Batteries International, Issue 111. Spring

Issue 111

Spring 2019

INDIA: the next battery superpower in the making 2019 BCI innovation awards: the rundown, the winner and also-rans

Meet Akira Yoshino, co-inventor and father of the lithium ion cell

Bringing the industry together

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CONTENTS COVER STORY: INDIA

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India’s lead battery business is booming. Despite the government’s relatively new focus on lithium cell manufacturing, the lead market will continue to grow.

Giant steps have been taken, more advances are on the horizon The big picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 The view from the ILZDA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 The rise and rise of e-Rickshaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 The separator market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Getting to grips with lead in the environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 ILZDA and Pure Earth have been piloting projects to encourage illegal backyard battery recycling to enter the mainstream — with benefits for all involved.

Identification of projects: the hunt for giga-resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 The race is on! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 India is being swept up in the race to adopt lithium batteries. The next step is to move away from lithium battery pack assembly to manufacturing them domestically.

Exide: seemingly unstoppable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 The rise and rise of Amara Raja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 The great and the also good, other Indian battery firms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 EDITORIAL 3 Dunning-Kruger and the need for media partners PEOPLE NEWS

4

Obituary: Michael Weighall • Skip Koss, former Concorde Battery VP marketing, dies • Exide Technologies announces two senior appointments • Doe Run appoints Batts as COO • Bitrode names Cyril Narishkin as CEO and COO • TBS Engineering appoints Richard Taylor as group operations director • Gopher Resource appoints Leen as president, Robinson as COO • US Battery reshuffles staff, argues economic case for lead • Exide appoints EVP and chief legal officer • Поздравления Борис! (Monahov elected to Alpha/Beta society) • Aqua Metals: Gibson becomes director, Cotton CEO appointment confirmed • Tydrolyte appoints former EPA head Johnson, Monahov • East Penn promotes Stanislawczyk to SVP of automotive sales • Consortium for Battery Innovation takes over in revamp of ALABC • Capitol Hill hears case for lead battery energy storage in the US

Mike Weighall: much missed

4

NEWS 27 Daramic expands lead battery • separator production in Asia Wirtz invests in nickel-zinc battery maker ZAF Energy Systems • Surrette Battery expands lead battery facility after C$2.5m federal loan • Construction begins on China’s largest lead waste recycling plant • China reiterates clamp down on illegal back yard recycling • Aqua Metals enters partnership with French resources firm Veolia • China certifies three lead battery makers despite policy shift to lithium • ULAB recycling initiative launched for remote Canadian regions • Environmental group to upgrade backyard battery recycling in India • Battery maker to use VRLA plus solar for two Portugal projects • Exide sells battery distribution business • Argonne promises ability to recycle lithium batteries cost-effectively by 2022 • Furukuwa UltraBattery installed in first cargo ship • Power Sonic opens warehouse in Reno • North Star signs up its winning ACE system to first automaker, Daimler • Two US lead battery case makers merge • Leoch doubles overseas Pb-A capacity with two new plants • JCI and Toshiba in partnership to create hybrid lead lithium vehicle system • Sunlight to become largest lead battery plant in Europe following EIB loan • DTSC orders expansion of sampling area around Quemetco recycling facility FLOW BATTERY NEWS

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PRODUCT NEWS

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Lead faces lithium challenge with UPS eight-year warranty, 10-year service life • Australian startup targets stationary markets in non-flow battery, zinc bromine chemistry • Battery life prediction AI opens up potential for second life deployment of EV packs • Start-up hits 1,000Wh/kg milestone with new lithium battery

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Davidson launches a new CBI 14

Exide sign EDF partnership

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Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 1

CONTENTS VPP NEWS

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ENERGY STORAGE NEWS

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FEATURE: AKIRA YOSHINO AND THE LITHIUM ION CELL

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Meet Akira Yoshino, the founding figure behind the creation and commercialization of the lithium battery. The tale of its development is testimony to the ingenuity and persistence of its inventor.

Yoshino: the man who made the lithium cell achievable 18

FEATURE: HAMMOND’S HALO

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Another leap forward in lead battery manufacturing INNOVATION COMES TO THE FORE: THE BCI AWARDS

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Review: A bright new landscape emerges ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 54 RSR Technologies: Closing the performance gap with lithium-ion �������������������������������������������� 56 Microporous: Boosting dynamic charge acceptance �������������������������������������������������������������� 59 Murphy and Hammond’s HALO 48

Narada: A new approach to grid-level frequency regulation ������������������������������������������������������ 60 Abertax: Achieving an optimal charging regime ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 61 Battery Rescue Australia: A safer way to recycle lead acid batteries ���������������������������������������� 63 Daramic: Simulating the effect of movement on batteries ��������������������������������������������������������� 64 Philadelphia Scientific: Doubling the capacity of battery charging rooms �������������������������������� 66

Narada: regulating the grid 60

Power Sonic: Introducing he demand response module system ���������������������������������������������� 67 TerraPure: Solving Li-ion danger in the recycling process ���������������������������������������������������������� 69 Voltific: Universal battery sizing becomes a reality �������������������������������������������������������������������� 71 EVENTS AND EVENT REVIEWS

AABC thrives in Strasbourg 101

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Our comprehensive listing of events and conferences worldwide, including reviews of AABC • Battery India • INTERBAT

Publisher Karen Hampton, karen@batteriesinternational.com, +44 7792 852 337

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2 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

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EDITORIAL Mike Halls • editor@batteriesinternational.com

Dunning-Kruger and the need for media partners In 1999 two psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, tried to explain an astonishing fact.

Those that were the least gifted tended to think they were the better performers.

They were too ignorant to know otherwise.

Dunning and Kruger found this by testing students in areas of humour, grammar and logic, and compared the actual results with each student’s estimate of their score.

Those that scored the lowest vastly overestimated their scores, while those who did best slightly underestimated their performance. And hence the term, the Dunning-Kruger effect.

So what has this to do with the battery and energy storage industry?

A quick digression. In a previous lifetime I used to teach City bankers how to talk to journalists. It was well paid work and fun.

Merchant bankers in London are party animals with deep pockets.

So now to be nasty to another industry. The battery business!

Talk to any journalist — and that’s pretty much any journalist I’ve ever met dealing with the larger energy storage players — and their view is that this is an industry that doesn’t want to communicate.

It doesn’t feel the need to do so.

The problem for their senior management was that younger bankers conflated their ability to earn money with their ability to represent the banks to the media. Or to anyone. I even knew a consultant who used to teach them how to use a knife and fork at business lunches.

It’s good at what it does — making batteries for the industry that supports them — but thinks at the same time it knows all the media answers.

But my job was to knock away the arrogance and explain the basics of communicating with the press. Mostly it worked.

Most of these people aren’t the arrogant egos from the worlds of finance — but where does their media expertise come from? Do they understand how to communicate when all they know is how to do business?

The Dunning-Kruger effect for these people, many of whom were very gifted, was that they reckoned themselves as being great communicators but were some of the worst.

