization to consider a shake-up of maritime safety rules for EVs being shipped by sea.

Batteries insurance warranty scheme launched

Batteries insurance and warranties company

Altelium has teamed up with Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK), an international insurance underwrit ing business, to launch what the partners say is a world-first warranty programme for battery energy storage systems.

Warranties are is sued based on battery properties, behaviours and data analytics. An online platform is used to gather the information, including data capture, performance and risk

assessment, to the pricing of the premium.

The companies say such warranties can be used to support the use and tradein of second life batteries, and so lowering technol ogy and operational risk.

Purchasing warranties enables battery manufac turers “to free up trapped capital”, allowing greater resources to be focused on growth, UK-based Altelium said.

Altelium co-founder Ed Grimston said the aim was to “help ac celerate the transition to

renewables by providing real-time, data-driven insurance solutions for first and second-life BESS and EVs”.

TMK head of innova tion Tom Hoad said: “Providing insured warranties for BESS will unlock the deployment of large-scale capital invest ment.

“We are all aware of the urgent need to improve energy security and slash carbon emis sions. Partnering with start-ups like Altelium helps us support this.”

The smoke-engulfed Felicity Ace Photo: Allianz

Europe trails US, China in ESS growth, study reveals

European investment in energy storage systems has stalled — and the region is lagging behind the US and China in terms of market growth in the sector, ac cording to a new study.

Cumulative storage de ployments worldwide are expected to reach 500GW by 2031, says Wood Mack enzie’s Global Energy Stor age Outlook, published in July.

But the study says Eu rope demand is lagging behind as the region’s gridscale market “struggles to stabilize”, with only 159GWh forecast for the region by 2031, compared to 422GWh for China and 600GWh for the US.

One commentator blames the over-regulation of the European Commis sion, the civil service arm of the EU, as the reason for the slower rates of adoption: “In the US com mercial imperatives, which are mostly understood by federal states, underpins

the growth. In China the central government’s grip on the economy means it can impose its will across the nation.

“But in Europe, decisionmaking by committee and by politicians with little commercial experience has caused the region to talk big, put too many rules into place and then lag behind the others. If there is any good to come from the Rus sian invasion of Ukraine it has stirred up a greater sense of urgency about en ergy storage across the EU.”

Dan Shreve, global head of energy storage at Wood Mackenzie, said: “Growth has stalled in Europe as regulatory barriers fail to improve storage project economics. In addition, limited access to power markets and a lack of reve nue stacking opportunities, combined with a lack of capacity market auctions, has lowered investment for grid-scale storage assets in Europe.”

EASE urges 14GW p/year ramp-up of energy storage for renewables

Europe needs a ramp up of energy storage capac ity at the rate of at least 14GW per year within the next nine years — or the bloc will be unable to inte grate energy supplies from the rapid expansion of re newables and miss climate goals, says a study released in June by the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE).

Existing European Com mission assumptions on en ergy storage need to be re vised, according to EASE’s Energy Storage Targets re port* — which estimates a ‘no-regret storage require ment’ of about 200GW by 2030 and 600GW by 2050, including 435GW from power-to-X-to-power solutions for energy shift ing and storage for varying

durations.

“Establishing these 2030 and 2050 values as energy storage targets at EU level, with a dedicated energy storage strategy, will pro vide a clear signal to the energy storage industry and investors to begin building the infrastructure needed to drive large-scale deploy ment in parallel with sup porting renewables integra tion,” the report says.

According to EASE, most recent Commission studies, published in March 2020, estimated 456GW of flexi bility would be needed by 2030, but EASE said this is based on “outdated climate targets” and should be re viewed as the EU starts to cut back on fossil fuel im ports such as those from Russia.

However, the study said Germany’s energy storage market is continuing to grow and is set to become the third biggest energy storage market by 2030 after the US and China — with 32GWh forecasted for the country, 61% of which derived from residential storage.

The study notes that the European Commission’s REPowerEU plan — aimed at severing dependence on Russian gas before 2030 — will boost the EU energy storage market further as it pushes for a higher share of renewable supply in EU member states.

Europe has already seen a 12 GWh increase since the plan was launched this May, which set out a 600GW target for the solar PV market and pledged to ease permitting processes for storage and PV systems.

Shreve said: “While RE PowerEU does not set out a specific target for energy storage, higher renewable supply targets will drive demand for flexible power solutions, including energy storage assets.”

Meanwhile, the US re mains the energy storage market leader, with aver age annual installations of 54GWh through to 2031, 83% of which will be grid-

scale, the study says.

But Wood Mackenzie’s US outlook shows 2022 and 2023 demand downgrades of 34% and 27% respec tively because of what the company says are disrup tions within the grid-scale and distributed segments from an anti-dumping and countervailing duties (AD/ CVD) tariff suit from the second quarter of this year.

“The US solar and stor age market was hit hard by the AD/CVD tariff pe tition, with approximately 35% of 2022 hybrid gridscale installations delayed,” Shreve said.

On China, the study high lights the country’s “contin ued dominance” in the Asia Pacific market, with more than 400GWh of demand forecast through to 2031.

Shreve said this has main ly been driven by China’s 14th ‘Five-Year New En ergy Storage Development Implementation Plan’, which reiterated the central importance of energy stor age in national decarbon ization plans.

China’s plan proposes that by 2025 energy storage will enter the large-scale de velopment stage, with sys tem costs falling by more than 30% through im proved technology perfor mance.

EU nations urged to fast-track storage and cut red tape

The European Commis sion said on May 18 that battery storage and re newables projects should be fast-tracked and planning red tape slashed, as Europe scrambles to combat a looming energy crisis.

The Commission recommended that EU countries speed up ap provals for the planning, construction and opera tion of plants producing

electricity from renewa bles — together with energy storage facilities — and ensure such pro jects “qualify for the most favourable procedure available in planning and permit-granting proce dures”.

All such projects should be “presumed as being in the overriding public interest and in the interest of public safety”, the Commission said.

Hong Seng in BESS and EV batteries production hub plan for Malaysia

Hong Seng Consolidated and EoCell unveiled pro posals on June 14 to de velop a regional battery manufacturing hub in Ma laysia to initially supply electric vehicles and then energy storage systems.

The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding that paves the way to select a site for the facility and work with Malaysia’s government to “obtain incentives and necessary authoriza tions”.

Silicon Valley-based next-generation lithium batteries firm EoCell is set to licence the use of its products and manufac turing technology for the project with Hong Seng, a Malaysian conglomerate.

Hong Seng managing director Dato Teoh Hai Hin said: “The global en ergy storage market has a bright outlook, with a valuation of $10.37 bil lion in 2020 and forecast

to reach $37.06 billion by 2027.

“This translates into a compound annual growth rate of 19.9% between 2022 and 2027, and the batteries segment is ex pected to account for the largest share in the energy storage market.”

EoCell holds a number of patents in battery tech nology in the US and is in a collaboration arrange ment with Norwegian cells development compa ny Morrow Batteries.

Michael Loh, EoCell’s CEO, said: “We believe Hong Seng is poised to become one of Southeast Asia’s leading battery producers with a focus on sustainable production facilities powered with clean green energy.

“The Southeast Asian electrification movement is underway and Hong Seng has a great strategy to fulfil this upcoming de mand.”

Banks financing energy boost for Guyana

Guyana is to develop eight utility-scale solar and bat tery storage projects in the South American country with investment financing worth around $83 million, the Inter-American Devel opment Bank (IDB) an nounced on June 17.

The IDB and the Nor wegian Agency for Devel opment Cooperation have approved the non-reim bursable financing for the photovoltaic solar projects totaling 33MWp with an associated 34MWh of en ergy storage systems.

Guyana “will now make a transformational leap to wards decarbonization by expediting climate-resilient

renewable energy in the electricity generation ma trix”, the IDB said.

The program will also support a step-change by digitalizing electrical sys tems in three areas of the country, moving them from manual systems towards real-time, automated moni toring and control, improv ing efficiency, reliability, and stability, the IDB said.

Utilities Guyana Power and Light and the Linden Electricity Company will also benefit from the use of solar photovoltaic technol ogy that will displace sig nificant amounts of fossil fuels and reduce generation costs, the IDB said.

Freyr signs new battery materials supply deal

Gigafactories developer Freyr Battery said on June 15 it had signed a further battery materials deal with two companies to supply its customer qualification plant being built in Nor way.

Freyr said China-based Changzhou Senior New Energy Materials and Se nior Material (Europe), based in Sweden, have reserved unspecified sup plies of separator material through 2028 and Freyr has an option to extend supplies until 2031.

The supply deal follows Freyr’s signing of nine agreements with key bat tery material suppliers, announced on February 2, for “more than 90%” of its raw material requirements for initial facilities, includ ing the customer qualifica tion plant.

Executive vice president of supply chain manage ment for Freyr, Tilo Hauke, said the latest agreement

“ensures that we won’t lose any speed when it comes to securing the re quired separator materi als to start production at our customer qualification plant and Gigafactory 1 & 2”.

Changzhou Senior is a pre-qualified supplier of 24M Technologies — which signed a licensing agreement in 2020 for Freyr to have unlimited production of lithium ion battery cells based on its SemiSolid technology.

Robin Olsson, Senior Material COO, said the intention was to eventually meet Freyr’s supply needs through the firm’s facility in Sweden, “which aligns well with Freyr’s mission to source materials as lo cally as possible”.

Freyr plans to develop up to 43GWh of battery cell production capacity by 2025, with an ambition of up to 83GWh in total ca pacity by 2028.

InoBat cells deal with Impact Clean Power

Energy storage battery systems manufacturer Impact Clean Power Technology has signed a battery cells development and supply agreement with Slovak battery tech developer InoBat, the companies announced on July 14.

The cells will be used to develop high voltage bat tery systems at Impact’s planned GigafactoryX plant in Poland, which Impact said on June 29 is being built to serve the stationary energy stor age, public transport and railway sectors.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

However, Impact and InoBat said they expect to have an “early prototype sample cell” ready for performance testing dur ing 2023.

InoBat co-founder and CEO Marian Bocek said the partners plan to cre ate “a truly differentiated electric battery cell” for Impact’s battery systems.

Impact says Gigafacto ryX is expected to start producing power systems based on lithium ion cell technologies — LTO, LFP and NMC — in 2024 and boost the company’s existing production capacity from around 1MWh to up to 5GWh per year.

Canadian Solar enters UK utility-scale ESS market

Canadian Solar has entered the UK’s utility scale energy storage market after sign ing agreements for four battery storage projects, the company said on May 9.

The agreements with Pulse Clean Energy, include converting four diesel gen eration sites into grid-scale battery storage facilities, together with engineering, procurement and construc tion services for the more than 100MWh of projects.

Pulse, which launched earlier this year, said the sites are in South Wales, Warwickshire and northeast England.

The companies did not disclose financial details or specify the battery technol ogy involved, but said the deal marked the start of a

KORE Power battery tech chosen for new BESS in UK

KORE Power said on June 8 it had been selected to supply its battery technology for a 10MW/20MWh lithium ion BESS being developed in the UK by ABB.

The US-based battery cell tech company will provide its Mark 1 storage modules equipped with high energy density NMC pouch technology for the facility, which will be installed at renewable energy company Ecotricity’s existing 6.9MW wind farm in Gloucestershire in 2023.

The BESS will use Ecotricity’s proprietary ‘Smart Grid’ platform to dispatch stored electricity according to system needs, KORE said.

Mark Meyrick, head of smart grids at Ecotricity, said: “We’ve been working towards our first grid scale battery as we’ve been developing our Smart Grid platform and we’re looking forward to taking this next step with ABB.

“This project is a first

long-term partnership be tween the companies.

In addition to providing the battery storage systems and construction services, Canadian Solar will main tain and operate the proj ects under a 10-year longterm service agreement.

As of January 31, 2022, Canadian Solar’s energy storage portfolio included 300MWh of projects under a long-term service agree ment, 2,043MWh of proj ects under construction and a remaining pipeline of over 4GWh. Canadian So lar’s Energy Storage Team says it continues to expand its regional footprint, exe cuting storage projects and deploying resources in Can ada, the US, UK Australia, and China.

for us and will enable us to manage demand for renewable energy, as well as develop a greater understanding of the deployment of storage for flexibility requirements.”

On March 23, KORE said it had acquired energy storage company Northern Reliability for an undisclosed sum — and had launched a new division called KORE Solutions.

First phase of China 200MW flow battery on the grid

The first phase of a planned 200MW/800MWh vanadium redox flow battery energy storage system has been connected to the grid in China, the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) reported on July 19.

CNESA said the initial 100MW/400MWh system in Dalian achieved grid connection on May 24 after six years of planning, construction and commissioning, at a total investment cost of Rmb1.9 billion ($281 million).

Umicore launches Korea R&D plant for cathode materials

Materials technology and recycling group Umicore has formally opened a new global research and devel opment center for cathode materials in South Korea, the company announced on May 10.

Umicore said the 30,000m2 (330,000 square feet) center, built next to the company’s existing R&D and cathode materials pro duction plants in Cheonan, became fully operational in early April, providing ser vices for the energy storage, automotive and portable electronics sectors.

The centre also houses a new battery cells and test ing laboratory.

Product research at the centre will continue to fo cus on next-generation bat tery materials, including high-nickel NMC, low co balt NMC, manganese-rich

chemistries as well as solidstate battery materials tech nology, Umicore said.

Umicore’s executive vice president for energy and surface technologies, Ralph Kiessling, said: “This will enable us to continue to develop cathode materials that exceed customer ex pectations in terms of qual ity, reliability, safety and in novation.”

In May 2021, Umicore and BASF said they had signed a cross-licence agree ment to develop cathode materials and precursors in a wide range of battery chemistries based on nickel and manganese.

The chemistries named as in line for development were nickel manganese co balt, nickel cobalt alumini um, nickel manganese co balt aluminium and high manganese.

Miba acquires majority Voltlabor stake

Automotive and en ergy systems company

Miba has acquired an undisclosed majority stake in battery systems producer Voltlabor, the Austrian companies an nounced on May 23.

The deal builds on the 25.1% stake Miba acquired in 2019 and Voltlabor will be re named Miba Battery Systems.

Voltlabor develops and produces battery systems incorporating a novel temperature management system for sectors including energy storage and e-mobility.

Miba is building a 3,900 square metre (42,000 square feet) ‘VOLTFactory’ battery

production plant in Bad Leonfelden, Austria and says other such plants are planned to meet enormous demand.

Miba CEO Peter Mit terbauer said acquiring a majority stake in Volt labor was an important milestone in his compa ny’s corporate strategy.

“We want to grow to sales of €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) by 2027 with technologies for end applications for the efficient generation, transmission, storage and use of energy. Batteries as storage for energy are an important pillar in this context and an optimal addition to the Miba product portfolio.”

New CellCube unit in US targets VRFB business

CellCube brand owner Enerox said on May 5 it had launched a subsidiary in Colorado to take ad vantage of “exploding de mand” for long duration energy storage systems in the US market.

The Austria-based vana dium redox flow battery (VRFB) company said it would target a range of services including support for renewable energy sup ply and microgrid appli cations.

CEO of CellCube Aus tria and US, Alexander Schoenfeldt, said: “Be ing a global leader in this space, we are very en thusiastic about our new presence in North Amer ica, as it will allow us to build and use local supply chains and engage with our business and R&D

partners in the US more easily.”

CellCube was among the group of companies that formed the Long Duration Energy Storage Council in November 2021, with the stated aim of achieving grid net-zero by 2040.

Last February, Enerox signed an expanded fiveyear supply agreement with electrolyte supplier, US Vanadium, for three million litres per year, to gether with a price cap over the five-year term.

Schoenfeld said then that the agreement was part of the company’s “go-to-mar ket in North America” strategy using electrolyte that had been regionally processed within North America, “ensuring longterm deliverability at a competitive price”.

Energy Vault starts work on China gravity-based ESS

Energy Vault Holdings has broken ground on its first gravity-based energy stor age system in China, the company announced on May 5.

Energy Vault said the 100MWh ‘EVx’ is being built next to a wind farm and national grid site in Rudong, near Shanghai, in partnership with Atlas Re newable and China Tiany ing (CNTY).