They walked on water in terms of earning money for themselves and the bank — weren’t they perfect in every way? www.batteriesinternational.com

For larger issues it’ll hide behind the wings of the ILA, BCI or EUROBAT.

The fact of the matter is that the lead battery industry still doesn’t know how to connect with the outside world in any kind of meaningful way. As its rivals take the media high ground, isn’t it time to fight back?

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 3

OBITUARY

Lead battery industry mourns the passing of Michael Weighall Tributes to Michael Weighall, the much liked and well-known lead battery veteran, poured in to Batteries International as the shock news spread that he had passed away suddenly on March 7 while out walking.

He leaves behind his wife, Sue, and two daughters, Lynn and Anna.

Mike began his career in batteries at Lucas Batteries, the automotive battery brand, before joining Crompton Batteries in Oldham and then Park Batteries, in Telford. It was then, in the early 1980s, that Howard Forrest recruited him as technical manager at Cookson Industrial Materials, where he met Hammond Expander UK vice president Steve Barnes.

As well as the oft-repeated description of Mike as a lovely man who will be sorely missed, many remember his willingness to pass on his vast knowledge to others — which while in great demand from the industry itself, he always found time to patiently explain to newcomers to the industry.

“Over the many years of working with Mike I was always grateful to him for the amount of time and effort he would put aside in sharing his knowledge and experience,” Barnes told Batteries International.

“I was always struck by how friendly, knowledgeable and helpful he was.”

Forrest ran the metals side of the business, and at the time Cookson (which later was taken over completely

by Entek) was focusing on industrial metals, producing lead alloys and battery terminals.

“Mike Weighall came in with a roving brief to look across the whole of the company and help us liaise with battery customers,” said Forrest.

“Through him we got into polypropylene and recycling battery cases, which was new in the UK. We found an American company, MA Industries, which was developing new technology for recycling polypropylene battery cases and finding they were a good source of raw material.

“We formed a JV with MA Industries and set up a recycling operation in Newcastle. While we were looking at all these new developments, Allan Cooper was talking to Mike about the battery industry. Mike said we were virtually supplying everything 4 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

for a battery except the acid and the separators.”

Mike had incredible technical and electro-chemical knowhow, and he also had a thorough way of working, says Forrest. It was this knowledge that helped to achieve the company’s first sale and set them on the road to achieving an annual turnover of £25 million ($33 million) within just four years.

“The sale was to Tungstone Batteries — who knew him, so had confidence in him,” said Forrest. “Then we heard Entek had been set up and had this battery separator process and we came along and formed a JV with them — so in 1990, it was 75% Cookson, 25% Entek.”

Entek would gradually take over more and more of Cookson, which focused on ceramics and eventually sold its lead business.

Much of Mike’s work disappeared, so he set up his own consultancy — MJW Associates. “Mike’s expertise and experience was in great demand from many companies, organizations and associated businesses. Early in 2007, Hammond UK needed some additional technical support and it was without hesitation that I

contacted Mike and asked if he would be able to assist me,” said Barnes. “It was obvious the people we met were aware of Mike and his work and were always keen to spend time listening to Mike and asking his opinion on numerous topics.”

Mike became chairman of the European Technical Committee of the ALABC (now Consortium for Battery Innovation). Cooper remembers his involvement with the ALABC. He wrote many market research reports and technical papers on battery technology and separators, which were published in the Journal of Power Sources and other publications.

He originated from Chepstow, in south Wales, something Entek sales manager Eric Donjon was reminded of when he drove past Chepstow a couple of months ago. “I saw the sign and gave him a call,” he told Batteries International. “He always said, ‘Hello there!’ when he answered the phone, and we spoke about meeting up.

“I got to know him in June 1994, when he was technical manager at Cookson Entek. He basically taught me everything I know today. You couldn’t say a bad word about him.”

Kevin Campbell, chief executive of Digatron, who worked with him over the years said, “He really helped me as a newcomer back in the day and I still recall with fond memories of this true scholar and gentleman. On behalf of the firm and myself personally we send our sincere condolences to his family.”

Mike was a committed Christian, a member of his local photographic society, a gardener and a keen walker.

He remained a consultant until his sudden passing.

“In recent years we have lost a number of good people in the battery industry,” said Steve Barnes. “Sadly another true gentleman of the industry has left us.”

His private funeral was held on March 28.

Many remember his willingness to pass on his vast knowledge to others — which while in great demand from the industry itself, he always found time to patiently explain to newcomers to the industry. www.batteriesinternational.com

PEOPLE NEWS

Skip Koss, former Concorde Battery VP marketing, dies

Edward ‘Skip’ Koss, former vice president marketing at US-based Concorde Battery, has passed away at his home surrounded by family in California on March 19, the company announced.

It was Skip’s enthusiasm for lead acid batteries and his determination to prove they were suitable for use in aircraft that ultimately led to them being adopted by the US military. The US Air Force admitted it had found the Concorde batteries used in F-A, F/A-18, C-130, KC-135 and F-117A aircraft to be 100% reliable when during the Persian Gulf War of 19901991.

Skip’s technical knowledge of aircraft batteries had come from his

time as sales manager with Aero Quality Sales, the aircraft battery services and support equipment company.

Working with engineer Joe Mibelli, at JFM Engineering, he developed the first charger analzyer that could charge and discharge high currents at low voltages: the Superseder.

Skip worked as manager of OEM sales at Teledyne Battery Products in 1980, joined Marathon Power Technology in 1983 to 1987, then finally entered Concorde.

Getting the industry to accept VRLA batteries was, as Concorde says, ‘no small task because no operator wanted to be the first to prove the reliability, dependability and safety of the new technology’— but Skip would not give up.

According to the company, his close professional relationship with Lockheed’s Burbank Skunk Works led to an opportunity for him to

demonstrate how lead acid batteries could replace nickel cadmium batteries in one of their vehicles.

Shortly afterwards, the Persian Gulf War started — and Skip discovered Concorde batteries had been used on its Stealth F-117A aircraft, having been ‘borrowed’ from Lockheed.

This opened the door for Concorde to enter the aviation industry as a supplier of sealed lead batteries, replacing nickel cadmium, and the company is at the forefront of that market today.

Skip was an active member of the International Electrotechnical Commission, the FAA Aerospace Committee and educational organizations that trained mechanics and pilots. In 2009 he was awarded the Charles Taylor ‘Master Mechanic’ Award by the FAA in recognition of his contributions to building and maintaining the safest aviation system in the world.

Skip is survived by two sisters and nine children: Kathy Katz, Eve Arnett, Paul Koss, Amy Koss, Pete Koss, Erin Thompson, Pamela Little, Jill Duke, Mark Koss, as well as 18 grandchildren.

Exide Technologies announces two senior appointments Exide Technologies, the US lead battery manufacturer and recycler, announced two senior appointments in the first half of January. Stefan Stübing becomes executive vice president and president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and Brian Woodworth becomes senior vice president and chief information officer.

Stübing has been with Exide for 35 years, where he was made a vice president of the Automotive Division in 2005. In 2011 he became vice president of finance.

He will be based in Gennevilliers, France, from where he will head the EMEA region.

“We see many opportunities for growth in the EMEA that we can achieve with the help of Stefan’s leadership and deep understanding

8 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

of Exide’s operations, the market and our customers,” said Tim Vargo, who was appointed CEO in November.

Also reporting to Vargo and based in the company’s Milton, Georgia headquarters is Brian Woodworth,

Brian Woodworth

a new hire to Exide. He moves from Phillips Pet Food & Supplies, where he was CIO for five years.

Woodworth has more than 20 years of experience heading technology teams in the automotive retail and distribution industries.

Stefan Stübing

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PEOPLE NEWS

Doe Run appoints Batts as COO Steve Batts has been promoted to vice president and chief operating officer of Doe Run, the US mining and recycling company announced on February 19.

Batts was previously president of the SEMO division’s operations with Doe Run, which includes the company’s mines, mills and lead battery recycling plant.

As COO Batts, who has been with Doe Run for 30 years, will head the organization’s operations, which means “balancing immediate performance with long-term maintenance and growth to maximize the company’s prosperity, sustainability and development,” said the company.

“Steve has a uniquely broad perspec-

tive of our company because he has spent time working in and leading both our mining and metal production divisions,” said Doe Run president Jerry Pyatt. “He has a proven record of driving innovation and safety in our operations.”

Under Batts’ tenure at SEMO, all the company’s mines and mills were awarded ISO 14001 certificates for environmental management. It also built and opened five water treatment plants and recorded three million hours with no lost-time incidents.

Additional local company leaders received promotions within the SEMO Division. Brian Mangogna has been named general manager – SEMO

operations. Mangogna has been with Doe Run for approximately 20 years, most recently as mill manager.

During his tenure, he has overseen ISO environmental certification at each mill location, improved metallurgy and metal recovery, and developed more efficient processes for shipping Doe Run’s lead and zinc concentrates globally.

Adam Steimel, former mill superintendent at Buick Mill, has been promoted to fill the mill manager role.

He will oversee operations at Doe Run’s four mills, as well as the sale and shipment of concentrates. Steimel has worked at Doe Run for more than 14 years.

Bitrode names Cyril Narishkin as CEO and COO Bitrode Corporation, the international battery testing firm, has appointed Cyril Narishkin as CEO and COO ‘to support innovation and growth in 2019’, the company announced on March 11.

Narishkin, who has acted as a consultant to the company for the past eight months, previously worked for three years at the supply chain management company Supply Velocity.

He replaces Paolo Raponi, who was appointed COO and general manager at Bitrode in 2016.

“We will continue to leverage the reputation Bitrode has earned over the last 63 years of building reliable, user-friendly battery testing equipment by continuously improving the way we design, manufacture and service our machines. Some initiatives were started while I was a consultant,” Narishkin told Batteries International.

One of the focuses of Bitrode’s manufacturing strategies will be lean manufacturing, with an emphasis on waste minimization and adding value by reducing that which does not add value.

“Now we are deploying the lean enterprise methodology to all aspects of Bitrode with the goal of making significant further improvements in our quality and order fulfilment,” said Narishkin.

Narishkin says the company expects to see growth coming from North America and Europe this year, and while the Asia-Pacific region will still be a major part of the company’s

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portfolio, the region’s boom in cell development and testing has slowed down.

“There will be continued and robust growth in the electric vehicle and alternative energy industries. Batteries, regardless of chemistry, are the key to the success of these industries.

“Europe and China are adopting electrification at a faster rate than the US. Regardless of geographical location, the key to success and the challenge are one and the same: can responsibly priced energy density by achieved? Lead acid manufacturers are being challenged to develop 60 Wh/kg batteries and lithium ion manufacturers are being challenged to develop sub-$100/kWh batteries.”

Craig Brunk, vice president of sales

and marketing with Bitrode for three years, said: “I am excited to be part of this new team at Bitrode. We now have four senior management team members who are trained and experienced in lean methodology.

“We are challenging all areas of our business: from how we take orders, to how we design and build the testers, to how we ship orders out the door. Everything we do is about how we can serve our employees and our customers better.”

Bitrode began life in 1957 as an inhouse provider of equipment to a battery manufacturer, before expanding its formation and testing equipment.

In 2008, it was taken over by Sovema, the battery production and testing equipment manufacturer.

TBS Engineering appoints Richard Taylor as group operations director TBS Engineering, the UK-based battery automation equipment manufacturer, has appointed Richard Taylor as group operations director, the firm announced on March 4.

Taylor will take responsibility for all UK manufacturing operations, the supply chain and facilities management at the £15 million ($20 million) plant in Gloucestershire, which was opened in October 2018.

Taylor joins TBS after 20 years with Halliburton, the global oil

field service company. He will also be responsible for the manufacturing and supply chain throughout the TBS Group.

“The business has a fantastic culture of innovation which is helping to generate even greater speed, flexibility and output for its customers in the manufacture of lead-based batteries,” he said.

“In 12 months’ time I’d like to see us using lean manufacturing tools to drive daily improvements, which will allow us to grow with the market, and our customers..”

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 9

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PEOPLE NEWS

Gopher Resource appoints Leen as president, Robinson as COO

Brian Leen

Lead battery recycler Gopher Resource, based in Minnesota, US, announced two changes at the top tier on January 3 with the appointment of Brian Leen as president and CEO and Eric Robinson as chief operating officer.

Leen replaces Jeffery Jacobsen, who is retiring but remains on the board, and Robinson joins in the newly created position of COO and senior vice president.

Both men, who are on the Gopher Resource board, have moved from ADA Carbon Solutions, a carbon product provider which is owned by the same parent company that owns Gopher Resource – Energy Capital

Partners.

Leen said: “The lead battery industry is in a time of great change and innovation. Battery manufacturers are working to enhance battery performance and protect the environment. Gopher Resource plays an incredibly important role ensuring that the end of life for these batteries is managed in a safe, clean and environmentally responsible way, while providing customers with the reliability, innovation and service that they need.”

Gopher Resource has facilities in Eagan, Minnesota and Tampa, Florida. It has recycled lead batteries for 70 years.

US Battery reshuffles staff, argues economic case for lead US Battery Manufacturing, the California-based flooded lead acid and AGM battery maker, has reshuffled many of its senior staff in its three US plants, the company announced on February 14.

In its main headquarters in Corona, California, Don Wallace has been appointed chief operating officer, Michael Coad is now vice president of sales and marketing, Zack Cox is vice president of operations and David Mason has been made vice president of manufacturing.

In Georgia the company has two plants: at the Augusta one Ryan Doss is now vice president of manufacturing, and in Evans, Thomas Hendrickson has been appointed vice president of manufacturing.