The launch of work in Rudong follows a $50 mil lion licensing agreement between Energy Vault, USbased Atlas Renewable — which supports companies in project dealings with Chi nese institutions and regu latory authorities — and CNTY, a Chinese environ mental services firm.

Energy Vault uses a block tower system to store and release renewable energy from wind and solar opera tions. It uses surplus renew

able energy to store power by constructing the tower with a crane. When demand rises, the crane unstacks the tower, producing kinetic en ergy by dropping the blocks so that they can turn genera tors and create electricity.

Company chairman, cofounder and CEO Robert Piconi said: “Our first com mercial EVx deployment in China is a significant mile stone.

“China is rapidly expand ing its use of renewable en ergy coupled with annual energy storage mandates in order to meet its decarbon ization goals. We are very pleased that EVx and our energy management soft ware platform have already received local regulatory en dorsement and is being de ployed now as a critical en abling technology to support China’s energy transition and carbon neu trality goals.”

Powin BESS system earmarked for Idaho Power project

Energy storage company Powin is set to provide 120MW/524MWh of bat tery storage, to come online next summer in the US state of Idaho, Idaho Power an nounced on May 2.

The lithium iron phosphate ‘stack’ batteries are set to be the first utility-scale stor age systems in Idaho. They would help maintain reliable service during periods of high use, while furthering the company’s goal of providing 100% clean energy by 2045.

Proposals for the Powin storage projects were filed in April with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, which will determine whether the

project is in the public inter est.

If the project is approved, the batteries should come online by June 2023 across several locations.

Idaho Power senior vice president and chief operat ing officer Adam Richins said: “Not only are we add ing capacity to serve our cus tomers, but we are taking ad vantage of advancements in technology that will be key to our future.

“Battery storage enables us to use existing genera tion sources efficiently while setting the stage for more clean energy in the coming years.”

California Li-tax law triggers battery materials supply alert

California is to slap a tax on lithium production in the state to generate cash to spend on environmental re mediation projects — amid warnings the move could disrupt the battery materi als supply chain and hit the state’s investments in energy storage and electric vehicle production.

The Lithium Extraction Tax Law — part of a pack age of budget proposals signed off by state governor Gavin Newsom — will comprise a tax of $400 per tonne for the first 20,000 tonnes of lithium produced annually, $600 per tonne for the next 10,000 tonnes and $800 per tonne with output of 30,000 tonnes or more.

The law comes into ef fect on January 1, 2023 and would affect projects such as lithium production in California’s so-called ‘lithium valley’ Salton Sea region.

According to the bill, the aim is “to promote a robust California-based lithium extraction industry that considers the needs of the

local communities where the lithium extraction occurs, while recognizing the significant benefit of having a domestic supply of lithium for the state’s goals for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases”.

However, Controlled Thermal Resources, whose ‘Hell’s Kitchen Project’ at Salton Sea is set to recover lithium from geothermal brines using renewable energy and steam to pro duce battery grade lithium products, said the tax as it stands would “severely impact the development of ‘Lithium Valley’.

CTR said: “Supporting a tax that ensures lithium imports from China are less expensive for auto manu facturers will devastate this promising Californian in dustry before it has begun.”

Eric Spomer, the CEO of privately held EnergySource Minerals, reportedly told Reuters: “This tax would stifle our industry before it even begins. We’re willing to pay and contribute to the local community, but it has to be a rational tax.”

TotalEnergies commissions second BESS in French deal

TotalEnergies has commis sioned a 25MWh battery storage facility at its Car ling industrial site in northeastern France, the group said on May 9.

The BESS comprises 11 lithium ion battery contain ers designed and assembled by TotalEnergies’ subsid iary Saft.

The company has re vealed plans to launch a third BESS facility in France by the end of 2022, as it fi nalizes its portfolio of proj ects awarded by the French Electricity Network (RTE).

Carling is the second BESS built under tenders awarded to TotalEnergies by RTE.

The energy company com missioned its first BESS for RTE, a 61MWh Dunkirk facility, last December.

Carling, which is also home to two combined cycle gas turbine power plants, will be used to sta bilize the grid and to sup ply power during peaks in consumption, especially in winter.

Meanwhile, Saft said on May 11 that it had won a

contract to supply a 10MW BESS to provide capacity and firming and smooth ing for what will be Côte d’Ivoire’s first solar plant.

The Boundiali plant BESS will comprise six of Saft’s lithium-based Intensium Max high energy contain ers, providing a total of 13.8 MWh of energy storage, to gether with power conver sion and medium voltage power station systems.

TotalEnergies said the BESS is scheduled for com missioning in September 2022.

Britishvolt acquires EAS, agrees Bühler tech deal

UK gigafactory developer Britishvolt announced on May 24 it had signed a sales purchase agreement to acquire German battery cells producer EAS Batter ies from the Monbat group, in a cash and shares deal worth €36 million (about $38 million).

Monbat CEO Viktor Spiriev said his company would “continue to be part of the expected growth of the lithium ion industry through the minority stake that the group will hold in Britishvolt”.

“We believe Britishvolt is the right partner that has the necessary resources to become a leader in provid ing lithium ion solutions for electrified transporta tion and energy storage.”

Britishvolt founder and CEO Orral Nadjari said

the acquisition would al low the company to scale up the final part of its ‘46xx cell’ development and com mercialization program and “put this leading cell product in the hands of our automotive customers”.

“Our 46xx cell format, developed as part of our wider R&D program, gives Britishvolt a significant competitive advantage in the battery race.”

EAS has more than 25 years of experience in de veloping and producing large format cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells from 7.5Ah to 50Ah.

Monbat, a predominantly lead battery manufacturer, acquired EAS in 2017. The sales and purchase agree ment for Britishvolt to acquire EAS is subject to various commercial and

regulatory approvals.

Separately, Britishvolt said on June 7 that Swiss manufacturer Bühler is to supply the gigafactory de veloper with “low-carbon” battery mixing technology.

Britishvolt said its first gigaplant, in Northumber land, will use large scale Bühler production lines for the manufacture of electrode slurries for the first go-to-market phase of 4.8GWh, which will be ex panded to 38 GWh towards the end of the decade.

This corresponds to enough battery cells for well in excess of 300,000 electric vehicles per year, Britishvolt said.

Britishvolt’s ramp-up and production lines are sched uled to be commissioned in September 2023 and spring 2024, respectively.

CATL joins winners of EES awards in Germany

Chinese battery giant Con temporary Amperex Tech nology (CATL) was among the winners of the 2022 an nual innovation prize at the Electrical Energy Storage (EES) exhibition in Munich, Germany, the organizers an nounced on May 10.

CATL joined German in verter company STABL En

ergy and second-life electric vehicle batteries firm Volt fang in receiving the award in the electrical energy stor age category.

EES said CATL’s EnerOne LFP battery storage system, the STABL SI 100 modu lar multi-level converter and the Voltfang industrial commercial storage system,

made from second-life car batteries, were all examples of innovative products with in the storage industry.

The EES award was pre sented along with others for innovation from across the three other exhibitions held in conjunction with EES — Intersolar, Power2Drive and EM-Power.

Grid connection green light for BESS

Australian renewables company Maoneng Group has been given the green light to connect its 240MW/480MWh bat tery energy storage sys tem to a grid substation in the state of Victoria.

The company said on May 18 that the Aus tralian Energy Market Operator had given the go-ahead for grid connec tion of the lithium iron phosphate BESS, on the Mornington Peninsula, which is scheduled for completion in early 2024.

The facility will be connected to Australian energy firm AusNet’s Tyabb substation in the southern part of the state’s grid, although no connection date was an nounced.

Maoneng said the BESS, which represents “hundreds of millions of dollars of investment”, will draw and store energy from the grid dur ing off-peak periods and dispatch energy during peak periods, generating power for the equivalent of 40,000 average homes.

Company co-founder and CEO Morris Zhou said battery storage was “vital to the clean energy transition… this project is progressing at a time when demand for renew able energy and associ ated storage capacity is increasing, and we are seeing a lot more inter est in battery projects in Australia and interna tionally.”

In a related move on May 1, Maoneng unveiled details of a proposed energy hub comprising a 550MWac solar farm and 400MW/1,600MWh BESS in New South Wales.

Powin in Australia deal with BlackRock’s Akaysha Energy

Energy storage systems company Powin has en tered the Australian mar ket under a partnership deal with Akaysha En ergy to deploy more than 1.7GWh of energy storage systems over the next two years, the companies said on August 30.

The deal came just days after global funds manag er, BlackRock, said it was acquiring Akaysha — and injecting A$1 billion ($700 million) in capital to sup port the roll-out of BESS projects across Australia.

Powin, under the terms of a framework agreement, will deploy its lithium ion Stack products line and advanced power plant con trol systems.

Powin said its engineer ing team has been working with Akaysha for several months and was well ad

vanced in the grid inter connection process, includ ing meeting the generator performance standard re quired by Australia’s grid operator for entry into the market.

Geoff Brown, Powin’s CEO, said the deal was “a key milestone as we ex pand our footprint glob ally and invest in new re gions”.

Akaysha MD Nick Cart er said: “It is critical to have a diverse competitive landscape in the Austra lian ESS market. Powin’s vertically integrated and flexible business model re duces project cost and risk by having multiple trusted cell suppliers, proprietary software, and an in-house power plant controller.”

The acquisition of Akay sha is the first battery stor age investment made by

Japan supercharges battery ambitions with ESS targets

Japan’s government un veiled targets on August 31 to expand the annual do mestic production of elec tric vehicle and energy stor age batteries to 150GWh by 2030.

Ministers also want to see 30,000 workers trained up to support the country’s fu ture battery manufacturing industry and supply chains.

The government said new educational programs should be introduced at technical institutions to help attract a new genera tion of workers to the bat teries sector.

Japan’s Ministry of Econ omy, Trade and Industry (Meti) said a panel of ex perts would have the task of formulating a national bat tery strategy, as the country launches a fresh push to counter strong competition

from battery manufactur ing rivals across Asia.

Meti said the goal also included achieving “fullscale commercialization of all-solid-state batteries by around 2030”.

The panel will work with battery industry leaders in Japan to agree on a specific plan by the end of March 2023.

Meti also said the govern ment would step up support for Japanese companies that can secure battery ma terials supply chains, such as by forging alliances and partnerships with mineralrich countries worldwide.

But the ministry said it would be up to private Jap anese companies to also raise capital on the markets to take part in large-scale investments in battery proj ects overseas.

BlackRock’s Climate Infra structure business — part of BlackRock Real Assets — in the Asia-Pacific re gion.

Akaysha is developing nine BESS projects in Aus tralia’s National Electricity Market, which Akaysha says will reduce more than 15 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions over the lifetime of the projects.

The nine projects, when operating at full capac ity, will help accelerate the deployment of a further 4,000MW of supply of renewable energy across Australia, BlackRock said.

Asia-Pacific co-head of climate infrastructure for BlackRock, Charlie Reid, said: “As renewable energy

infrastructure continues to mature in Australia, invest ment is required in battery storage assets to ensure the resilience and reliability of the grid, especially with the continued earlier-than-ex pected retirement of coalfired power stations.

“We see tremendous long-term growth poten tial in the development of advanced battery storage assets across Australia and in other Asia-Pacific mar kets.”

Akaysha, established in 2021, has longer-term plans that include develop ing additional BESS sys tems in other markets in the region, with a “nearterm focus on Japan and Taiwan”.

NGK in grid storage batteries order

NGK Insulators said on September 12 it had received an order from Toho Gas in Japan for its sodium sulfur battery to provide grid electricity storage services.

The NAS batteries have an output of 11.4MW and a combined capacity of 70MWh, which the ceramics group said is equivalent to one day of electrical power con sumption by about 6,000 average homes.

The batteries will be installed at Toho’s Tsu former liquefied natural gas plant. Construction was set to start in Sep tember 2022.

NGK did not disclose

financial details of the order but said the bat teries would be directly connected to an electrical power grid and intended to stabilize supply and demand.

The project aims to support continued use of renewable power including solar and wind generation in the region, NGK said.

NAS batteries have been installed at more than 200 locations world wide to date, NGK said.

In August 2022, the company said it would deploy its batteries with solar at manufacturing sites in the country to reduce CO2 emissions.

Schuler acquires Sovema with pledge on lithium, lead units

The Sovema Group has been acquired by Ger man metal-forming group Schuler for an undisclosed sum, the companies an nounced on August 23.

A Schuler spokesperson told ESJ the deal was not subject to any relevant reg ulatory decisions and is ex pected to close by the end of September 2022.

The acquisition includes both the lithium ion and the lead acid battery parts of Italy-based Sovema’s business — which will “both be continued”, the spokesperson said.

“We consider it a great strategic fit as both compa nies’ technological capabil ities are fully complimen tary and gigafactories are about to come into play soon.”

The acquisition covers all Sovema entities includ ing Solith, which provides equipment for lithium ion cell and module produc tion, Sovel — high-perfor mance formation systems

for lead and lithium stor age technologies — and US-based battery testing equipment company Bi trode.

Sovema general manager Massimiliano Ianniello said the deal would ensure the group can “play a ma jor role in the gigafactory challenge”.

“So far, our size allowed us to serve our customers with high quality and cus tomization. Now, as part

Freyr and Nidec sign $3bn LFP battery cells supply agreement

Freyr Battery said on Au gust 30 it had signed a binding agreement to sup ply 38GWh of LFP bat tery cells to Japan’s Nidec Corporation between 2025 and 2030.

The sales deal is worth in excess of an estimated of $3 billion to Freyr from 2025 to 2030, based on projected raw material prices.

The cells will be pro duced at Freyr’s planned ‘Giga Arctic’ plant in Mo i Rana, Norway and the deal includes an option to “upsize” to 50GWh of cells during the period and to potentially expand sup plies further beyond 2030.

Freyr said the agreement builds on an earlier, con ditional offtake agreement between the companies, for 31GWh of cells.

Freyr and Nidec have also entered into a joint venture agreement to de velop, manufacture and sell energy storage systems using modules and packs produced by Freyr.

The partners said bat tery modules production is expected to be integrated into Freyr’s activities at the Giga Arctic plant.

Nidec is a leading manu facturer of high-efficiency electric motors that is ex panding its reach into the ESS market.

of Schuler, we will finally be able to reach the vol umes required by the mas sive demand for battery manufacturing equipment in Europe and beyond.”

Bitrode president and

CEO Cyril Narishkin said the takeover would help the firm “accelerate new product offerings and help Bitrode reach its techno logical potential”.

Sovema changed its name to Sovema Group in June 2017, in line with the lead battery equipment manu facturer’s expansion into making machinery for the lithium ion battery industry.

Schuler, part of the inter national technology group Andritz, was founded in 1839 and has production sites in Europe, China, and the US, as well as service companies in more than 40 countries. Schuler’s client base includes automotive manufacturers and suppli ers and electrical indus tries.

Orral Nadjari has stepped down as CEO of Britishvolt, which is building the UK’s first lithium ion battery gigafactory, the company announced on August 20.

Nadjari, who is also a co-founder of Britishvolt, has been succeeded by Graham Hoare as acting CEO.

Hoare is Britishvolt’s deputy CEO and presi dent of global operations and chair of the UK Automotive Council.

Nadjari, who did not disclose the reason for the move, said: “Al though it was a dif ficult decision for me to step away from the operational management of the company, now is the right time for me to pass the reins, after laying the foundations, to our hugely talented, world-leading team, who

will drive the business forward as it enters the execution phase.

“I am proud of what Britishvolt has achieved since the business was founded in 2019, exceed ing all expectations and bringing my vision to life.”

A Britishvolt spokes person told ESJ Orral had stepped down, per manently, as CEO “after taking the business from a vision to a company of almost 300 full-time employees.

“Our first cells will be in customers’ hands at the end of the summer for validation.”

Britishvolt announced on February 15 it had secured the further backing of an existing investor, mining giant Glencore, to launch a £200 million ($270 million) funding round.

Britishvolt CEO Nadjari steps down

New German law recognizes ‘special role’ of energy storage

The Germany Energy Storage As sociation (BVES) said on June 28 it welcomed new legislation aimed at putting energy storage on a “prop er regulatory footing” — but urged the federal government to clear up remaining “legal uncertainties”.