“The restructuring of our corporate leadership team has been designed to assist US Battery in reaching its global growth initiatives as well as our longterm commitment to both our customers and our employees,” said president and CEO Terry Agrelius.

The 90-year-old firm makes batteries for a range of applications, including automotive, aerial work platforms, floor machines, marine/RVs, renewable energy back-up and golf cars and utility vehicles.

With golf cars and utility vehicles, the company’s senior VP of engineer-

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ing, Fred Wehmeyer, said lead-acid batteries were by far the most sensible choice.

“The facts are that lithium batteries require a new charger and a battery monitoring system, which is not required for lead-acid batteries,” he said.

“With operational costs being a major concern for anyone with a fleet of electric powered vehicles, it’s important to point out that there is the initial cost of a lithium iron phosphate pack, plus the required additional equipment necessary to operate it.

“A single LiFePO4 cell has a nominal voltage of 3.2 volts, thus requiring 15 cells in series for a 48-volt pack.

The average retail price of one 100 Ahr cell is $155, putting the pack cost at $2,325. A compatible BMS and charger costs $290 and $1,075 respectively.

“Altogether, a conversion would cost

Don Wallace

$3,690 and will provide a reported 2,000 cycles at a lower energy content of 4,800 watt hours versus 7,200 watt hours for a comparable flooded leadacid battery pack.

“You can see that for a 48-volt pack, you can buy four 12-volt lead-acid batteries for about $640 retail. That will get you around 150 Ahr and 750 or more cycles with no additional equipment needed. Overall, the flooded lead-acid battery pack will deliver more energy per cycle at a lower cost per kilowatt hour on each cycle by a factor of more than 3:1.”

Wehmeyer also put the case for lead with its recyclability compared with lithium.

Exide appoints EVP and chief legal officer On April 1, Exide Technologies announced it had appointed John Gasparovic as executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary.

Gasparovic joins Exide after retiring from the automotive industry components supplier BorgWarner,

where he held similar positions.

He has worked for a string of automotive parts companies, including Federal-Mogul and Guardian Automotive, and began his legal career with the law firm Jones Day.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 11

PEOPLE NEWS

Поздравления Борис!

(Monahov elected to Alpha/Beta society) The Alpha/Beta Society, an informal group of members who have made outstanding contributions to the development of the lead acid battery system, appointed Boris Monahov as its 26th member on January 28.

Speaking at a special ceremony on the sidelines of the AABC meetings in Strasbourg, Juergen Garche, grand master of the society, welcomed Monahov as a member. “Boris has had a long and highly impressive career spanning four decades of work in lead battery research, it is only right that his achievements be recognized in this fashion,” he said.

Monahov paid tribute to his mentor and friend Detchko Pavlov — the fourth member of the society — who died two years ago.

Monahov also thanked the selecting panel of the members for their endorsement.

The society was launched in 1989 by David Rand (CSIRO) and Ernst Voss (Varta) at the first Labat conference in Bulgaria.

Typically the society appoints one new member a year. In recent years: Jun Furukuwa, Eckhard Karden and Allan Cooper have been added to its ranks.

From left: Juergen Garche (Alpha Beta grand master), Boris Monahov, Eckhard Karden, Rainer Wagner, Geoffrey May, Jun Furukuwa

Aqua Metals: Gibson becomes director, Cotton CEO appointment confirmed Lead battery recycling company Aqua Metals has appointed Gayle Gibson, a former DuPont Engineering executive, as an independent director, the company announced on January 31.

She replaces Mark Slade, who steps down after four years.

Gibson, who began work at DuPont in 1983 and worked as a director of engineering there for four years,

Tydrolyte appoints former EPA head Johnson, Monahov For the record a former administrator for the US Environmental Protection Agency, Stephen Johnson. was appointed chair of a new advisory board at Tydrolyte, the US electrolyte manufacturing start-up, on November 27. He was one of two senior appointments made lately. Boris Monahov, former ALABC technical program manager, joined Tydrolyte as technical adviser to the board on January 1.

Johnson worked for the EPA between 2005 and 2009, during George W Bush’s tenure as US president, and was the first career scientist to lead the agency.

“Most people who have that job are political appointments, but he came from a scientific background,” Tydrolyte CEO Paul Bundschuh told Batteries International.

12 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

has extensive experience as a process engineer, working on developing new products and scaling up manufacturing processes — “which is most pertinent to Aqua Metals,” she told Batteries International.

“The technology has already been proven and today the management team at Aqua Metals is working diligently on making the process reliable and cost effective to allow for scaling into an on-going commercial facility. I expect to bring my experience to that process as needed.”

Gibson’s experience as an executive taught her the importance of balancing the needs of various stakeholders, she said. “Generally, shareholders want growth in value, customers

want products that help them grow, employees want opportunities and the community wants a safe, sustainable environment.”

Steve Cotton was officially made CEO of Aqua Metals, the lead battery recycler, on January 9 after months as de facto president and CEO. He has also been appointed to the board of directors, bringing the total number of directors on the board to seven.

Board chairman Shariq Yosufzai said Cotton had “built an entirely new management team and strengthened existing partnerships while seeking new partnerships and building on relationships with investors, analysts and the industry as a whole”.

East Penn promotes Stanislawczyk to SVP of automotive sales East Penn announced on February 4 it had promoted Peter Stanislawczyk, group vice president of sales – private and proprietary brands and diversified products, to vice president of automotive sales.

Stanislawczyk has been with East Penn since 1992, beginning as sales trainee, after graduating from the University of Delaware.

In his new job he will oversee all

automotive sales segments, including original equipment and wire, cable and battery accessories.

East Penn has a reputation for long service among its employees, as well as two or three generations of one family working there.

Over 30% of the staff have more than 10 years’ service, and almost 1,000 have been there for more than 20 years, says the firm.

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PEOPLE NEWS PEOPLE IN BRIEF Midtronics promotes executive vice president to top slot Lead acid battery management firm Midtronics announced on January 17 that Will Sampson had been promoted to president, with full responsibility for the company’s strategic direction, global growth and profitability going forward.

Sampson joined the company in 1994, and most recently was executive vice president and general manager with overall responsibility for the company’s transportation division.

Babinec joins Argonne as program head for grid storage Susan Babinec was appointed the new program head for grid storage at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, according to an Argonne announcement on February 27.

She was previously the former senior commercialization adviser at the Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy and before that the technical director for A123 Systems.

Tesla CFO retires — again Deepak Ahuja has retired as Tesla’s chief financial officer, it was announced during a quarterly earnings conference call on January 30.

Ahuja quit as the CFO of the electric vehicle and energy storage OEM after seven years in November 2015 before re-joining the firm two years later.

He will be replaced by Tesla’s vice president of finance Zach Kirkhorn. The 34 year old has been at Tesla since 2010. Ahuja re-joined the US company following the departure of Jason Wheeler, who joined from Google but quit just 15 months into the job in 2017.

New US board for Shell subsidiary Sonnen German storage firm Sonnen — the company bought by Shell in mid-February — announced the appointment of a new US board of

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directors on February 28.

The board will be responsible for the expansion of the company’s residential energy storage business across the Americas.

The board includes: Blake Richetta (chairman and chief executive officer, pictured); Carlos Restrepo (chief technology officer); Brent Stayer (chief operations officer); and James Claflin (chief financial officer).

AEG Power Solutions appoints Audrain as CEO Uninterruptible power supply systems firm AEG Power Solutions announced on February 27 it had appointed Franck Audrain as its chief executive officer.

Audrain has taken over from Jeff Casper, who left the group on March 4 after almost a decade in charge.

Lithium Werks appoints Fisher as chairman Lithium Werks has appointed T Joseph Fisher III as chairman of the board, the Dutch energy storage and battery company announced on January 14.

Fisher was previously a vice president of A123 Systems, and held positions as CEO of Valence Technology (the company bought out by Lithium Werks).

He will also become chairman of Lithium Werks, previously held by Kees Koolen from September last year.

Highview Power names new GM of sales UK liquid air energy storage firm Highview Power named Alexander Silin as its new sales director of Eastern Europe and the Middle East on February 5.

Silin was the former general manager of sales for Western Europe at GE Gas Power Systems.

Apple hires Samsung SDI exec to help battery development Technology giant Apple hired former Samsung SDI senior VP Soonho Ahn of next generation batteries and materials innovation as its global head of battery developments in December.

Ahn worked on lithium ion cell

and pack developments, as well as cylindrical, prismatic, and polymer cells for power tools, electric vehicles, e-bikes, smartphones at the battery making affiliate of Samsung Electronics.

All change at CellCube CellCube Energy Storage Systems announced the appointment of Stefan Schauss as the CEO of its subsidiary CellCube Energy Storage on March 21.

Schauss has worked at Gildemeister Energy Storage and Greensmith Energy Management Systems.

On March 19 Cellcube announced the appointment of Michael Nobrega, Brett Whalen and Henrik Mikkelsen to its board of directors.

The directors joined Schauss, Henk van Alphen and Bruno Arnold.

Benchmark Minerals hires two: ex-Tesla expert Vivas and Hofer as analyst Benchmark Minerals made two new hires in early April.

Vivas Kumar has been appointed principal consultant and José Hofer joins as senior analyst, forecasting Vivas joins from Tesla, where he was responsible for building Tesla’s lithium ion battery supply chain from May 2017 to April 2019.

Here he sourced a multi-billion dollar yearly spend portfolio of battery metals and chemicals, as the world’s biggest battery plant emerged.

Hofer joins the UK-based firm from Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile, a lithium producer, where he was business intelligence manager based in Santiago. He will be responsible for the firm’s quarterly forecasting subscriptions.

Carlyle Group names new head of renewable energy team Global investment firm The Carlyle Group announced on April 16 it had hired Pooja Goyal as a partner and head of its Renewable and Sustainable Energy Team.

Goyal will lead the company’s team of investment professionals and starts in the New York office in July.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 13

PEOPLE NEWS

Consortium for Battery Innovation takes over in revamp of ALABC A new industry body, the Consortium for Battery Innovation, was launched on February 25 as a revamp and reorganization of the existing Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium.

The CBI will continue ALABC’s work in pre-competitive research, but will expand the program to promote innovation in lead batteries — not just through cutting edge research but also highlighting the innovative new applications that utilize lead batteries.

Over the coming months it will be unveiling a string of events, projects and activities that will be held throughout the year.

Along with its new name, the consortium has a new logo and website (www.batteryinnovation.org). It has also appointed a new expert panel to provide technical input into the new research program, and is in the process of recruiting a new project manager, who will assist in managing the consortium’s key work programs.

The CBI will bring together leading research institutes, universities, lead battery companies, suppliers and lead producers in a collaborative approach. This will include updating members regularly on technological advances and developments and directly presenting to customers, such as car companies and end-users in energy storage markets, to expand on the benefits of lead battery technology.

CBI has also been working with its members to develop a technical roadmap that has set ambitious goals and objectives for future research.

The roadmap is market driven and CBI hopes that it will ensure that lead batteries can meet the future technical requirements of customers such as car companies and energy storage end-users.

Examples of the goals set include improving both DCA for automotive applications and cycle life of energy storage applications by five times by 2022.

“CBI is committed to funding projects that make a tangible difference to lead battery performance,” the new director of CBI, Alistair Davidson, told Batteries International. “We have 20 proposals so far that we are looking at — and we now have a different way of working with them.

14 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

“The ALABC used to have a threeyear time limit for new projects — now it’s a one-year rolling cycle. We’ll be looking at each one on an annual basis, to assess whether it’s likely to deliver on the market driven objectives set in the roadmap.

“We will have stage gates, and look at each one every six months. And we’ll also be keeping more in touch with our members about the projects we have.”

The CBI has diarized a series of events that will be rolled out this year, beginning next week with a workshop in Shanghai, China, which will be a special two-day workshop launching CBI to its Asian members.

“We will be giving updates to our Asian members about the on-going research projects, plans for future lead battery research, but also on developments in lead battery recycling technology,” said Davidson.

In April the CBI went to Phoenix, US, where it launched an interactive road map to promote all current projects that its members are working on. This is something that Davidson says CBI members have not traditionally done. “Members have exciting projects but there is an opportunity to promote them further. There are a large number of very exciting energy storage projects worldwide using lead batteries,” he said.

This also included a database of existing lead battery grid projects around the world.

CBI is also developing a new online tool, which allows companies to input technical parameters and find out what the best battery for their requirement would be.

In June, the CBI will be part of the ILA’s lead conference that is held every two years. This will be in

“There are a large number of very exciting energy storage projects worldwide using lead batteries” — Alistair Davidson Madrid, Spain. It will also be meeting at the Asian Battery Conference in Bali in September, where the CBI will hold a general assembly and technical workshop.

Another key factor the CBI is aiming to address in the lead battery industry worldwide is standards, which can differ widely among enforcement bodies such as the IEC, Cenelec and SAE. “There are global moves to develop standards for batteries in energy storage and we need to be a part of that to make sure that lead batteries are included, to make sure the benefits of all batteries are taken into account,” said Davidson.

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PEOPLE NEWS

Capitol Hill hears case for lead battery energy storage in the US The US debate over the merits of energy storage and the benefits of lead batteries in the future of the country were discussed in a special panel session organized by Battery Council International held on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on February 12 in advance of National Battery Day, February 18.

The meeting was led by the head of BCI, Kevin Moran, and two of the 2017 co-founders from the Advanced Energy Storage Caucus — congressmen Mark Takano, a Democrat representative from California, and Chris Collins, a Republican for New York.

Congressman Takano described energy storage as “the next big thing … it’s also the future of renewable energy”.

He said his goal was to advocate for advanced energy storage research and development and to explore policies that encourage battery storage. “I’m passionate about this because security and sustainability of our energy infrastructure affects every community across America,” he said.