The legislation, which adopts a June 2019 European Union directive into German law, defines energy storage as being when “the final use of electrical energy is post poned to a later point in time than when it was generated”, BVES said.

However, BVES said “legal un certainties” remained in how the definition might impact the use of and investments in energy storage, because a “technical error” had been made in the translation of the EU directive to German.

“This should be corrected quickly,” the association said.

Germany’s parliament approved the definition as part of a raft of changes to national energy laws before legislators started their sum mer break.

The law acknowledges the “spe cial role of storage as the fourth pillar of the entire energy system” and gives storage a “suitable legal

€10m solid state seed funding for Basquevolt

Solid-state battery tech company

Basquevolt said on June 28 it had closed its first round of seed funding of €10 million ($10 million).

Basque’s government led the investment round, which included Basquevolt’s founding consortium members Iberdrola, CIE Automotive, Enagás, EIT InnoEnergy, and CIC energiGUNE — whose research has provided the initial technology baseline for the company.

Basquevolt, based in the Basque capital of Vitoria-Gasteiz in northern Spain, is initially developing technologies that include a proprietary polymer composite electrolyte and a high silicon content anode.

Basquevolt is a spin-off of CIC, the electrochemical and thermal energy storage research centre backed by the government of Spain’s autonomous Basque region.

The firm says its technology will

foundation”, BVES said.

The decision is intended to be the start of an extensive storage strat egy that will also cut red tape to encourage an expansion of “simpli fied digital connections” to support the rapid integration of energy storage with electricity generating systems including solar power.

Urban Windelen, BVES federal managing director, said: “We can finally build on this and develop a stable regulatory framework for the system integration of energy storage systems that is so impor tant.

“No obstacles should be placed in the way of citizens or companies that take the energy transition into their own hands.”

Sales of energy storage systems in Germany rose by more than 25% in 2021 compared to the previ ous year, generating a turnover of nearly €9 billion (about $9.6 bil lion), according to provisional data published by BVES on April 6.

BVES said the residential storage market segment recorded the largest rise, with more than €4 billion in sales in 2021 — a 28% increase over the previous year.

support the mass deployment of electric transportation, stationary energy storage and advanced portable devices.

Battery cells production is planned to start in 2027 with the eventual aim of reaching an annual capacity of 10GWh.

Co-founder and CEO Francisco Carranza said: “Current lithium batteries are reaching the limit of what they can offer and going to the next phase require a technology change, that’s where our products come into play.”

Poland gigafactory start for Impact Clean Power Impact Clean Power Technology has started building a battery systems gigafactory in Poland to serve the stationary energy storage, public transport and railway sectors, the company announced on June 29.

Impact said the GigafactoryX

facility will manufacture power systems based on lithium ion cell technologies — LTO, LFP and NMC — and boost the company’s existing production capacity from around 1MWh to up to 5GWh per year.

Production should start in 2024 with energy for the production process derived from renewable power generation, according to the company.

“Ultimately, half of the raw materials used in production will come from recycling.”

Impact has been selling battery systems in Europe, New Zealand and the US since 2007.

The company said its existing customers include Polish and foreign manufacturers of vehicles based on electric drives, including buses, trams and yachts, as well as companies from the industrial, power rail and telecoms sectors.

Impact CEO and co-founder Bartek Kras said the facility “is the next step in the field of energy production and transformation of public transport and industry to consistently reduce CO2 emissions”.

Minerals group ICL forms ESS unit

Israel-based minerals company

ICL said on May 27 it planned an expansion of its products and services with the launch of a new business unit focused on the energy storage market.

The dedicated energy storage solutions unit follows ICL’s entry into the lithium iron phosphate battery market in China last year.

ICL said it is looking to expand its presence beyond its existing speciality products used in cathode active materials and in bromide-based batteries.

ICL’s executive vice president and chief innovation and technology officer, Anantha Desikan, said the company was committed to expanding in the broader battery market in Europe and the US.

“This new unit has established dedicated battery resources at three of our global R&D centers and research includes exploring battery end-of-life recycling,” Desikan said.

“We are also investigating ways to advance energy storage and battery performance, and we continue to explore capacity expansions, partnerships and other types of collaborations, as part of these efforts.”

Northvolt raises $1.1bn to underpin battery plans

Northvolt has signed a $1.1 billion convertible note to finance its expansion of battery cell and cathode material production in Europe, the Swedish company announced on July 5.

Investors taking part in the capital raise included Goldman Sachs Asset Management and the Volkswagen Group and the amount takes the total raised by Northvolt since 2017 close to $8 billion in equity and debt, the company said.

Northvolt co-founder and CEO Peter Carlsson said the company is developing a manufacturing capacity to deliver some $55 billion in orders from key customers, including BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volvo Cars and the Volkswagen Group.

The battery developer announced on June 29 it had started commercial deliveries of lithium ion battery cells to European automotive customers from its first battery gigafactory, Northvolt Ett.

On March 15, Northvolt said it had selected a site in northern Germany to build the company’s third gigafactory — the ‘Northvolt Drei’ plant in Schleswig-Holstein, which will have an annual potential production capacity of 60GWh.

Northvolt produced its first battery cell at the Northvolt Ett gigafactory in Skellefteå on December 29, 2021.

Kona Energy gets approval for UK 200MW BESS

Planning permission has been granted to build a 200MW battery energy storage facility in the UK, developer Kona Energy announced on May 26.

A Kona spokesperson told BI the lithium iron phosphate facility in Heysham, Lancashire, would have a capacity of up to 400MWh and is expected to enter commercial operation in 2024.

Kona said the role of the facility would be increasingly important in providing local grid services in the form of inertia and reactive power support, following the scheduled closure of nuclear power plants in Heysham in 2024 and 2028.

Kona founder Andy Willis said: “Roughly £1 billion ($1.3 billion) was spent in the last year curtailing energy from wind farms and other generators, replacing that need elsewhere — usually from fossilfuelled stations.

“Tackling this enormous waste of money and energy is crucial. Further battery storage facilities will reduce this burden.”

Willis said the new BESS was important because the project is connecting to what the UK power industry refers to as the ‘B7a constraint boundary’.

The B7a is one of the most constrained areas in the UK, where wind farms and other low carbon technologies are regularly curtailed. As these constraint costs rise, projects like this are essential to relieving network congestion and reducing unnecessary waste.

Leclanché confirms liquidity funding

Swiss energy storage group Leclanché has negotiated conditions with “different stakeholders” to secure Sfr15 million ($15.5 million) funding for near-term liquidity requirements and can remain a going concern until June 2023, the company said on June 6.

The announcement came after the company warned on February 24 that liquidity remained tight ahead of a merger of its e-mobility business with a US-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Leclanché said then it had secured a Sfr20.4 million bridging loan from the SPAC’s largest shareholder, SEFAM, to run its operations ahead of the merger.

In terms of the merger, Leclanché said on June 6 that, in its view, the due diligence process had been completed and it expects to start the negotiation for the merger agreement.

In the interim, the company has started talks with other SPACs on its shortlist “to ensure a competitive bidding process”.

Meanwhile, “direct confidential discussions with a few major industrial companies for a strategic investment in Leclanché E-Mobility” are also underway, as the company works to “fully fund business requirements through 2024”.

However, the company warned “worldwide supply chains issues continue to impact near-term business delivery capability with intermittent production”.

In a related move, Leclanché said Jean-François Stenger had been promoted to the post of deputy chief financial officer and would be acting as CFO until further notice.

PGE unveils plans for 200MW Poland BESS

Polish state energy firm PGE has received a preliminary licence from regulators to build a 200MW battery storage facility in the country as part of a commercial hybrid energy storage (CHEST) project, the company said on July 20.

PGE did not disclose investment costs or the proposed schedule for the lithium ion project — for which it said it is applying for funding in Europe and “looking for business partners to co-finance the investment”.

However, the company said the battery facility would have a nominal capacity of up to 205MW/820MWh and would be integrated with the 716MW Zarnowiec pumped storage power station in northern Poland, creating a “921MW innovative hybrid installation with a capacity of over 4.6GWh”.

The facility will have the capacity to supply power to around 200,000 homes (with an average load of 5kW per household) for at least five hours, PGE said.

PGE said: “CHEST may also prove helpful in increasing the energy security of Poland and the Baltic States.

“It will also have an impact on the competitiveness of energy markets and the syn chronization of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian power systems with the system of continental Europe through the Harmony Link project, which is an electricity interconnector between Lithuania and Poland.

The link will connect the Lithu anian and Polish electricity system via a 330km submarine cable between the Zarnowiec and Dorbian substations in Lithuania.”

PGE chief executive officer Wojciech Dabrowski said the firm’s energy storage goal was to have 800MW of installed capacity in Poland by 2030.

Polar Night launches ‘sand battery’ storage in Finland

Heat storage tech developer Polar Night Energy has launched opera tions of its first commercial ‘sand battery’ in Finland, the company announced on July 5.

Polar said its sand-based hightemperature heat storage system, built with local utility Vatajanko ski, is now providing “low emis sion district heating to the city of Kankaanpää in Western Finland”.

The company says its facility is the world’s first commercial solu tion to store electricity in sand as heat to be used in a district heating network.

Polar says its technology provides for the conversion of electricity to heat and subsequent storage for later use. The use of sand as the storage medium “leads to safe op eration and a natural balance in the storage cycle”, the company says.

The storage system features a steel container that measures about four metres wide and seven metres high containing “a hundred tonnes of sand”.

“Inside the sand, we build our heat transfer system that enables effective energy transportation

Kibo Energy plans long duration ESS for South Africa

Kibo Energy unveiled plans on May 30 to develop more than 36,000MWh of long duration energy storage capacity in South Africa working with Hasta Trust.

Kibo will acquire a 51% stake in Hasta’s wholly-owned National Broadband Solutions (NBS), in exchange for granting NBS exclusive access to Kibo energy storage systems for market sectors of interest to the firm’s projects. Kibo CEO Louis Coetzee said the move “aligns perfectly with the company’s strategy to become a significant presence in the long duration energy storage market and sets up an additional potential revenue stream for Kibo”.

The announcement came after Kibo, which is also focused on UK projects, signed an agreement on May 17 with vanadium redox flow battery brand, CellCube, to open a “gigawatt-sized pipeline” of energy storage in South Africa.

to and from the storage. Proper insulation between the storage and environment ensures long storing periods of up to months with mini mal heat losses.”

According to Polar, sand is a “du rable and inexpensive material that can store a lot of heat in a small volume at a temperature of about 500°C-600°C”.

The heat storage has 100kW of heating power and 8MWh of en ergy capacity, the company says.

Polar already has a 3MWh test pilot sand-based storage system in Tampere, Finland, which is con nected to a local district heating grid and provides heat “for a couple of buildings”. The pilot system stores electricity generated by a 100m2 solar panel array and the grid.

Co-founder and CTO Markku Ylönen said: “Heat storage can significantly help to increase intermittent renewables in the electrical grid. At the same time, we can prime the waste heat to a usable level to heat a city. This is a logical step towards combustionfree heat production.”

Nano One to acquire Johnson Matthey Battery Materials Canada

Nano One said on May 25 it had agreed a C$10.25 million ($8 million) deal to acquire Johnson Matthey Battery Materials Canada.

The move comes after Johnson Matthey said last November that it intended to sell all, or parts of, its battery materials business.

JMBM Canada includes the 2,400 tonne per annum capacity lithium iron phosphate (LFP) production facility at Candiac in Quebec and a team with more than 360 years of collective experience including in-pilot to commercialscale cathode production, Nano One said.

The transaction, which Nano One said is fully funded and on a cash-free, debt-free basis, subject to certain working capital adjustments, should close by the end of the year.

Nano One CEO Dan Blondal said:

“Experienced employees are at the core of this deal and will help fasttrack Nano One’s learning curve.”

The Candiac production facility was acquired by Johnson Matthey in 2015 and has been in operation since 2012. It supplies LFP cathode material to the lithium ion battery sector for automotive and nonautomotive applications.

Liam Condon, CEO of Johnson Matthey, said: “We have worked with Nano One on a number of projects over the last year and having seen their innovations, we believe they have the potential to develop the Candiac site in the best way possible.”

On February 15, Nano One said it had successfully completed the first phase of an advanced lithium ion battery cathode materials coating development agreement with Brazilbased niobium supplier CBMM.

Toyota Tsusho in pilot BESS plan with e-Zinc Toronto-based e-Zinc said on June 1 it had signed a demonstration project agreement with Toyota Tsusho Canada (TTCI) for further testing of its zinc-air battery storage systems.

The pilot project, expected to start in the spring of 2023, aims to validate e-Zinc’s capability to store 24 hours of energy, the company said.

The project will be based at Eurus Energy America Corporation’s Bull Creek wind facility in Texas.

Excess wind generation capacity will be stored in the storage system and then used to power buildings at Bull Creek.

The system is expected to store power for 24 hours, “an order of magnitude longer than typical batteries and better suited to the intermittency of wind generation than typical batteries”, e-Zinc said.

James Larsen, e-Zinc CEO, said: “This project sets the stage for TTCI to support e-Zinc with manufacturing and supply chain capabilities, sales, and distribution support, as well as project deployment and service for a variety of market applications.”

On April 7, e-Zinc announced it had secured $25 million in a series ‘A’ financing to start pilot production of its first commercial zinc-air energy storage systems.

Kia second life batteries plan with Deutsche Bahn Auto firm Kia Europe confirmed plans on September 6 to work with the Deutsche Bahn (DB) group in reusing former EV bat teries in second life ESS systems.

Kia said it would provide DB and its Encore subsidiary with the second life systems.

EV battery packs from Kia vehicles will be dismantled “to battery module level and subjected to detailed diagnostic testing”, Kia said.

“Suitable modules will then be used for new battery energy stor age systems or recycled depending on their remaining capacity.”

Kia said DB and Encore had re cently unveiled a prototype BESS facility at the EUREF Campus in Berlin that is made entirely from reused Kia Soul EV battery modules.

The batteries were collected from Kia dealers and transported to Encore/DB by dismantling com pany DellCon.

The BESS facility comprises 24 battery modules in total arranged over three racks, with each mod ule made up of 14 double cells, Kia said.

The prototype will provide 72kWh of usable power to sup port ‘time shifting’ — storing solar power for later use — and other applications.

President of Kia Europe, Jason Jeong, said: “The pioneering part nership between Kia and Encore/ DB shows that we regard batteries as a valuable resource in terms of a sustainable circular economy.”

BMZ invests to shore up battery supply chain

Lithium battery systems manufac turer BMZ Group said on Sep tember 15 it intended to acquire a stake in German plastics supplier Schütz Kunststofftechnik, in part to shore up its materials supply chain.

BMZ said it would act as a strategic investor in supporting its supplier of battery cell holders.

The planned deal would give Schütz access to BMZ’s network of clients, including those in the energy storage and e-mobility sectors.

Schütz is a longstanding sup plier of cell holders and spacers

installed in BMZ battery systems.

BMZ founder and CEO Sven Bauer said: “Procurement bottle necks, price developments and a shortage of skilled workers means we are in very challenging eco nomic times. At the same time, our market is a future-proof growth industry.”

Strategic partnerships that en able BMZ to secure and expand its market presence “are only logi cal”, he said.

Schütz managing partner Mi chael Schütz said the investment deal was “a door opener for new sales markets, across industries and worldwide”.

Eksfin backing Africa solar storage projects

Export Finance Norway (Eksfin) announced on August 30 it was providing Nkr1.2 billion ($102 million) in guarantees for three solar-battery storage projects in South Africa being built by renewa bles developer Scatec.

The projects in the country’s Northern Cape province will comprise a total of 540MW of installed solar power and 225MW of battery storage capacity and will be the largest investment in Scatec’s history, the Norwegian statebacked agency said.

The projects involve total capital expenditure of close to $1 billion and “will significantly increase access to renewable energy in the country”, Eksfin said.

Eksfin said its guarantees would support the European financial services group, Nordea, in ensuring that Scatec delivers on its projects as contracted.

The other banks that are financ ing the projects are South Africabased Standard Bank and UK development finance institution British International Investment.

Scatec, formerly Scatec Solar, is a Norwegian company that special izes in renewable energy systems. The company said on July 19 that it would own 51% of the equity in the projects, with H1 Holdings, its local black economic empower ment partner owning 49%.