Collins, one of only 10 engineers in Congress, echoed this: “Energy independence is the holy grail of where our country’s future is going to be… energy storage is not a partisan issue.”

The caucus is technology neutral and chemistry agnostic and looks at energy storage from a variety of viewpoints that include environmental sustainability, recyclability, affordability and utility.

The panel, headed by five specialists in the industry, clearly surprised the audience of mainly government staffers

who attended the meeting.

George Mues, manager of technology transfer for the mid-West utility of Ameren said that the importance of lithium had been overstated. “Lithium batteries belong in equipment such as this,” he said, waving an iPhone.

“But they don’t belong in large scale storage.

“They’re missing the point, we’re not bothered about size or weight when it comes to energy storage,” he said.

“Our utility’s favourite storage method delivers 450MW but weighs around 3 trillion pounds (1.4 million tonnes), extends over 1,000 acres and is a 100 foot high!

“It delivers electricity for around 3 tonnes a watt,” he said, while talking about the hydro-electric reservoir sitting on the Profitt Mountain.

The point, he said, was that the utility was seeking energy storage that was cheaper, safer, more environmentally friendly and since there are lead mines in Missouri, contained a product that was locally sourced.

Earlier Senate hearing Separately, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a full hearing February 7, to examine the status and outlook of energy in the US. A day before the hearing, a significant report on research led by former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz and Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Yergin was released.

Titled Advancing the Landscape of Clean Energy Innovation, the report provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities in the US clean energy innovation landscape.

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Included are 10 high-priority cleanenergy innovation areas. First on the list of “Technologies with Breakthrough Potential” is storage and battery technologies.

The report said: “Storage, including batteries, can be used to address many challenges facing the power sector today, including integrating variable fuel sources into the grid, deferring capital investment in infrastructure, and improving economic dispatch, efficiency and power quality.”

Tim Ellis, president of RSR Technologies and chair of the Consortium for Battery Innovation, followed this by saying: “It’s a really exciting time for lead,” citing ongoing research at Argonne National Laboratory to better understand the performance of lead batteries at the molecular level, leading to better dynamic charging acceptance and improved cycle life.

He predicted that lead battery lives of around 3,000 cycles of charging and discharging would be achieved by using second generation carbon additives and bipolar batteries next year.

This compares with the average cycle life of just 750 in 2000 — meaning that lead battery performance had improved six-fold in 20 years, making lead batteries better value for money.

Tim Fister, materials scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory, said that he had spent years studying lithium batteries with the latest synchrotron technology allowing an extraordinary view into battery processes.

He said that now he was studying lead batteries he was expecting similar leap forwards in performance.

The panel also consisted of Angela Rolufs, vice president for Paragon Business Solutions, and Carole Mars, director of technical development and innovation for The Sustainability Consortium Moran, said the need was to understand future energy demand patterns: “Global energy demand is expected to increase by 30% between 2018 and 2040. This is the equivalent of adding another China and India to our planet. Renewable energy sources are expected to provide 40% of that power generation.”

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 17

INTERVIEW: AKIRA YOSHINO

Meet the father of the lithium ion battery Michael Halls met Akira Yoshino, the founding figure behind the creation and commercialization of the lithium battery. The tale of its development is testimony to the ingenuity and persistence of its inventor.

There are probably a handful of people that one can truly say have shaped the way our planet is organized. Think Thomas Edison, Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell. Less well known are two unsung heroes of the modern world — Akira Yoshino and John Goodenough.

Both were the key figures in the creation of the lithium battery.

Without either man the modern world of the mobile phone, the laptop and, coming soon, a new generation of electric vehicles running on our roads, would not exist.

Yoshino’s story began in January 1948 in Osaka, Japan, where his early interest in electrochemistry was sparked by a teacher who gave him Michael Faraday’s The Chemical History of a Candle to read.

In an odd kind of way two of his future passions in life were fuelled by the book (a compilation of Faraday’s lectures given to children in the 1840s) — an intense interest in science and a passion for history.

Talk to Yoshino now — as Energy Storage Journal did in February in Dusseldorf — and he will happily relate how the history of

18 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

progress throws up lessons for the future, particularly in the recent adoption of technology.

Making the connection between how technology advanced in the 1950s and 1960s, he says, gives us an understanding of how it will advance in the future.

After graduating with a master’s degree from Kyoto University in April 1972 he joined the chemical giant Asahi Kasei — a corporation where he was to happily spend his entire career with. And even now, aged 71, he is an honorary fellow with the chemical giant and pleased to represent the corporation.

He joined Asahi Kasei at a pivotal moment in the life of the specialist chemical and electrochemical markets. The onset of the oil crisis in 1973 meant that the issue of energy — its use, value and importance as a resource — had become one of the most debated areas of that decade’s science and politics.

Meanwhile, the age of the Walkman was just around the corner.

Leading electronics firms were already in a race to develop ever smaller and more powerful gadgets.

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INTERVIEW: AKIRA YOSHINO

“From my studies of R&D in the past we can get a glimpse of the future. If you look at, for example, what happened in the 1950s and early 1960s you can see that advances in technology took at least 10 to 15 years before they changed society”

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Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 19

INTERVIEW: AKIRA YOSHINO The way was finally open to the mass adoption of a battery technology that would change the world completely. Portable electronics would be transformed forever, the world of telecoms was to be revolutionized and, with the rise and rise of hand-held cell phones, the internet — still hardly born in the early 1990s — would dominate the planet.

After graduating with a master’s degree from Kyoto University in April 1972 — here pictured three months later — he joined the chemical giant Asahi Kasei, a corporation where he was to happily spend his entire career.

By 1983 Yoshino had created the first test-tube cell — pictured here — and the lithium ion battery had come of age.

Assembly of LIB prototypes, June 1986

20 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

In 1981 Yoshino became the lead researcher looking at how a relatively obscure compound, polyacetylene, could be put to practical purposes.

Polyacetylene is a highly interesting organic polymer in that it is capable of conducting electricity when doping (adding impurities into the raw material), making the compound sometimes dubbed a plastic metal. In the early 1970s they discovered that the polymer was superconductive at low temperatures.

Yoshino was particularly fascinated by the possibility that the chemical could be used as the negative electrode for a new type of rechargeable battery in which he envisaged using lithium as the source of the ion exchange.

Lithium was a good metal to start with. It is the metal with the lowest density and greatest electrochemical potential and energy-to-weight ratio.

The low atomic weight and small size of its ions also speeds its diffusion, making it an ideal material for batteries.

The first experiments on lithium as a potential battery source were made in 1912 by US physical chemist Gilbert Lewis, but there was nothing commercially available until the early 1970s with the appearance of lithium-manganese dioxide, lithium iron disulfide and lithium thionyl-chloride cells. A specialist lithium iodine primary battery had been used in heart pacemakers since the 1960s.

But these were all primary batteries — once discharged, their use was over.