Scatec is the engineering, procure ment and construction provider and will provide operation and maintenance as well as asset management services to the power plants.

Vistra switches on DeCordova BESS

Texas-based energy company Vistra confirmed on May 23 that its battery energy storage facility at DeCordova, the largest of its kind in the state, had become operational.

Inverter and energy storage provider Sungrow supplied the lithium ion battery technology and inverters for the 260MW/260MWh BESS.

Vistra said DeCordova, first announced in September 2020, is the second of seven new “zero-carbon projects” the company is bringing online in Texas over the next few years — representing a capital investment of nearly $1 billion by the company within Ercot (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas grid system).

Construction of the facility started in June 2021 and finished in less than a year.

Vistra president and chief financial officer Jim Burke said: “This battery system can provide instantaneous full power to the grid with the flip of a switch, but it is also co-located on the same site as our quick-start DeCordova natural gas-fuelled power plant.

“This pairing means we have a large, one-hour battery system with dispatchable, reliable generation, leading to continuity of operation and resiliency of the grid.”

According to Vistra, the energy storage facility comprises more than 3,000 individual battery modules that can store enough electricity to power around 130,000 average Texan homes during normal grid conditions.

The batteries capture excess electricity from the grid, primarily overnight during high wind-output hours, and can release the power when demand is highest.

On January 6 last year, Vistra switched on the largest lithium ion battery storage facility in the world, the 300MW/1,200MWh Moss Landing facility in California.

Invinity appoints advisers for US investments

Vanadium redox flow technology company Invinity Energy Systems announced on May 18 it had appointed a corporate advisory team to expand its presence in US commercial and financial markets.

Invinity said EAS Advisors’ initial

focus would be on increasing the level of US investor activity for Invinity — working with the company’s joint brokers Canaccord Genuity and VSA Capital.

The move aims to capitalize on Invinity’s status as “one of very few energy storage companies with nonlithium batteries advanced enough that customers have connected them to the grid and are using them to earn revenue”, Invinity said.

CEO Larry Zulch said: “Invinity is well positioned to continue growing our leadership position in longduration non-lithium energy storage in three of the world’s most exciting markets — the UK, Australia and North America.”

Separately, Invinity said on April 22 that the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) had taken delivery of 48 Invinity VS3 modules for a tidal-plus-flow battery project in the Orkney Islands, in the north of Scotland.

The modules, assembled at Invinity’s Bathgate facility in Scotland, have a combined capacity of 1.8MWh. They are undergoing final installation and commissioning.

Invinity’s system will be used in combination with tidal power to support EMEC’s hydrogen production plant. The battery will smooth the power from the tidal generation to ensure the 670kW hydrogen electrolysers have a stable and continuous power load to optimize production, Invinity said.

Samsung SDI and Stellantis to invest $2.5bn in JV Italian-French auto firm Stellantis and Samsung SDI are to invest more than $2.5 billion in their joint venture lithium ion gigafactory in the US, the companies confirmed on May 24.

The partners announced the formation of the joint venture on October 18, 2021. They expect an initial annual production capacity at their facility in Indiana of 23GWh, with an aim to increase it up to 33GWh.

Construction will start later this year with production beginning in the first quarter of 2025.

The new plant will use Samsung SDI’s PRiMX technology to produce electric vehicle battery cells and modules for the North American market.

In a related announcement on

June 2, Stellantis said it had signed a binding offtake agreement with Controlled Thermal Resources for supplies of battery grade lithium hydroxide for use in the production of North American EVs.

CTR’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen Project’ in California’s Imperial County will recover lithium from geothermal brines using renewable energy and steam to produce battery grade lithium products in an integrated, closed-loop process, eliminating the need for evaporation brine ponds, open pit mines, and fossil-fuelled processing, Stellantis said.

SolarEdge opens Korea gigaplant

SolarEdge Technologies announced the opening of a 2GWh battery cells manufacturing plant in South Korea on May 25 to meet growing demand for battery storage.

Israel-headquartered SolarEdge and its lithium ion batteries subsidiary, Kokam, said the Sella 2 facility, in Chungcheongbuk-Do, is producing test cells for certification, with ramp-up to happen the second half of his year.

Sella 2 will eventually enable SolarEdge to have its own supply of lithium ion batteries and the infrastructure to develop new battery cell chemistries and technologies, the company said.

The facility is planned to manufacture battery cells for SolarEdge’s residential solar-attached batteries, as well as battery cells for applications including stationary energy storage and UPS systems.

SolarEdge CEO Zvi Lando said the new facility “allows us to own key processes in the development and manufacturing of advanced energy storage solutions for our solar core business and additional applications, while further securing the resilience of our supply chain”.

Separately, SolarEdge confirmed on May 20 that it had agreed on a global patent licensing arrangement with China’s Huawei that ends lawsuits pending between the companies in Germany and China.

The agreement enables the companies to use each other’s patented technology “based on recognition of the companies’ overall innovation capability”, the firms said in a joint statement.

However, the companies said specific terms of the deal would remain confidential.

As EV battery makers

scramble to source new supplies of raw materials and step up research into cheaper chemistry options, the International Energy Agency warns price increases are inevitable.

Another 15% hike in battery pack prices ‘may be on way’

Despite the recent commodity price surge, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says lithium battery prices still declined in 2021, with an nual battery price data from Bloom berg New Energy Finance record ing a sales-weighted average price of $132/kWh, down 6% from 2020.

This was much less than the 13% decrease from 2019 to 2020, but the IEA says in its Global supply chains of EV batteries analysis, published in July, that several factors partially insu lated the average battery price from the commodity price rises last year.

First, the rising prices incentivized chemistry substitutions, which made many automakers switch to lower cost cathode chemistries with less commod ity price exposure, such as lithium ion phosphate, which saw a significant in crease in adoption compared to nickelrich chemistries.

Second, commodity prices were rel atively low for the first half of 2021, which helped the average price decline.

Third, the use of higher nickel chem istries such as NMC811 (where there are eight parts of nickel, one of man ganese and one of cobalt) reduced the use of cobalt, which the IEA says is the most expensive metal constitu ent in batteries per kg (around 5% of NMC811 cell price based on the 2021 average price), also offsetting some costs, particularly in the first half of 2021.

The critical advantage of Na ion over Li ion is that it relies on abundant and cheaper to use minerals. The cathode material for the CATL battery consists of low-cost elements sodium, iron, nitrogen and carbon

SODIUM-ION TECHNOLOGY: WAITING IN THE WINGS

While researchers across the world are working to develop battery chemistries that do not use lithium, the IEA says the closest most viable option today is sodium-ion technology. China batteries giant CATL is among those developing the technology and plans to form a basic industrial supply chain by 2023.

The critical advantage of Na ion over Li ion is that it relies on abundant and low-cost minerals. The cathode material for the CATL sodium-ion battery is Prussian White, this is made of low-cost elements sodium, iron, nitrogen and carbon. Sodium-ion batteries cannot use graphite anodes, so instead uses hard carbon. In addition, less copper is required as sodium-ion batteries can use aluminium anode current collectors, unlike Li-ion.

The performance of sodium-

ion batteries is already looking impressive. CATL says the energy density of its own battery cell is up to 160Wh/kg, and the battery can charge in 15 minutes to 80% SOC at room temperature. Moreover, in a low-temperature environment of -20°C, the sodium-ion battery has a capacity retention rate of more than 90%, and its system integration efficiency can reach more than 80%.

But while Na ion has advanced beyond the research stage with a demonstration of commercially viable performance, there are no supply chains today for its cathode and anode materials, says the IEA.

“The main uncertainties around the deployment of Na ion is the scalability of the production processes for these materials and the time required to develop an industrial scale supply chain.

The IEA believes that a “key reason is the impact of rising commodity prices has yet to fully materialize” — because while automakers increasingly use con tracts in which material costs are linked with commodity prices for high volume battery orders, there is a time lag.

“Therefore, these automakers did not feel the result of the exceptional commodity price rises from the last three months of 2021 until the firstquarter of 2022.

The IEA estimates that if metal prices are to remain at levels experienced in the first three months of 2022 through out the rest of the year, then battery pack prices might increase by up to 15% from the 2021 weighted average price, all else being equal.

Limited deployment OEMs could mitigate the impact by substituting other more cost-effective chemistries, but such price increases would still pose major challenges for automakers, increasing battery costs, reducing manufacturer margins and raising costs for consumers.

Meanwhile, the IEA says the future of battery chemistries is not set in stone and that they will become more diver sified by 2030 as manufacturers select chemistries to serve specific vehicle characteristics.

Premium vehicles can be expected to use the highest energy density batteries available, likely higher nickel content chemistries such as NCA95, NMCA (where aluminium is included) and NMC9.5.5, or potentially those with even higher energy density, such as lithium nickel oxide (LNO) or lithiummanganese-rich NMC (LMR-NMC). However, the IEA says again that this will only be possible if “research chal lenges can be solved and a commercial ly viable cycle life is achieved”.

For lower end, high volume and prin cipally urban vehicles, LFP (lithium iron phosphate) is forecast to be the primary chemistry because cost will be the key consideration rather than driv ing range. The IEA says due to high commodity prices for nickel and cobalt

and the expiry of key patents, LFP is set for major growth in volume models in Europe and the US.

For mid-range vehicles, the IEA says manganese-rich chemistry (lithium nickel manganese oxide — LNMO) is a strong contender because it has a higher energy density than LFP, yet does not reach the levels of the highnickel chemistries. But while the larger proportion of manganese in LNMO reduces material costs and commodity exposure considerably, compared to high-nickel chemistries, LNMO is still under development.

For medium and heavy-duty vehicles, LFP will account for the vast majority of installations as cost and reliability will be more important for the early applications of electric trucks, accord ing to the IEA.

LFP has the best cycle life of the lead ing chemistries which suits frequent, short trips and being recharged often. However, longer range electric trucks are likely to use nickel-based chemis tries with the highest energy density, but their deployment before 2030 is limited.

“Electric car sales powered through 2021 and have remained strong so far in 2022, but ensuring future growth will demand greater efforts to diver sify battery manufacturing and critical mineral supplies to reduce the risks of bottlenecks and price rises,” the agency says.

In the short term, the greatest obsta cles to continued strong EV sales will be soaring prices for some critical min erals essential for battery manufactur ing, as well as supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine and by continued Covid-19 lockdowns in some parts of China.

And even if those challenges are ad dressed, the IEA points out that much more work needs to be done by coun tries to roll out enough charging infra structure to both encourage and cope with EV sales growth.

NEXT STEP CHANGE: THE ALL-SOLID STATE-BATTERY

According to the IEA, all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) are the “anticipated next step-change improvement in battery performance”, because they can enable the use of a lithium metal anode. This can result in battery energy densities around 70% higher than the current “best” Li ion batteries with graphite anodes, dramatically improving driving range capability, opening other applications and

eventually driving down costs.

Nissan is starting pilot production in 2024 and aims to produce EVs with ASSBs in 2028, having just opened a prototype production facility in Japan, the IEA says. Other initiatives include a joint venture of QuantumScape and Volkswagen, which plans a pilot production line to start in 2024.

However, the IEA analysis cautions that “despite the activity and

announcements, major technical challenges remain to be solved before ASSBs can make significant impacts”. Current state-of-the-art performance often relies on impractical pressures to solve the contact problem, or on currently unscalable, expensive production processes to reach viable performance. But ASSBs are not expected to have a significant impact until after 2030, the IEA says.

Range of typical lead times to initial production for selected steps in EV battery supply chain

Sources: IEA analysis based on S&P Global

Battery metals demand, 2017-2021

Battery metals prices, 2015-July 2022

Recycling not the solution as black mass value falls

Digging up more of the planet for raw materials is currently the only way to help satisfy soaring demand for elec tric vehicle batteries, according to recent analysis by Wood Mackenzie and the International Energy Agency.

Wood Mackenzie research analyst Max Reid told the June AABC con ference in Mainz, Germany that ex isting lithium supply chains would not be able to meet demand and that battery makers and OEM are going

to be “hugely reliant on virgin mate rials” and will need to invest in new mines.

Reid said a ramping up of recycling could relieve some pressure from the supply deficit of battery raw materi als, but with the recycling market still in its infancy in large parts of the world, recyclers too could start to come under pressure as ‘beyond lithi um’ next-generation battery technol ogies are introduced.

“Recyclers need to be aware that they might need to be retrofitting equip ment and processes in five or 10 years’ time, for example with silicon anode technology coming in,” Reid said.

“At the moment it is less clear what the economics are and recycling is not really viable in general, but in the future we can expect recycling to be come part of the ecosystem.”

However, Reid raised the pros pect of battery materials clocking up thousands of air miles by being shipped around the world for repro cessing before being returned for use in new batteries — further denting EVs’ environmental credentials.

“There is huge potential for recy cling, but we see a tough situation for recyclers in terms of the propor tion of metals contained in battery packs,” Reid said.”

“We are seeing what is a natural progression from high-value cathode material to the use of lower-value cathode materials, containing iron and manganese, which is a natural course for OEMs to follow to produce lower cost EVs for the mass market. There are also technologies like sodi um ion opening up toward 2035, for the stationary storage market too.”

What’s in the black mass?

So while recyclers will face consis tent levels of material arriving as feedstock, the value per kilogramme is decreasing. This in turn could lead to some recyclers simply shredding battery packs and shipping the black mass off for processing elsewhere, such as in Asia.

“It will be difficult to know what is in that black mass and we don’t want materials that already have so many air miles returned to markets for use in new batteries,” said Reid.

EV models could themselves be changed to accommodate new and more efficient battery designs, but new designs from OEMs are probably

Recycling will be essential to the but as OEMs use lower-value materials to cut costs, this could force recyclers to ship black mass for processing — racking up more air miles for so-called green batteries.

“We are seeing a natural progression from high-value cathode material to the use of lower-value cathode materials … a natural course for OEMs cutting costs”

Max Reid, research analyst, Wood Mackenzie

five to seven years down the line and “that’s kind of far too late” to dampen demand for raw materials, Reid said.

He said the electrification of the transportation sector had caused a boom in demand for lithium ion bat teries, with global cumulative lithium ion battery capacity set to rise more than five-fold to 5,500GWh between 2021 and 2030.

The sheer rate of growth needed for raw materials for EVs and energy storage in the first half of the century was unprecedented, especially in the mining sector, Reid said.

According to the Wood Mackenzie analysis, demand for key battery raw materials currently stands at 97 kilo tonnes (kt) for lithium, 186kt cobalt and 3,014kt nickel. By 2030, these are expected to grow to 318kt, 264kt and 4,273kt, respectively.

Little value in recycling Supply from recycled materials, though paling in comparison, is ex pected to reach 130kt for lithium, 112kt cobalt and 377kt nickel, re spectively, by the end of the decade, the analysis says.

“At present, the challenges of re cycled battery raw materials seem in surmountable. Most of the discussion has been around the collection and recycling of end-of-life EVs, but the process is plagued with challenges,” Wood Mackenzie says.

The analysis includes a stark assess ment of current recycling options: First, the cathode, which contains critical metals in the EV pack, “is overpackaged with pack materials such as casings, interconnects, cool ing channels and others — and the result is a tedious recycling process with little value”.

Second, EV packs have long war ranties and lifetimes, meaning the recovery of critical metals from them will be a long-term affair. In addi tion, the emergence of second-use ap plications, such as residential or in dustrial energy storage systems, will also keep end-of-life EVs from enter ing the recycling system.

As such, Wood Mackenzie says re cycling production scrap will be the main source of recycled material this decade.

Meanwhile, China, Europe and North America will see huge increas es in battery and cathode manufac turing to meet demand for batteries.

Globally, Wood Mackenzie ex pects battery manufacturing capac ity to grow 3.5 times to more than

4,621GWh by 2030, “with China leading way ahead”, presenting “an in creasing market for production scrap”.

Battery research lead at UK-head quartered consulting company Rho Motion, Ulderico Ulissi, told AABC that as battery designs evolve, their individual characteristics could im pact recycling methods.

He urged a full, independent assess ment to be conducted into the value of end-of-life EV batteries, saying ex isting data was insufficient.

Ulderico Ulissi, Battery research lead, Rho Motion

‘CLIMATE PLEDGES’ REQUIRE 50 NEW MINES, SAYS IEA

Around 50 new mines will need to be built around the world to satisfy soaraway demand for EV battery materials expected within the next eight years, according to new analysis — Global supply chains of EV batteries — published by the International Energy Agency in July.

The Paris-based agency bases its calculation on the fact that the supply of some minerals, such as lithium, will need to rise by up to one-third by 2030 to satisfy pledges and announcements for EV batteries made by governments and accounted for in the IEA’s ‘advanced pledges scenario’ (APS) published last October.

According to the APS, which takes account of all climate commitments made by governments as of last October, demand for EV batteries will increase from around 340GWh at present to more than 3,500GWh by 2030.

Lithium, says the IEA, is the commodity with the largest projected demand-supply gap and demand is forecast to increase sixfold to 500kt by 2030 — “requiring the equivalent of 50 new average-sized mines”.

In addition to the dozens of mining projects needed to enter the market and reach capacity on schedule, the IEA says tens of new mineral processing and precursor plants will have to be commissioned.

“And to translate this into EV deployment, tens of cathode and anode plants, gigafactories and EV

production plants are required.”

However, the supply of raw materials still threatens to be the Achilles’ heel of the EV dream, because the longest lead times in the battery supply chain process by far are for the extraction of raw materials.

According to the IEA, after an extractable resource is identified through exploration, it can take from four to more than 20 years for a mine to start commercial production. Four to 16 years can be required for the necessary feasibility studies, and engineering and construction work.

In addition, long lead times are often needed to secure financing and permits for which the latter can take up to a decade.

The IEA says there is some evidence that, over the years, the time required to bring mines online has increased and “this can be partially attributed to longer permitting and feasibility study lead times”.

Then once a mine is commercially operational, it often requires around 10 years before reaching nameplate production capacity.

Given “sufficient investment”, the IEA believes downstream stages of the EV battery supply chain can ramp up to meet even rapid increases in demand by 2030.

However, it warns upstream mineral extraction can cause major bottlenecks unless adequate investments are delivered well in advance.

As battery designs evolve yet further, their individual characteristics could impact recycling methods

EV industry on high alert over spike in battery raw material prices

conditions. Another concern is that inflation may slow the transition from fossil fuels, as consumers will be less inclined to purchase suddenly expen sive electric vehicles with concurrently rising prices for other essentials.

Consequently, automakers have gone from focusing mainly on im proving battery performance to now worrying most about supply chain is sues.

Smoothing challenges around mate rials supply and production is now the top priority, and automakers are seek ing technologies and partners that can ease the cost challenges through im proved manufacturing, artificial intel ligence (AI) software, cheaper battery materials, and new battery design.

Wide range of chemistries

The falling costs in batteries has been one of the core principles behind the belief that EVs will overtake internal combustion vehicles. There was good reason to be optimistic: from 2010 to 2020, the price of lithium ion battery packs fell by 89%.

However, in the last year, electrifica tion trends have significantly driven up global demand for raw battery materi als — namely nickel, lithium, copper, and cobalt.

This strained supply chain has been greatly exacerbated in 2022 by the current geopolitical conflict, as Russia sources 11% of the world’s nickel — leading to sky high costs for the com modities in recent months.

Last year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) analysts reported that higher costs of raw materials could push the average price of a lith ium-ion battery pack to $135/kWh

in 2022, marking the first increase in prices since 2010, when the average cost was $1,200/kWh.

During the first quarter of 2022, the average cost of lithium ion bat tery cells shot up to an estimated $160/kWh compared to $105/kWh from 2021. It’s expected that between March and June 2022, global cell prices will have risen by 20-30%.

The recent spike in battery prices has put the EV industry on high alert as automakers understand that more actions need to be taken to ensure a smooth and regular supply along with reasonable prices.

S&P Global Mobility predicts it could cost car manufacturers up to $8,000 more to make an EV battery pack by the end of 2022. Indeed, au tomakers from Tesla to Rivian to Ca dillac have already increased prices on their EVs due to the shift in market

Batteries with a lithium, nickel and manganese makeup in the cathode (aka NMC batteries) have become popular with automakers in recent years, but with cathode materials ac counting for more than half the cost of a typical EV battery cell, this chem istry is quickly falling out of favour.

Several promising new chemistries within the lithium family that rely on less costly, in-demand materials such as lithium iron phosphate (LFP) bat teries are gaining traction with indus try adoption.

For example, Elon Musk recently announced Tesla is going to use LFP batteries for the majority of its ve hicles instead of NMC due to scaling concerns around nickel.

There are also other anode chemis tries such as sodium ion batteries that show promise for replacing lithium ion batteries altogether for certain ap plications.

While there are many advantages to these new chemistries, they all come with performance trade-offs. Enhanc ing energy density, mechanical stabil

Rising EV battery costs threaten to derail electrification goals but new approaches to battery design and development can help, writes Moshiel Biton, CEO of battery tech company Addionics.

ity, heat dissipation, charge time and battery life are still needed to various degrees.

But not all is lost. While so much attention has been paid to chemistry, rearchitecting battery electrodes into a 3D structure has been proven to over come the performance advantages of any battery, no matter the chemistry makeup.

Traditionally, all batteries have a 2D electrode structure composed of a flat metal foil coated with active chemical materials.

In contrast, 3D electrodes use a po rous metal structure with the active chemical material embedded inside during the coating process. This struc tural update modifies physical phe nomena (e.g. diffusion) in the battery cell, resulting in significant improve ments for all the aforementioned key performance metrics together.

Taking a holistic approach by con sidering both battery chemistry and physics, the industry can scale up costeffective production more rapidly.

Exploring and adopting a wider range of new and existing chemistry configurations such as LFP, solid-state and silicone are still required, but design enhancements will help make them more commercially viable, faster.

Unlocking production efficiencies

As industry seeks ways to achieve low-cost battery manufacturing at scale, prioritizing ‘drop-in’ solutions such as 3D electrodes that can be in corporated with existing manufactur ing lines will be highly advantageous.

Applying AI at various stages of bat tery production — from R&D to the assembly line — also promises to ease the challenges brought on by supply chain constraints and rising material costs because it accelerates the de velopment process of batteries with alternative chemistries that use more widely available materials.

Historically, battery innovation has been held up by slow experiments, long turnaround times and a difficult discovery process. AI can help solve these longstanding challenges and re duce the process of evaluating battery materials, cell structure and chemis tries from years to months.

Taking a systems level approach, battery scientists can apply AI to more efficiently test and understand battery packs, their integration, and their ex pected performance.

This application of AI also encom passes various cell types, their dif ferent chemistries and expected per

ADDIONICS: BNEF 2022 PIONEERS

Addionics, founded in 2018, is developing what it describes as chemistry-agnostic technology to improve the performance of next-generation batteries using ‘smart 3D electrodes’, coupled with proprietary artificial intelligence software.

The company announced in January it had raised $27 million in

a series A funding round to scale up its efforts to redesign battery architecture.

On April 14, Addionics was named as one of 12 ‘BNEF 2022 Pioneers’ by BloombergNEF for its development of “impactful and original technology innovations for advancing the low-carbon economy”.

formance, and can help determine the optimal methods for distributing energy within multiple batteries or packs.

For example, Volkswagen, in part nership with Google, is using AI and quantum computing to simulate and optimize the structure of high-per formance batteries, while Panasonic claims it has dramatically reduced the number of times it must charge and discharge batteries as it tests new designs, thanks to AI.

AI can also help battery scientists better understand structure-property relationships at the electrode level, in order to design the best battery struc ture for any given application.

Depending on how the battery will be used and other technical specifica

tions, AI can make profound recom mendations on possible structural de signs that result in optimized battery performance. These algorithms can even be adapted to suggest structure possibilities based on chemistries with less in-demand materials that haven’t been applied yet.

It’s like having a battery prototyp ing factory on steroids — a huge ben efit to the entire value chain in terms of time and cost saved.

Keeping the revolution on track

With global efforts to halt climate change through electrification, the auto industry (and society for that matter) can’t afford to let progress be stalled by supply chain disturbances and price volatility. Solutions are be ing explored every day — AI and new approaches to battery design are just a few promising examples.

Fortunately, financial analysts now expect the price of key battery materi als to fall in the years ahead, but the industry should still safeguard against volatility by investing in a wider range of battery chemistries — and innovat ing battery design alongside chemistry can help.

With the courage to challenge the status quo, industry collaboration and supportive policies, the auto industry has a real shot at keeping EV adop tion on track.

Moshiel Biton, CEO, Addionics

While so much attention has been paid to chemistry, rearchitecting battery electrodes into a 3D structure has been proven to overcome the performance advantages of any battery, no matter the chemistry makeup

We need a flow batteries Musk!

There was a mood of optimism as delegates gathered for the International Flow Battery Forum in June — a feeling the industry was at last on the move and making headway.

Just weeks before, CellCube announced a ‘gigawatt’ pipeline agreement for Africa. There were other optimistic signs of action in the sector. (See our news pages at the end of this section.)

But this needed to be taken to the next level, “We need a flow batteries Musk!” said Flow Batteries Europe secretary general Anthony Price.

Elon Musk made his mark in battery storage three years ago, when Australia needed energy storage in size. “Musk just said ‘I’ll build you a 100MW battery; by such and such a date and did just that,” Price says.

“That project wasn’t easy but he had the opportunity, he went for it — and in doing so, he set a benchmark which effectively said to everyone: ‘Catch me if you can’.”

The IFBF conference itself, the 11th in-person conference in Brussels, was hosted by Flow Batteries Europe (FBE) — established by 16 flow battery stakeholders in April 2021 — and debated what comes next for the industry.

IFBF, which launched in 2010, is a conference series rather than a trade association.

In February, 11 European and national associations including FBE signed a letter calling on European legislators to support long duration energy storage as a key step toward achieving carbon neutrality and keeping energy prices stable and affordable.

FBE said the industry was ready to expand development of flow batteries, but needed “a signal” of support from legislators.

Price said the FBE welcomed the proposed EU Batteries Regulation and the Battery Passport — an electronic identifier of products to help ensure ethical and sustainability credentials — but excluding flow batteries from the key obligations of the Battery Passport could endanger the

Australia needed energy storage in size. “Musk just said ‘I’ll build you a 100MW battery; by such and such a date and did just that”

competitiveness of the battery value chain and derail decarbonisation goals.

All energy storage technologies need to be allowed to complete on a level playing field for the proposals to work, he said.

However, in terms of the Batteries Regulation, Price said it was written “without a sniff” of flow batteries in it, “almost to the point of excluding the technology”.

To make headway in Europe, Price said organizations need to show they are part of a group representing European business interests. FBE includes extra-European members who see opportunities to be involved in EU projects that can act as a precursor for other parts of the world.

To a certain extent, he says, it’s easier to argue your case with the European Commission, representing a bloc of 27 countries in one go, rather than holding one-to-one talks with nations.

The first objective with the Commission is to make sure flow battery research is given equal priority to other emerging energy technologies, he says. “This can very easily be overlooked either through

poor drafting of policy or deliberate or accidental omission.”

That said, Price says flow battery firms have had some “helpful” discussions with policy chiefs, both in terms of the Batteries Regulation and Batteries Passport. “The former Batteries Directive did need updating and it was obviously going to be looking at the role of lithium batteries and so most attention was given to that.”

But whatever form the Batteries Regulation takes when it finally becomes law, the flow battery industry will be up for having an early review, Price says.

The future of flow batteries discussed at the conference was set against the backdrop of Europe’s urgent need to establish secure energy supplies, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We need huge amounts of long duration storage,” says Price and there’s a compelling argument for flow battery gigafactories — and that requires finance.

“Look at the amount of money that is swishing around ready to be invested in battery projects. There’s some £600 million ($750 million) across funds in the City of London that are looking for battery projects to invest in.

“The equipment needed to get a flow battery manufacturing facility up and running is comparatively easy when compared to its lithium counterpart.

“You need injection moulding machines, robots, presses, rollers and equipment to make carbon electrodes, buy some membranes or separators, then joining and welding gear to put these together in stacks, with some mechanical engineering to hold it together and then there’s the plumbing and wiring.

“It’s not difficult at all when you compare it to the clean rooms, ovens, furnaces, processing, finishing rooms, formation cells and all the rest of what is needed to make a lithium battery.”

“I don’t think you would need more than around £50 million to build an extensive flow battery manufacturing plant.”

Flow Batteries Europe secretary general Anthony Price says the industry needs more entrepreneurial zeal to keep it in the spotlight and renew interest in the technology.

Time for deeper re-assessment of the levelized cost of RFB storage flow up-front costs but lower running may be expected. Rodby Volta of the

Lithium ion batteries may be the chemistry of choice for most grid services, but that doesn’t mean that they will be a cost-competitive solution for all applications — particularly emerging longer-duration ones.

Among the various energy storage technologies under development, redox flow batteries are an emerging solution for long duration (that is four hours and longer), stationary applications as their system architecture offers a number of unique advantages.

A RFB generally uses the potential difference between two reduction/ oxidation reactions — known as redox — to drive chemical reactions, thus converting electrical energy to and from chemical energy.

In the RFB architecture in particular, electrolyte (the charge-storing capacity, usually in the liquid phase) is stored in tanks and pumped through the reactor where electrochemical reactions occur.

This open architecture — the physical

separation of the electrolyte and the reactor components — decouples energy and power. One can scale the energy capacity by increasing the tank size independently of the power rating (meaning the reactor size can stay fixed). This means RFCs can be designed for virtually any duration. This process of scaling the electrolyte tanks to meet longer durations, while keeping all else fixed, is depicted pictorially in Figure 1 below.

This decoupling is a unique and distinct feature from many conventional battery technologies. This facilitates a number of unique economic benefits, including the decrease of capital costs on a per unit energy basis at increasing durations and long-term cost savings through component-specific maintenance to extend the battery lifetime and remediate decay.

Capital cost is a very important metric for evaluating the economic

feasibility of batteries, the most cited being the US Department of Energy’s target for viable grid storage of ≤150 $/kWh: the exact target varies by office within the DOE, and is often even below 100 $/kWh. This is because the capital cost is the primary barrier to adoption: grid-scale storage systems are large capital investments, so high capital costs hinder the ability to finance and install such systems.

The capital cost (Ccapital) of a battery is generally defined as the sum of the energy costs (Cenergy) and the power costs (Cpower), the latter of which is divided by the duration to give consistent units of dollars per unit energy:

For RFBs, the energy costs consist of the electrolyte comprising the active species, solvent, and supporting electrolyte) and tank, while the power costs encompass the stack primarily the reactor, the most important components of which are the membrane and electrodes.

Other balance-of-plant costs, for example, pumps, grid connections and additional costs such as labour, installation, profit margins and the like may or may not be included in these calculations, depending on the study.

These are usually represented as power-based costs — they have units of dollars per kW and thus are also divided by the battery duration if summed and included in capital cost calculations.

The equation obviously implies that energy and power costs can be decoupled, which is how the capital cost is reduced as a function of duration. This is true for RFBs, which is why they are particularly attractive for longer duration applications.

This is not the case for many conventional technologies: for example, in lithium batteries the

Figure 1: A representative schematic of capital cost as a function of characteristic discharge time (or duration) for RFBs and lithium batteries. As duration increases, the capital cost of decoupled battery architectures shifts to be dominated less by power costs and more by energy costs

electrode is part of determining both the power output (its electrochemical properties determine the rate of the electrochemical reactions) as well as the energy capacity (its morphology dictates how many ions can intercalate into it for storage).

Thus, there is little room to modulate the ratio of the energy or power ratings, as these are based on physical materials limitations. Rather, increasing duration must be achieved by adding entire modules (as shown pictorially in Figure 1), meaning the total capital cost is approximately fixed (on a per unit energy basis), even with varying duration.

While the capital cost savings at longer durations is a key selling point of RFBs over other battery technologies, there is still minimal deployment of RFBs on the grid.

Despite the large body of literature on RFBs (there are around 4,500 publications, with more than 600 of them a year) RFBs only account for a couple or percentage points of the energy storage systems that have been contracted, announced, or are under construction globally.