Yoshino was on the look-out for the means to formulate a secondary battery. And a secondary battery that could be cycled — charged and discharged — hundreds if not thousands of times.

Primary batteries were expensive and he was aware that the power needs of some of the electronic equipment coming to market — the first Camcorder appeared in 1982 — would only be feasible if batteries could be charged and discharged.

Yoshino was also aware that some research had already been done in the

field.

Stanley Whittingham, for example, had demonstrated the reversible intercalation mechanism in the 1970s — intercalation being the insertion of an ion into layered solids such as graphite. A commercial version of sorts with a titanium disulfide cathode and a lithium aluminium anode had been produced

by Exxon.

But there were very many things wrong with the battery. While charging, lithium tends to precipitate on the negative electrode in the form of dendrites, which go on to cause shortcircuiting and the failure of the battery and the possibility of fire.

Moreover, the high chemical reactivity of metallic lithium resulted in poor battery characteristics, including inadequate cycle durability due to side reactions, and what appeared to be an insurmountable problem: the inherent risk of a thermal runaway reaction.

The batteries weren’t cheap, either.

But it was when Yoshino came across the research that John Goodenough, then American professor at Oxford University, had been doing that he had his own ‘Eureka’ moment.

In 1979 Goodenough had identified that lithium cobalt oxide could be the positive electrode material of choice.

Shortly afterwards Rachid Yazami, a Moroccan researcher working at the French Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, showed that graphite could work as a negative electrode — although there were many failings in practice.

“The combination of lithium cobalt oxide with polyacetylene instead of graphite on the negative electrode showed an exciting way forward,” says Yoshino. “We at last had the building blocks to make a working cell that had commercial possibilities.”

He modestly would say much later: “I consider the lithium ion battery to be the fruit of collective wisdom.”

Collective wisdom aside, a host of difficulties lay ahead for Yoshino, including the choice of electrolyte, separator, current collector and the devel-

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INTERVIEW: AKIRA YOSHINO opment of a winding mechanism to create greater surface area.

By 1983 Yoshino had created the first test-tube cell. The lithium ion battery had come of age.

But if the first step had been taken the route ahead was a tricky one.

Although this first cell was functional, the low real density of polyacetylene posed limitations on its capacity, and the chemical stability of polyacetylene was limited.

Yoshino thus searched for a new carbonaceous material to use as a negative electrode.

The organic electrolyte used at the time was propylene carbonate, which was unsuitable for working with graphite — it decomposed during charging when graphite was used, and

furthermore the use of solid electrolyte resulted in electrical resistance, which was too high to enable practical charging and discharging.

So Yoshino studied the suitability of other carbonaceous materials at the negative electrode. He finally hit on one crystalline structure that provided greater capacity without causing decomposition of the propylene carbonate electrolyte.

The secondary battery that he successfully made — by hand — in the laboratory based on this new combination of component materials enabled stable charging and discharging, over many cycles, for a long period.

The result of all this was filing two patents — JP198923 in May 1985 and its US counterpart US4668595A

the following May. But it was more than just filing patents. The next task was how to commercialize the intellectual property, to take the experience of the laboratory and put it on the manufacturing line.

Those outside the battery industry would be surprised to hear that it took seven years for the first commercial product to appear. For those inside the business, this was a process whose speed verged on the astonishing.

“To take anything from the lab work bench to the production line takes something like 10 years, sometimes much longer,” says one battery veteran. “To introduce a new battery chemistry as a mainstream product with everything from the safety and

Without the lithium battery the modern world of the mobile phone, the laptop and, coming soon, a new generation of electric vehicles running on our roads, would not exist.

22 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

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INTERVIEW: AKIRA YOSHINO performance guarantees was incredible.”

Indeed Yoshino’s task was far from simple — there were basic electrochemical design problems that needed to be resolved before anyone could conceive of working out the process to put it on to a manufacturing line.

Broadly speaking, everything had to be worked out from first principles.

“Finding the right current collector was a long process as we had to work our way through a whole variety of metal combinations and thicknesses,” Yoshino recalls. “I eventually found that aluminum was the best current collector for the positive electrode and copper foil for the negative. The thickness of each was around 10µm.”

Yoshino’s decision of aluminum was one of the most important aspects of this stage of work. Previously, only precious metals such as gold and platinum were considered able to withstand a high voltage of 4V or more. However, Yoshino found that aluminum foil was suitable for use as positive electrode current collector material because a passivation layer — effectively a protective layer — forms on the aluminum surface.

And the process of actually making

“To take anything from the lab work bench to the

production line takes something like 10 years, sometimes much longer. To introduce a new battery chemistry as a mainstream product in just seven with everything from the safety and performance guarantees was incredible” the electrodes required new technology to be developed.

The voltage barrier of an aqueous — ie water based — electrolyte of around 1.2V had to be overcome by using a non-aqueous electrolyte. But that raised problems due to its lower electro-conductivity, and a lower current density was needed to prevent heat being generated. To get around this, Yoshino increased the surface area by devising flat-sheet thin-film electrodes wound into a coil shape.

“Basically we used the concept of winding used in making condensers and for that we needed a large machine that could do this and several visits to various manufacturers. It took us about two years to refine this part of the process to create a prototype,” says Yoshino.

The choice of separator was another issue that had to be resolved. Here, Yoshino had a stroke of luck. “At that time I was based in our R&D laboratory in Kawasaki and by a stroke of good fortune in the next building to ours they were working on new polyethylene separator material.

“It was incredibly handy just to walk outside the offices to see how well they were doing. Safety, of course, was a prime concern — it was always on our mind,” he says. “What we developed in fact was a microporous polyethylene membrane 20 to 30 mm thick for use as a separator.”

This acted like a fuse when an electric plug blows. Excessive heat causes the material to melt and the porosity of the membrane closes, effectively stopping the current and acting as a

“I get great pleasure from being around young researchers, helping them where I can. love their enthusiasm and drive.”

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Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 23

INTERVIEW: AKIRA YOSHINO brake to thermal runaway.

Yoshino also devised what would probably best be described as ‘peripheral technology’, which was instrumental to the development of a practical lithium ion battery. This included safety device mechanisms, protective circuit technology, and techniques for charging and discharging. One key example is a positive temperature coefficient device that is sensitive to both electric current and temperature.

Incorporation of this in the battery resulted in greatly improved safety, particularly against overcharging.

Yoshino worked on a variety of design prototypes and in 1986, a US company was contracted to make a number of semi-commercial prototype cells. These were then subjected to abuse testing — mistreating the cells in the worst of expected conditions — to see how they would perform in real life and exceptional circumstances.

The results proved positive. They had the required level of safety to be used by the general public and this cleared the way to the battery’s commercialization.

Asahi Kasei, working with Toshiba, released their first mass-manufactured lithium cells in 1992. The two firms were a few months behind Sony, which had already been racing to develop lithium cells.

But most importantly, the way was finally open to the mass adoption of a battery technology that would change the world completely.