The low deployment rate is a result of the nascency of the technology, which creates a chicken-and-egg problem: no one wants to finance a seemingly risky project, but we also cannot de-risk a technology without financing initial demonstrations.

The lithium battery industry avoided this situation via higher revenue beachhead markets: by the time it was ever considered for the grid, Li-ion had already demonstrated improved performance (its roundtrip efficiency is now remarkably high, usually about 90%, compared to RFBs which are generally 80% or lower, depending on the chemistry). There were also lower costs from development and deployment in the relatively large industries of electronics and electric vehicles.

RFBs, however, are only attractive for the medium to long duration grid applications, for which demand is still low. Thus, they are struggling to compete on a cost basis at such low production volumes.

This situation is representative of a number of other nascent storage technologies (for example, metal air batteries). With a need to decarbonize the power sector rapidly to meet targets for 2030, 2050, and beyond, many of these nascent technologies will play a vital role in supporting the array of grid services that exist.

One crucial avenue needed to solve this problem is to develop new technoeconomic models and arguments to motivate the development and, especially, deployment of these more nascent technologies. For example, RFBs offer a lot of long-term operational benefits that save costs, and these are not covered in capital cost calculations.

While the capital cost benefits to RFBs are well-described in the open literature, there are further economic benefits in operation due to ease of maintenance of open systems that are often not captured in techno-economic discussions.

For example, crossover — defined as undesirable active species transport through the semi-permeable membrane that separates the positive and negative electrolytes in the reactor – is usually the most dominant form of capacity fade in RFBs and may halve the accessible capacity within 100-200 cycles.

While this is a relatively fast fade as compared to that typically experienced by LIBs, the open architecture of RFBs allows for targeted, cost-efficient maintenance: in an RFB, one can access the electrolyte (the component affected by crossover) to repair or replace it directly, without altering the still-viable reactor.

This is unlike conventional closed systems such as lithium batteries that require “augmentation” — replacement or addition of entire new modules — and which wastes undecayed reactor components. The costs necessary to maintain performance over time impact the battery’s economic viability, but are not captured in the conventional capital cost estimations that are commonly used to compare and benchmark different technologies. This is especially true for the vanadium RFB (VRFB), which is by far the most researched and deployed RFB chemistry.

VRFB is particularly favoured for its strong performance and resiliency in dealing with electrolyte degradation, which is facilitated by its design as a “symmetric” chemistry, where all active species are based on a single parent compound.

The benefit of this chemical configuration is that the inevitable crossover of active species becomes much less detrimental, as it will not lead to cross-contamination and these losses can be recovered via rebalancing: the transfer and recharging of partial or full volumes of electrolyte between the two reservoirs to balance the concentrations of active species.

Rebalancing allows for indefinite crossover remediation and, thus, lifetime utilization of the same, original electrolyte (assuming other forms electrolyte degradation are managed). Not many chemistries can be configured in a symmetric configuration, and while a handful of chemistries have been demonstrated symmetrically, vanadium remains the most promising and explored of them all.

The long-term cost benefits are primary motivators of RFB development, yet they are not captured in the vast majority of prior technoeconomic modelling literature which has primarily focused on articulating upfront capital costs.

This motivates the development of techno-economic models that consider the variable operating principles of different battery formats and chemistries. To this end, the central thread of this is a levelized cost of storage (LCOS) model that has been developed by this author to model lifetime RFB costs that incorporates capacity fade and recovery.

A combination of the capital cost and the LCOS allows for a better comparison across the range of energy storage technologies with different performance attributes, which can be used to assess and develop economically viable RFB systems.

While the VRFB system benefits from reduced maintenance costs, it suffers from a high upfront cost, due, in part, to the price of the active species.

The magnitude and uncertainty of vanadium prices are considered key impediments to broad deployment, which have motivated research into alternative chemistries based on lowercost and widely-available materials (see separate feature on the price of vanadium as the electrolyte).

A combination of the capital cost and the LCOS allows for a better comparison across the range of energy storage technologies with different performance attributes

Keeping the price of vanadium down and steady too

The cost of vanadium itself is a big contributor to the overall cost of any VRFB; the current market price of vanadium translates to a total VRFB electrolyte cost of around $125/kWh. This is close to the price of some entire, state-of-the-art lithium ion battery packs where volumes of mass manufacturing have driven prices down to new lows.

The volatility of the price is cause for further concern.

While historically the market price of vanadium, shown in Figure 1 as vanadium pentoxide (V2O5, a common vanadium product sold on the global market), has demonstrated notable volatility, the last five years have been particularly instable.

While the current price is challenging for competitive grid storage, it also represents a relatively low point for the last five years and may spike even higher in the future.

Such uncertainty makes investments in VRFBs less attractive.

While new chemistries are being proposed that utilize lower-cost and higher-abundance materials, many of these efforts are at earlier stages of technology readiness, as compared to the VRFB, and while the issues they face may be known, solutions have yet to be fully developed which prevents near-term deployment.

Recent studies show the costs to manufacture electrochemicalgrade, organic or organometallic active species can be substantial and have more complex decomposition processes that are difficult to remediate. Other research that uses stable, inorganic materials reveals chemistry-related issues such as competing parasitic reactions and, in the case of hybrid systems with deposition/dissolution reactions, difficulties preventing dendrite formation without severely limiting operating current densities.

With growing demand for

stationary energy storage, VRFBs could theoretically play an important role in integrating renewable energy into the grid. However, the price of vanadium and its volatility presents significant concerns regarding the deployment potential of VRFBs.

Current supply landscape

Vanadium is relatively abundant on the planet, according to the United States Geological Survey, and has multiple orders of magnitude greater global resources as compared to scarce materials such as platinum group metals.

The world production and resources of vanadium are similar to those for critical lithium battery materials (such as lithium, cobalt, and, to a lesser extent, nickel), though these elements are one or more orders of magnitude less abundant than elements such as sulfur, iron, zinc, copper, and manganese, which are the focus of many nextgeneration battery chemistries.

Vanadium production is concentrated in China (62%), Russia (21%), South Africa (10%), and Brazil (7%), With so few countries dictating the supply, the global vanadium market can experience strong price volatility in response to local changes. This price uncertainty makes it difficult for large-scale and capital-intensive VRFB systems to attract investment.

Since almost all countries must outsource their vanadium, sizable VRFB deployments would increase dependence on global supply chains.

For this reason, vanadium was declared one of 50 critical minerals deemed vital to the US security in 2022. (The reason cited by the Department of the Interior was for its use as an alloying agent for iron and steel.)

Beyond the geographic concentration, looking within those few countries that produce vanadium, there is even more severe concentration of supply as the majority of production arises from only a few facilities. Any disruptions in the supply chain can intensify volatility in supply and price.

For example, the price spike that began in 2016 was partially a result of the bankruptcy-induced closure of Highveld Steel & Vanadium in South Africa in 2015 previously the world’s largest producer of vanadium slag from steel production, which caused an 11% decrease in global vanadium production.

This decrease in supply was compounded by other mine closures

in China due to increased enforcement of environmental regulations. Supply has remained depressed for years and only began to rebound in 2019, likely due to increasing primary production in Brazil led by Largo Incorporated.

Simultaneous to these supply constrictions were increases to demand in late 2018 due to revised Chinese rebar standards (regarding steel strength) that promote greater use of vanadium in high- strength steel alloys. The combination of circumstances ultimately led to the price spike in the final months of 2018.

The expansion of VRFB production and deployment depends on the ability to increase the production scale of vanadium.

At present, some 90% of vanadium production goes to steel manufacturing and this demand is likely to grow in the future given continued global economic development as well as a shift towards higher-strength steel in construction to reduce total material requirements.

While there are opportunities to substitute vanadium with other alloying elements (for example, manganese, molybdenum, niobium, titanium, and tungsten) — indeed,

some steel mills in China have switched from ferrovanadium to ferroniobium due to high vanadium prices — there is no evidence such substitutions will re-route significant vanadium supply away from steel demand in the near future.

Thus, any business-as-usual estimate would assume that steel will continue to drive the demand for vanadium at historic rates and only 10% of new vanadium production will be available for VRFBs.

However, with growing energy and sustainability concerns, it is reasonable to believe that larger fractions of new vanadium production (say, as much as 50%) may be diverted to VRFBs, particularly if one can more rapidly scale supply.

Where vanadium comes from There are three pathways for vanadium production see Figure 2.

In the longer term, the largest potential to grow and stabilize vanadium production — contingent upon crucial technological advances in vanadium extraction and recovery from low-grade sources — likely lies in primary mining. Vanadium is relatively abundant globally. While vanadium mines have been proposed

Mines typically require between five to 10 years to come online due to the lengthy approvals process through relevant regulatory avenues, which vary based on location and can take up to 50 years in the worst cases

Figure 2: The three main production routes for vanadium pentoxide (V2O5)

for decades, many have yet to be realized due to financing issues.

Opportunities for new primary vanadium mining ventures exist in a range of locations — most notably in Australia, the US, and China — which could facilitate substantial supply capacity.

Australia has substantial vanadium reserves, though no reported production in recent years, likely due to the lower vanadium concentrations present in their precursor supply: around 1% V2O5 content, as compared to around 2%-3% in South Africa and Brazil (where the overwhelming majority of primary production currently occurs).

Plans to develop three sizable vanadium mines in Australia, if completed, could collectively produce around 27,000 tonnes of V2O5 per year. This would represent an 18% increase to the current global

While this represents a marked growth of the supply chain, continuous growth for at least 10-30 years would require new mines of this scale to come online annually. This is challenging

production of vanadium.

While this represents a marked growth of the supply chain, continuous growth for at least 10-30 years would require new mines of this scale to come online annually. This is challenging. Further, these mines have operational lifetimes of between 10 to 50 when resources are depleted).

Mines typically require between five to 10 years to come online due to the lengthy approvals process through relevant regulatory avenues, which vary based on location and can take up to 50 years in the worst cases.

While supply scale-up is necessary to augment VRFB deployment and will likely help stabilize the market, there are other potential more-immediate solutions to mitigate volatility of vanadium prices.

Vanadium, as per Figure 2, must be extracted from vanadium-bearing compounds, of which there are two categories.

The first is mined shale or sandstone hosted deposits, from which vanadium is currently recovered most often as vanadium titanomagnetite.

The second is from so-called secondary sources where vanadiumbearing waste products of carboniferous materials such as oil, oil shale, and tar sands contain the metal. These are most typically found in residues from burning and refining oil.

The vanadium content of these materials can vary widely: generally, minerals from the earth up to 5 wt% V2O5, while slags and other waste streams are often more concentrated. Because of the low grade of vanadium found in minerals, mining of vanadium is often performed indirectly as a compliment to other materials (for example iron for steel).

Other potential sources

Perhaps the most promising avenue for near-term growth and diversification of the supply chain is through secondary-source vanadium. These precursors are attractive due to their higher vanadium content (5% V2O5) that makes vanadium extraction more economical.

One method to reduce the burden of the vanadium price exists via a new market of electrolyte leasing, where a third-party company leases the vanadium — usually in the form of VRFB electrolyte — to a battery vendor or end-user.

This reduces the upfront capital cost of the battery while increasing long-term costs — a shift of capital expenses to operational expenses) by introducing some recurring fee which is attractive as it lowers the cost and risk of the required upfront investment for VRFB customers.

In some schemes, a portion of the financial burden of leasing is shifted from the lessor to third-party investors who can buy and trade vanadium — akin to markets for other physical holdings such as gold — though it is held and maintained by the lessor, who simultaneously rents it out as electrolyte to VRFB customers.

These markets are new and are largely unknown territory, though a few academic studies have demonstrated the techno-economic potential for leasing.

Another potential route for vanadium production could lie in non-duplex steel-making processes. Neometals, an Australian company, says it has developed a hydrometallurgical process to recover vanadium from mono-process slags. The company has partnered with Scandinavian mineral development company Critical Metals, which has executed a 10-year supply agreement with Swedish steel giant SSAB to access approximately 2 Mt of stockpiled high-grade vanadiumbearing slag from three operating steel mills.

HERE COME THE MONEY-MEN

ESS targets expansion in Europe and beyond

Oregon iron flow battery energy storage company ESS believes there is no better time to be staking a claim to emerging business opportunities in Europe.

Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, ESS announced on March 16 it was expanding its operations into Europe, to meet what it saw as strong demand for long duration energy storage.

ESS’ Europe director Alan Greenshields, whose appointment was announced as part of the expansion, is clear-eyed about the challenges in raising the profile and sales of flow batteries, but insists that all the signs are encouraging.

“Why, if flow batteries are such a good idea, is their market share currently about zero?” he says.

“It’s because it’s really not featured and people say lithium is the only thing that’s going to work because it’s proven in getting way down the cost curve.”

But as Greenshields says, it’s only been 15 years or so ago that lithium was getting the “it will never work and never be cheap enough” treatment.

In terms of flow batteries, he says the need has been recognized for a long time, but “like all things in this sector, there are only three things that matter: cost, cost and cost”.

Greenshields, who stepped down from the chairmanship of Innolith in 2020 and has held several boardlevel positions at battery technology companies, says he was previously a flow batteries sceptic, “because the numbers didn’t make any sense to me, particularly when you consider the fact that vanadium is expensive”.

But he says he saw the light after becoming convinced with what ESS was doing because the company was founded by people who “came out of the vanadium flow space to find a cheaper solution.”

ESS was founded in 2011 and

formed a lab-scale battery before being awarded funding in 2012 by the US Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-e) to develop its iron, salt and water-based systems.

The company launched its ‘Energy Warehouse’ product line in 2017 followed by its next generation ‘Energy Center’ in 2021, which ESS says can be configured in different power capacities, starting at 3MW, with energy durations ranging from six to 16 hours.

Greenshields says that in addition to being “at least 10 times cheaper” than many other materials, the specific iron compound used, ferric chloride, has a low toxicity and environmental footprint “as well as being cheap”.

“We dissolve ferric chloride in water. This means the electrolyte is in a pH range where it’s not an aggressive material. Then, if you want to build a cost optimized battery, you don’t want to have to use Teflon material and stainless steel and that’s also a feature of the ESS system — the electrolyte is so benign you can build the system out of standard materials.

“Then ESS figured out the things going on in the battery that were inhibiting cycle life and came up with a unique technical and solid fix for it.”

That fix is a device ESS called the

THE ENERGY COMMUNITY MODEL RESURGES

Greenshields says there will be a move away from a centralized grid model for distributing power — microgrids will form around renewable generation and energy storage hubs. This will happen at an industrial level as well as a community one.

“We’ll see companies saying they will install their own battery and solar but might also buy a wind farm nearby and use this under normal circumstances to minimize their energy imports and shelter costs from volatility in the market,” he says.

The energy community model could serve small towns well, with residents drawing power from battery systems charged up by

renewables such as from nearby windfarms, rather than electricity generated from windfarms being sent directly to the grid and sent back out for use in communities at “massively elevated prices”, Greenshields says.

The model poses political rather than technical difficulties, he says. “For it to happen, everyone in that town or village would have to sign up to say we’re no longer buying our power from the power utility. Instead, it would become something like a cooperative. But there would have to be a legal framework otherwise you would get a percentage of people who would be worried and reluctant to do it.”

US-headquartered iron flow battery storage company ESS intends to establish a commercial foothold in Europe, and as Energy Storage Journal went to press in Asia too. John Shepherd reports.

proton pump — a catalytic device that maintains the state of charge and battery health.

“We now have a system for flow batteries where the mathematics start to work, because the electrolyte has a marginal cost of only $20 per kWh. So you have this cost degradation curve which means if you build a 10 or 12hour battery with this technology, the electrolyte cost is tiny,” Greenshields claims.

He bats away questions about the potential cost of replacing other key equipment, such as pumps. “Unlike batteries, if a pump fails it’s a $100 dollar item that can be quickly changed, and that’s how everything in conventional power stations works. Components can be replaced.”

Greenshields says ESS offers an extended warranty for the first 10 years that includes not just this kind of maintenance, but also a performance guarantee underwritten by German multinational insurance specialist Munich Re.

ESS commissioned an automated (but not fully automated) assembly facility in Wilsonville, Oregon in 2021, where Greenshields says standard industrial robots are manufacturing plastic and metal parts, without the need for dry rooms, clean rooms, coating machines and large capital expenditure numbers required for lithium.

Wilsonville will have expanded capacity by eight times by the end of this year — which Greenshields says will be the “blueprint for production” the company intends to establish in Australia next year, followed by similar production operations in Europe.

ESS commissioned a 50kW/400kWh Energy Warehouse system at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego in 2019. The flow battery is integrated into a microgrid with a CleanSpark microgrid controller and provides up to eight hours of storage to enable back-up capabilities for critical loads.

In August 2021, ESS announced its Energy Warehouse had been selected to be integrated with a solar system to provide backup power to a data destruction company in Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, 17 of the company’s Energy Warehouse systems, with a combined capacity of 8.5MWh, are to be deployed to support a solar farm in Spain under an agreement with Enel Green Power.

Greenshields believes Europe is “now

at the forefront” of where energy storage projects will be ramped up. He is also convinced that ESS’ flow battery technology will be part of that push.

“The US has been making steady progress on storage in places like California, but Europe now has to move at lightning speed. There was always a higher political commitment for storage and renewables here, but slower response times in terms of getting all EU states to agree on a project.”

But if there has been inertia in the political energy required to commit to powering the Europe of the future, it has been swept away by what has taken place in Ukraine, Greenshields says.

“Long duration energy storage is now back on the agenda and we have the breakthrough the world has been looking for in batteries.”

According to ESS, Europe is expected to require up to 20TWh of longduration energy storage if it is to meet UN climate change goals of Grid NetZero by 2040. “You’ll see most storage shifting to 12 hours and you’ll see a growth in corporate microgrids,” he says.

Greenshields says that in the light of Europe’s power supply concerns, energy generation and storage is now being recalculated in how many cubic metres of natural gas will this displace. “Solar and storage is a great displacement for natural gas,” he says.

“Following on from the debate about carbon, it’s been turbocharged by the political reality that Russia has started turning the gas off.”

Now countries just want to “put their heads down and get things done in a move to wind and solar with storage.”

Greenshields reckons that there is room for other technologies, such as green hydrogen. “You have lithium for short duration, long duration storage from ESS in the middle for intra-day and green hydrogen as the carbon free replacement for natural gas for strategic safety reserves.

His view is that those who want to use green hydrogen will nevertheless still need batteries but overall “we are now in an emerging but potentially massive market for batteries.

“ESS fulfils the original aspirations of flow batteries and the reason is simply cheap electrolyte. Cheap to produce and cheap to handle.

“Long duration energy storage is the answer to how we are going to get our grids to net zero.”

ESS MOVES INTO ASIA-PACIFIC TOO …

ESS announced on August 11 a strategic partnership with Energy Storage Industries Asia Pacific to distribute and manufacture iron flow batteries utilizing ESS technology in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania to meet demand for long-duration energy storage in the region.

Under the terms of the agreement, ESS will initially supply 70 complete 75kW/500kWh Energy Warehouse systems to Energy Storage Industries in 2022 and 2023.

Concurrently, ESI will construct a manufacturing facility in

Queensland, Australia, equipped to conduct final assembly of ESS systems from 2024 onward.

Systems manufactured at the Queensland facility will utilize “core component kits” supplied by ESS including battery modules, proton pumps, and other unique components.

Core component kits will continue to be manufactured in Wilsonville, Oregon. The ESI manufacturing facility is designed to reach a production capacity of up to 400MW of energy storage annually.

“Long duration energy storage is the answer to how we are going to get our grids to net zero”

Alan Greenshields, Europe director, ESS

CellCube readies ‘gigawatt-sized

VRFB pipeline’ for Southern Africa

If flow batteries needed a deal that would focus renewed interest in the technology and put it on the world’s energy storage map, they now have it.

The CEO of vanadium redox flow battery brand CellCube, Alexander Schönfeldt, has welcomed the sign ing of an agreement, announced on May 17, that will open, he reckons, a “gigawatt-sized pipeline” for his company into energy-starved South ern Africa.

Schönfeldt told Batteries Interna tional: “Indeed this is the first giga watt announcement ever made for flow batteries.”

Under the terms of the deal be tween CellCube brand owner Enerox and London-listed renewables devel oper, Kibo Energy, CellCube’s energy storage systems will be deployed in selected “target sectors” of the region as part of a rolling five-year frame work agreement.

The deployment will use a ‘proof of concepts’ model, which Schönfeldt says would see CellCube “slide into the growth scenario with a handful of demonstration pilots for the vari ous sectors and usage cases and then scale up”.

“Kibo has shown that it under stands the long duration energy stor age space and the activity that is needed to unlock value in the nascent long-duration vanadium redox-flow application.”

Telecoms

Financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed, but Kibo has been granted selective exclusive rights for marketing, sales, configuration and delivery within targeted countries that make up the Southern African Development Community (SADC), whose 16 member nations include South Africa.

Kibo says CellCube will be involved in behind-the-meter projects that are expected to include telecoms towers, gated communities, shopping centers, commercial parks and a renewable energy microgrid project. Orders for specific projects are expected to be placed by the end of June 2022.

Kibo says it will draw on its exist

ing project pipeline of up to 21,200 installations, ranging from small scale 40kWh to larger 2,000kWh systems per installation.

The agreement also holds out the option of CellCube setting up a flow batteries assembly operation in the re gion, with Kibo having first right of refusal for production output.

Kibo CEO Louis Coetzee says the growing SADC, “and particularly en ergy starved South Africa, makes the case for energy storage more viable”.

According to Schönfeldt, the differ ences between his firm’s technology and its lithium energy storage coun terparts are “manifold”.

In an earlier interview about Cell Cube’s technology, Schönfeldt said: “The advantages are convincing, and every project in the stationary storage sector, which currently uses lithium batteries, should be re-examined for safety and sustainability.”

Comparison

On cost, Schönfeldt acknowledges that vanadium redox flow batteries are perceived as being more expen sive, but says while all alternative battery technologies are directly com pared with lithium, overall costs relat ing to safety, environmental measures and disposal are “rarely taken into account in a direct technology com parison”.

He points out that a vanadium re dox flow battery lasts at least “two to three times as long” as a lithium stor age system and says the levelized cost of storage offers a better comparison to address costs in the right light.

“This key LCOS figure indicates the costs of the stored kWh over the ser vice life of the storage system. Acquisi tion costs are thus relativized over the long service life of the storage system and with storage periods and applica tions of more than four to six hours, the vanadium redox flow battery is al ready competitive today.”

According to Schönfeldt, based on current cost forecasts, CellCube’s technology could replace lithium in the stationary energy storage sector in the long term.

In addition, he says the technology has exemplary recycling credentials.

CellCube claims that more than 90% of its energy storage system can be recycled, including the electrolyte solution — which the firm says only has to be produced once and is then “remanufactured” for use in a new storage system at the end of the bat tery’s life.

Water makes up most of this liquid, which is enriched with vanadium sul fate and other elements.

Recycled

As the vanadium electrolyte of a re dox flow battery is not used up over the system’s entire service life and does not degrade, so the storage ca pacity remains the same 20 years after day one of operation, Schönfeldt says.

“The lifecycle of the tank and the secondary safety container, which serves as protection against leaks, is well beyond 20 years,” he says. In terms of safety, Schönfeldt says va nadium redox systems are preferable because they are neither flammable or explosive.

“The high-quality raw materials of our energy cells, the so-called ‘stacks’, are tested by experts and disassem bled and recycled depending on their condition,” he says.

“In agreement with our customers, systems are taken back after the end of the service life and can be re-re newed or refurbished on the market.”

In terms of future developments for CellCube, Schönfeldt says the firm’s current focus is on “megawatt-size large-scale batteries” in container form for industrial customers and en ergy providers.

The company is also working with large corporations on the “gigawatt storage devices of the future, so that extreme amounts of wind and solar power can be optimally transported via the power grid”.

“We are revising our very successful small and commercial storage systems in the kilowatt range and will then be able to offer them in mid-2023 with a new look, better efficiency and at in teresting prices.”

CellCube is also looking at projects involving green hydrogen, hybrid (electricity/hydrogen) filling stations and shipping.

Energizing Europe’s future

The highlight of the morning’s talk was the address by Clarios’ EMEA vice-president for industry and government affairs Christian Rosenkranz who unveiled the ‘EUROBAT 2030 Battery Innovation Roadmap 2.0’. Fundamentally the roadmap set out the case for all battery chemistries to be deployed to help Europe meet its climate and energy sustainability goals.

It also included a further plaintive cry from industry for European R&D public funding activities to be “spread more equally among the different technologies”, by targeting applied research on different applications.

“Today, battery technologies are still competing or are complementary in different market segments and Europe will benefit if it leaves the door open for all technologies to be able to maximize their market innovations,” the roadmap said.

EUROBAT’s annual meeting and forum started, as ever, well. It’s hard to remember a time that it didn’t.

Once the annual meetings were over on the Thursday afternoon, it was almost straightaway to predinner drinks and a very fine meal at Brussels’s Trainworld — a fascinating former railway station converted into a museum and full of current and previous trains and carriages.

The next day started well too.

EUROBAT president and CEO of Hoppecke Batterien, Marc Zoellner, opened the forum calling for the role of batteries to be further elaborated in the European Commission’s

‘REPowerEU’ plan — aimed at severing dependence on Russian gas before 2030.

Zoellner said the new geopolitical realities facing the continent also warranted an update of the Battery Action Plan, launched by the European Battery Alliance in 2017, with a review of policies covering mining, battery materials, battery manufacturing and recycling.

“Batteries have never been more important. They are a key enabler of the mobility transformation and, given the energy situation, they also play a key role as solution for the storage of wind and solar energy,” he said.

The roadmap is an update of an original publication (from June 2020) to account for the latest technological developments and changes in EU policies, primarily the proposal for a European Batteries Regulation, which is expected to come into force next year.

Industry chiefs say the new roadmap reflects the technological realities and potential of the best available battery technologies and how they can contribute to the EU’s policy objectives.

Rosenkranz, who is also chairman of the Consortium for Battery Innovation, said developing all chemistries “will maximize the contribution of our industry” to meet EU zero-pollution targets and support the European Green Deal and other initiatives.

While lithium and lead-based batteries will remain the dominant battery technologies by 2030, the roadmap acknowledged that the European Commission’s ‘REPowerEU’ plan could be expected

EUROBAT’s beyond. were

Zoellner: “Europe is facing new geopolitical realities”

to have an “additional high impact on energy storage demand” that could not be covered by any single technology.

The document cautioned that application-specific developments would further push the boundaries for established technologies, in particular for lithium and lead-based technologies.

Nevertheless, the paper said leadbased batteries would maintain their position with single digit market growth every year until 2030, while lithium ion represented the fastest growing market with double-digit annual growth up to 2030.

Rosenkranz, however, said: “Lead is not going to be redundant.”

In motive power and off-road industrial vehicles, for example, “the mainstream technology in 2030 is still going to be lead based, even though lithium is growing fast”.

The innovation potential of the mainstream established technologies will be driven by new technology branches in lead, such as pure lead, lead-carbon and bipolar, according to the roadmap.

Lithium ion batteries are expected

to forge ahead because of the “diversity in technologies”, but there are still a “large variety” of key performance indicators to improve.

The roadmap concluded that the development of lithium ion technologies suitable for industrial and automotive applications is also “still a challenge” in terms of material research, process, production, development, recycling, safety and transportation, the paper said.

Meanwhile, the document

reiterated warnings to EU leaders that “putting too much emphasis” on one technology would represent a strategic risk for Europe’s global competitiveness, negatively affect buying power for millions of the bloc’s citizens and damage EU industrial knowledge across key markets.

The next EUROBAT Forum and Annual Convention will be held in Madrid, Spain on June 6-7, 2023

New technologies skills challenge

Petr Dolejší, director of mobility and sustainable transport at ACEA — the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association — said that Europe was still putting together the pieces of a ‘sustainability puzzle’, noting that decarbonization ambitions could only be achieved once all other elements were in place.

Lead ‘packs €15bn economic punch’ Derek Cutler, chief economist at economic research and analysis firm EBP-US, presented the detailed findings of analysis published in April that showed the lead battery industry is worth an estimated €15 billion ($16 billion) of value added or gross domestic product a year to the European economy.

The report — ‘Economic Contribution of the European Lead Battery Industry’ — said the downstream industry activity driven by the use of lead batteries is worth €7.3 trillion of gross domestic product across retail, construction and healthcare.

According to the report, nearly €40 million is invested in R&D annually by

the lead battery industry — further boosting growth and productivity.

In addition, the report confirmed that new lead batteries, which are all recycled when collected in Europe, typically include up to 80% recycled content.

‘Localized supply chains for OEMs’ Wolfgang Bernhart, senior partner at consultants Roland Berger, underlined the need for OEMs to secure stable supplies of raw/refined battery materials. Failure to do so could jeopardize their EV business models, Bernhart said in his presentation.

Greater localization of the supply chain could reduce cost, risk, political exposure and reduce the CO2 footprint of material supplies.

Gigafactories need legal ‘coherency’

Violaine Verougstraete, chemicals management director for Eurometaux, told the forum that despite European Union support to build a network of battery cells gigafactories across the bloc, there remained a need for coherence, predictability and efficacy in environmental legislation.

She cautioned against “burdensome reviews” being undertaken authorities of existing legislation, such as the European Chemicals Agency’s REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) list.

Verougstraete also said that more than 30 gigafactory projects had begun or were planned across the EU and UK combined. Alas she did not say how many would be around 10 years’ hence.

Mandatory EU battery recycling

Valerie Plainemaison, secretary-general of the European Waste Management Association, said proposed EU regulations for mandatory recycled content would be crucial to making a success of the incoming Batteries Regulation.

EU recycling capacity needs to be increased by 25 times until 2030 to manage the flow of end-of-life EV batteries, she said.

Mandatory recycled content proposals would also boost localized materials supply chains for European battery makers and reduce the bloc’s dependency on third countries for raw materials.

EUROBAT NEWS BRIEF

Rosenkranz: “the mainstream technology in 2030 is still going to be lead based”

Four events in one. This was held in two giant halls at the UK’s National Exhibition Centre. These were The Advanced Materials Show, Ceramics UK, Battery Cells & Systems Expo and Vehicle Electrification Expo. NEC, Birmingham, UK • June 29-30

Cross-fertilization of ideas: a conference road less travelled

But it was also cleverly put together. Too much of modern electrochemical advances are isolated from their context in terms of material and engineering.

Ben Silverstone, head of the WMG Skills Group at the University of Warwick said: “My favourite part of the show has been having all the different elements in the same place: advanced batteries, EVs, ceramics and the like.

“It’s been really good to have those cross-fertilization discussions and linking up with people who we may not have had the opportunity to link up with if it had been a single industry-focused event.”

It was much more than an exhibition, however. There were four co-located conferences and related presentations going on.

Not just a good event, but a great event. That was the comment of one attendee at the launch event of these four co-located shows. Despite facing competition from a similar event in Europe, the well established The Battery Show held in Stuttgart on the same days and also a similar meeting in Australia, attendance was high.

Certainly, the statistics were good.

The four co-located shows welcomed 308 exhibiting companies, 3,142 attendees and

93 speakers across four conference tracks, said the organizers: “Over 84% of attendees at the show were decision-makers and influencers from their retrospective companies, which included 1,373 unique organizations in attendance from 40 countries over six continents.”

This is certainly no mean feat given that this was the first time the event had been held — and certainly indicative of a huge up-swell of interest into these interrelated meetings.

Battery Cells & Systems Expo and Vehicle Electrification Expo conference was dedicated to battery development, broader electrification and manufacturing strategy, which welcomed expert speakers from McLaren Applied, Rimac Technology, Tevva, NPL among others.

The Advanced Materials Show and Ceramics UK conference blended programme featured twotracks tackling the challenges and opportunities in materials innovation and materials industrialization respectively, and welcomed expert speakers, for example, from Cerion, Tata Steele, Henry Royce Institute, and NovoMOF.

“The exhibitors at the show showcased some incredible innovative technology,” said the organizers. “Keyence who are leaders in industrial automation and inspection systems displayed 3D microscopes, laser marking solutions and automated inspection solutions. The University of Wolverhampton brought the

Battery Cells & Systems Expo is an international showcase of manufacturers, users and the entire supply chain working to increase battery performance, cost and safety. The show brings together automotive OEMs, electric utilities, battery cell manufacturers, system manufacturers and integrators along with the entire manufacturing supply chain.

Formula 3 car, the winning vehicle of the Championship F3 Cup UK 2021 season.

The show was host to key events across the two days, including the leaders in graphene — clearly one of the key ingredients in EV battery development and manufacturing — participating in five curated roundtable discussions, focusing on the barriers and opportunities in graphene production and application.

The show also had what the conference organizers called “a VIP campaign” — essentially an extra stream for participation and complete with complimentary refreshments. This included, for the chosen few, the opportunity to attend a special tour and reception at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in nearby Coventry.

For those of us lucky to attend the UKBIC tour, this provided a fascinating chance to speak individually about the approach of the centre to scaling up proven, at least in the lab, technologies and develop them into the stepping stones leading to commercial possibilities.

“I was impressed by some of the UKBIC facilities — in particular their testing methodology and equipment — but I was equally taken by the wealth and range of expertise of the staff,” one attendee said to Batteries International.

The VIP campaign, however, did not extend to the refreshments. One Dutch and British pair were vociferous in their moaning that the sign saying drinks — complete with a picture of a glass of wine — only led them to the inevitable British cup of tea and biscuit!

The four conference sections in each corner of the auditorium were busy throughout the two days with, on occasion, there were audiences of over 100 people seated and standing room only.

Two sessions particularly stood out.

Dirk Spiers, perhaps the key figure in the development of a second life market for lithium batteries, hosted a lively discussion on the challenges of repurposing, repairing or recycling unfit-for-use EV batteries.

Withers & Rogers hosted an intellectual property seminar, detailing in very practical ways how one could leverage commercial benefit from innovations. This

included how to identify intellectual property in the business, how to protect IP assets, and how to use this to further one’s business goals.

Sarah Connolly, innovation lead at Innovate UK, part of UKRI summed up the show. “It’s been wonderful to hear how all of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together for the future of sustainability of the materials industries. I’ll definitely be coming back next year.”

Adam Moore, one of the organizers of the event, said: “The success of

the show at this its launch event is tribute to the excitement that’s being generated in the UK over battery development and the fact that this country is poised for huge growth in the years ahead.”

The next Battery, Cells and Systems Expo and Vehicle Electrification Expo is on June 28-29, 2023 and will be co-located with The Advanced Materials Show and The Advanced Ceramics Show at the NEC, Birmingham UK.

“It’s been wonderful to hear how all of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together for the future of sustainability of the materials industries”

Automotive Supplier Summit

October 10 Wolfsburg, Germany

Meet the key players of the automo tive industry at the B2B Management Conference with accompanying exhi bition in Wolfsburg - the home of the worlds biggest Automotive OEM.

Discuss the current challenges of the automotive industry and the fu ture of the automotive supply chain industry.

The Automotive Supplier Summit @IZB2022 will take place as a hybrid event, both in Wolfsburg and online.

Contact IPM AG www.automotivesuppliersummit.com

Energy Storage Canada

October 11 – 12 Toronto, Canada

Energy Storage Canada’s Annual Conference – Accelerating Canada’s Energy Transition is pleased to be back in person this year with virtu al content from the event available to all attendees post conference.

Energy Storage Canada's 2022 conference will concentrate on the acceleration of the implementation of energy storage as a means of re alizing energy storage’s capacity to serve as a critical driver in Canada’s on-going energy transition.

Industry and policy leaders in Canada and around the world ac knowledge the need for energy stor

age. Join us to learn more about how Canada’s energy industry is helping the country reach its Net Zero goals.

Contact Energy Storage Canada E: information@energystoragecanada.org www.energystoragecanada.org

Batteries Event

October 18 – 21 Lyon, France

Batteries 2022 will cover all aspects of the battery circular economy, be ginning from the production of the battery through raw materials, bat tery manufacturing, battery use and safety, management and applica tions, going through market trends, research and development, new tech nologies and finally closing the loop with a focus on recycling, second life and regulations.

Contact Avicenne Energy www.batteriesevent.com

Electricity Transformation Canada

October 26 – 28 Toronto, Canada

Electricity Transformation Canada is Canada's largest renewable energy conference and exhibition, with the key areas of focus being wind en ergy, solar energy, and energy stor age, while expanding to incorporate

complementary technologies.

This event will take place in To ronto and promises to attract the key players that are working together to drive Canada's energy transforma tion. Participants will include utili ties, system operators, governments, end-use sectors undergoing electrifi cation, and a variety of energy pro fessionals.

Contact Canadian Solar Industries Association & Canadian Wind Energy Association

Sharon Fryer, Events Manager

E: sfyer@renewablesassociation.ca www.electricitytransformation.ca

Future Battery Forum

November 3 – 4 Berlin & Online

The management conference brings together the entire value system of battery technologies - in Berlin and online. Around 2,000 users, battery system & cell manufacturers, and their suppliers will have the oppor tunity to engage with fellow com munity members to share challenges, ideas, and solutions. They can ex change on tangible innovation, build their network, and discuss how to achieve industrial ramp-up for a high market share of battery-driven solu tions.

Contact IPM AG E: T.S@IPM.AG www.futurebattery.eu have every are the with any or check below and throughout the listings for any amendments to the programme.

Toronto, Canada will host Energy Storage Canada and Electricity Transformation Canada in October

The Energy Management Exhibition — EMEX

November 23 – 24 London, UK

EMEX is the UK’s must-attend en ergy event for everyone wanting to increase their organisation’s energy efficiency and reduce carbon emis sions.

EMEX connects all commercial en ergy consumers with leading experts, policy makers and suppliers. EMEX is more than just an event. It’s a plat form where practitioners and experts from various backgrounds and sec tors are coming together to share their knowledge and experiences from successful implementations of energy efficiency strategies.

Whatever the size of your business there is an opportunity to find more efficiency in your energy use.

Contact HEELEC Limited E: sales@emexlondon.com www.emexlondon.com

Advanced Automotive Battery Conference USA — AABC USA

December 5 – 8 San Diego, CA. USA

AABC was founded more than twen ty years ago to review the status of automotive battery technology and provide informed glimpses into the future.

The 2022 program will uncover the underlying technical and business issues that will impact the pace and path of vehicle electrification world wide.

Join us in San Diego to network with chief battery technologists from leading automotive OEMs, who will share their development trends and projected battery needs, as well as their key suppliers who will present their latest offerings and roadmaps for the future.

Contact Cambridge EnerTech E: ce@cambridgeenertech.com www.advancedautobat.com/us

The Smarter E India & Power 2 Drive — ees

December 7 – 9 Gujarat, India

With three parallel energy exhibi tions, The smarter E India is India’s innovation hub for the new energy world. It presents cross-sector en ergy solutions and technologies and reflects the interaction of the solar,

energy storage and electric mobility industry.

The smarter E India addresses all the key areas along the value chain and brings together local experts and international stakeholders in the en ergy future.

The smarter E India brings together the renowned Intersolar India, ees In dia and Power2Drive India.

ees India is India’s leading electri cal energy storage exhibition. ees India will focus on batteries, electri cal energy storage technologies and systems attracting investors, utilities, installers, manufacturers and project developers from all over the world.

Contact Solar Promotion Kristin Merz E: merz@solarpromotion.com www.thesmartere.in/home

World Future Energy Summit

— WFES

January 16 – 18, 2023

Abu Dhabi, UAE

The annual World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi is the lead ing global industry event and exhi bition for future energy, clean-tech and sustainability. Bringing together government and business leaders, 800 specialist exhibitors and 33,500 visitors from 170 countries, it show cases pioneering technologies and ground-breaking thinking in energy, energy efficiency, water, solar, waste and smart cities.

Contact RX Global E: worldfutureenergysummit@rxglobal. com www.worldfutureenergysummit.com

Solar Finance and Investment Europe

February 1 – 2, 2023

London, UK

2022 changed everything for the energy industry. The geopolitics of energy security flew to the top of government agendas and gas drove power prices to new levels. This was set against a backdrop of rising com modity prices and supply chain chal lenges which had a real impact on how project economics were mod elled and how quickly projects could come together.

Yet, despite these headwinds, the solar industry proved – once again –how resilient it is.

The 2023 edition, our 10th anni versary edition will bring together the largest pool of capital and proj ects together. Reserve your space now to avoid disappointment.

Contact Solar Media E: omccullough@solarmedia.co.uk www.financeeurope.solarenergyevents. com

Solar Power Africa

February 8 – 10, 2023

Cape Town, Africa

South Africa’s leading position in driving the continent’s transition to renewable energy has been confirmed with the launch of the first-ever Solar Power Africa Trade Show.

Organised by Messe Frankfurt, and in partnership with the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA), Solar Power Africa 2023 is the first event of its kind dedicated solely to Solar Power and Energy storage and is expected to attract over 100 exhibitors operating in this dynamic market.

Contact Meese Frankfurt Wes Sutler E: wsulter@re-plus.com www.solarpowerafrica.za.messefrankfurt. com

Intersolar North America

February 14 – 16, 2023 Long Beach, CA. USA

Dedicated to accelerating the energy transition #isnaesna23 will bring in stallers, developers, utilities, technol ogy providers, policy makers, and key stakeholders from around the world together for three days of impactful learning, networking and business.

With a comprehensive conference programme, lively Solar Games com petition, and immersive exhibit hall experience, #isnaesna23 will deliver energy professionals an unmatched opportunities to gain critical insights, make meaningful connections and source quality products.

Contact Diversified Communications www.intersolar.us

Energy Storage Summit

February 22 – 23, 2023 London, UK

As Europe grapples with an energy security crisis, net zero targets and increasing amounts of intermittent renewable generation, energy stor age continues to play an essential role in the power sector.

The 8th edition in 2023 will guide the market on how to maximise storage revenues and reduce energy costs.

Contact Solar Media E: energystorage@solarmedia.co.uk www.storagesummit.solarenergyevents. com

RE+ Northeast February 22 – 23, 2023 Boston, MA. USA

RE+ Northeast’s primary mis sion is to deliver on the missions of both SEIA and SEPA in a way that strengthens the solar energy industry domestically and globally, through networking and education, and by creating an energetic and engaging marketplace to connect buyers and suppliers.

Contact Smart Electric Power Alliance E: customerservice@re-plus.com www.events.solar/northeast/

London will host Solar Finance and Investment Europe and Energy Storage Summit in February 2023

Intersolar Middle East

March 14 – 16, 2023 Dubai, UAE

Middle East Energy (MEE), Intersolar, and ees, the leading energy exhibitions are joining hands to co-deliver an out standing renewables and energy stor age event at Middle East Energy.

Renewables and energy storage at MEE is the largest gathering of solar and renewable energy industry pro fessionals in the Middle East & Af rica, offering the most effective trade focused platform to international manufacturers and distributors look ing to meet regional buyers.

Intersolar and ees conferences pro vide solar and energy industries with platforms for sharing information and strategies. In collaboration with speakers, participants and partners, we shape the energy supply of the future.

Contact Solar Promotion www.intersolar.ae/en/home

The Distributed Energy Show

March 14 – 15, 2023

Telford, UK

The Distributed Energy Show is a free to attend exhibition and confer ence that will bring together the entire supply-chain focused on distributed energy resources and provide visitors with a comprehensive array of tech nologies and systems to enable them to generate, store, manage and distrib ute their own power and heat.

Contact Event Partners Danny Scott, Exhibition Manager E: danny.scott@event-partners.org www.distributedenergyshow.com

InterBattery

March 15 – 17, 2023 Seoul, Korea

First launched in 2013 in Seoul, Ko rea, InterBattery is Korea’s leading battery exhibition showcasing various new products and technologies of bat tery industry.

InterBattery 2023 attracts more than 400 exhibitors (domestic/over seas) and 1,200 booths including global top corporates of battery man ufacturers such as Samsung SDI, LG Energy solution, SK On, CATL.

CHARGE Your Business through InterBattery 2023!

Contact InterBattery Secretariat E: interbattery@coex.co.kr www.interbattery.or.kr/en/

Battery Japan March 15 – 17, 2023 Tokyo, Japan

Battery technologies are the key to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 as they will largely contribute to the popularisation of renewable energy and EVs.

BATTERY JAPAN gathers a broad range of technologies, components, materials, and devices for recharge able batteries development & pro duction. The show attracts profes sionals from all over the world.

Contact RX Japan E: wsew.jp@rxglobal.com www.wsew.jp/hub/en-gb/about/bj.html

International Battery Seminar and Exhibit

March 20 – 23, 2023 Fort Lauderdale, FL. USA

Founded in 1983, the International Battery Seminar & Exhibit has es tablished itself as the premier event showcasing the state of the art of worldwide energy storage technol ogy developments for consumer, au tomotive, military and industrial ap plications.

Key thought leaders will assemble to not only provide broad perspec tives, but also informed insights into significant advances in materials, product development, manufactur ing, and application for all battery systems and enabling technologies.

As the longest-running annual bat tery industry event in the world, this meeting has always been the pre ferred venue to announce significant developments, new products, and showcase the most advanced battery technology.

Contact Cambridge EnerTech E: ce@cambridgeenertech.com www.internationalbatteryseminar.com

Large Scale Solar Europe

March 28 – 29, 2023 Lisbon, Portugal

Join the elite summit in 2023 to find out how the market is matur ing, which new markets are becom ing more exciting, how technology is evolving and who’s driving the mar ket forward into the 2020s. Always packed with senior developers, EPCs, utilities and investors this is the event for companies serious about Euro pean solar PV.

Contact Solar Media Charlotte Aldrich, Marketing Manager E: caldrich@solarmedia.co.uk www.lss.solarenergyevents.com

Hydrogen 2023

March 28 – 29, 2023 Amsterdam, Netherlands

Reuters Events flagship Hydrogen program provides a unique forum to demonstrate leadership and deliver real action. Align with the world's leading media events brand to shape the global hydrogen economy and develop your brand at Hydrogen 2023.

Contact Reuters Events E: enquiries@reurtersevents.com www.events.reutersevents.com/renew able-energy/hydrogen-europe

The mystery of the disappearing electrolyte

Delegates at the big four co-located battery shows at the UK’s National Exhibition Centre confessed themselves puzzled the night before the great event started at the end of June.

“It’s like some kind of Agatha Christie who-dunit?” said one attendee. “The arrow on the sign definitely said ‘drinks’ but there were only cups of tea. I was dying of thirst,”

“You’ve forgotten the biscuits,” moaned another. “Poirot wouldn’t have spotted that.”

Griped another: “I think you mean it’s like a Da Vinci Code mystery with the hidden symbolism lost on commoners like you.

“There was a chalice in the shape of a wine glass with a red liquid inside it above the sign ‘drinks’.”

The puzzle was eventually solved by a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast. “It’s more like the adventure of the dog that didn’t bark in the night,” he said.

“It’s a symbolic prank by the conference organizers. They want to keep us sober for an extra hour or two. And they’ve almost — just almost — succeeded.”

And with that, he took a hip flask from his pocket and took an enormous swig.

Every good batteryman — or woman for that matter — is known to have a genetic imperative to find the perfect electrolyte, especially after a busy conference day.

So top marks to Pinflow co-founder Jirí Vrána who adapted his flow battery tank at the IFBF to serve up glasses of the finest Czech beer to delegates.

Jirí reckoned the Pilsner had an energy density of 400Wh per litre. Needless to say some managed to drink their week’s units in an evening.

The hirsuitically challenged John — whose shiny pate is indicative of great depths of thought — said it was easy to get past security to the event. “I simply found a friendly colleague and smuggled myself in — look no hands.”

Spirit of Ukraine energizes conference

Hats off to Ukrainian Andrii Bondar who turned up at the International Flow Battery Conference in Brussels to promote his company and country. Andrii, 28, is head of the chemical department at Kness in Vinnytsya, Ukraine, In a show of defiance and resilience, Andrii wore national dress for the IFBF event. Ukraini!

Congratulations to newshound John Shepherd, and incoming editor to Energy Storage Journal as well as sister publication Batteries International, who managed to sneak himself into the Women in the Global Battery Industry group’s meeting at the BCI battery conference this May.