Portable electronics would be transformed forever, the world of telecoms was to be revolutionized and, with the rise and rise of hand-held cell phones, the internet — still hardly born in the early 1990s — would dominate the planet.

Since then Yoshino has witnessed an extraordinary boom in technology. “We little realized just how completely lithium batteries would change the world of electronics,” he says.

“The step change of raising the voltage of the cell from nickel cadmium batteries’ 1.2V to 4.2V in lithium ion opened it up so much.

“The first market we aimed to use them in was video cameras. We expected sales of around a million batteries a month. But looking back the market we entered then grew explosively. And perhaps nobody at the time in the early 1990s realized how comprehensive and extensive that would become.”

The figures speak for themselves.

Although lithium batteries now come

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YOSHINO WINS JAPAN PRIZE For the last 20 years Yoshino has been feted for his achievements — talk is that John Goodenough and Yoshino have been nominated on many occasions for the Nobel Prize — but perhaps the most prestigious award he has received is the Japan Prize.

The Japan Prize was established in 1982 by the Japanese government and Konosuke Matsushita, founder of what is now Panasonic. It is awarded annually to scientists not just for their original ideas, but also for serving “the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind”.

In addition to the prize money — the award comes with a gift of ¥50 million (around $420,000) — Yoshino was given the rare honour of sitting next to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Akihito during the ceremony.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 25

INTERVIEW: AKIRA YOSHINO BASIC CELL AND ELECTRODE STRUCTURE OF THE LITHIUM CELL Here is the basic cell and electrode structure of the lithium cell, as originally devised by Yoshino and which continues to be commercially applied in present-day batteries.

A multilayer electrode assembly (electrode coil) is prepared by winding sheets of positive and negative electrode with separator membrane in between, and inserted into a battery can.

This is then infused with non-aqueous electrolyte comprising LiPF6 (lithium hexaflourophosphate) or LiBF4 dissolved in a mixture of carbonate compounds, and sealed.

Both the positive and negative electrodes are structured with electrode material coated on both sides of a current collector. The current collectors conduct electricity from the active electrode materials to tabs connected to the electrode terminals.

Aluminum foil is used for the positive electrode current collector and copper foil is used for the negative electrode current collector, the thickness of each being around 10µm.

These essential constituent technologies impart the LIB with the following characteristics: • High electromotive force of 4V or more enabled through the use of LiCoO2 as positive electrode material and aluminum foil as positive electrode current collector.

• High current discharge enabled with large-area thin-film electrodes using metal foil as current collector with electrode material coated on both sides.

• Achievement of efficient, high-speed electrode production.

• High-density packaging with the coil-shaped, multilayer thin-film electrode assembly placed in a battery can.

• Significantly heightened battery safety with a polyethylene microporous membrane having certain thermal characteristics used as a separator.

Source: Asahi Kasei

26 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

in different chemistries, in 2018 some 148 gigawatt hours of batteries were sold.

Yoshino’s vision of the future is an optimistic one, although he sees the energy disparity between the haves of the first world and the have nots of the developing world continuing. “That said, eventually this energy revolution will sweep over everyone,” he says.

“From my studies of R&D in the past we can get a glimpse of the future.

If you look at, for example, what happened in the 1950s and early 1960s, you can see that advances in technology took at least 10 to 15 years before they changed society.

“The move to electric vehicles is now firmly established though there’s still a long way to go. The next area of change is likely to happen with intelligent robotics, which will affect everything we do from automated driving to devices around the home to working on the move.”

In terms of future battery chemistries he reckons there are still huge gains to be made and in a variety of chemistries. He is particularly interested in solid state lithium batteries, which he says show great promise.

“In 2011 we saw that this was achievable, the question now is how to take it further,” he says. Yoshino maintains contact with fellow lithium pioneer John Goodenough — now in his late 90s but still working — and in particular the advances he has made in solid state batteries.

Yoshino, aged 71 this January, is still active and leads a full life. He is a professor at the Graduate School of Science and Technology for Meijo University, a visiting professor at the Research and Education Center for Advanced Energy Materials, Devices and Systems at Kyushu University, president of the Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Center, as well as an honorary fellow of Asahi Kasei representing the firm internationally.

So what interests him now? “I get great pleasure from being around young researchers, helping them where I can,” he says. “I love their enthusiasm and drive.”

In a recent interview he said: “Young people tend to believe there is nothing left to explore in the field of natural science, because everything has been discovered and explained.

But the reality is just the reverse.

“Out of the whole discipline of the natural sciences, we’ve only just scratched the surface.”

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NEWS

Daramic expands lead battery separator production in Asia Lead battery separator company Daramic has expanded its production lines in China and Thailand, the company announced on February 11.

Daramic has three plants in China, and has added a manufacturing line to its Tianjin facility, which will double capacity, chief operating officer Chad Schuchmann said.

“Local production allows supply to customers in this region without additional costs associated with tariffs on goods shipped into the country,” he said.

The Thai expansion took place at its Prachinburi plant, where a new line will increase capacity by 20%.

In 2017, Daramic opened another plant in Gujarat,

India, ‘to meet the rapid growth in that area as well’.

“The expansions will support the growing demand of many customers, primarily in Asia, and enable Daramic to better balance operations globally to supply customers regionally,” said Schuchmann.

“Capacity from other Daramic locations that was

utilized to meet Asian demand can now be diverted to support customers in other global regions.”

Daramic, which invented the polyethylene separator, is a subsidiary of Polypore International, an Asahi Kasei company.

Daramic has 14 manufacturing operations and service centres in six countries.

Wirtz invests in nickel-zinc battery maker ZAF Energy Systems Wirtz Manufacturing, the lead battery equipment designer and manufacturer, has invested an undisclosed sum into ZAF Energy Systems, the nickel-zinc battery maker, ZAF announced on February 14.

“The investment will expand ZAF’s manufacturing capacity from hundreds of batteries a month to thousands of batteries a month in the ZAF Joplin facility,” the company said.

“This added capacity will allow ZAF to rapidly seed the market and meet the growing customer demand

for its rechargeable nickelzinc batteries globally. This investment in a full production line will allow licensing and joint venture partners to validate the quality and throughput of the technology for commercially scaled factories that are expected to begin build-outs in 2019.”

Wirtz CEO John Wirtz said the decision to partner ZAF had come about after experiments with ZAF electrodes showed plates could be produced at similar production rates as with leadacid technology.

“After seeing the performance improvements and cost savings being delivered by nickel-zinc battery technologies, we are proud to invest in ZAF to bring its next-generation technology to the marketplace.”

Last year, ZAF received a pledge from the Missouri Department of Economic Development Fund for $600,000 to spend on staff, expanded production and new partnerships.

“This additional production capability will further enable ZAF to accelerate licensing and joint venture

Surrette Battery expands lead battery facility after C$2.5m federal loan The US Department of Energy announced $142 million in funding for two initiatives aimed at driving research into energy storage technologies.

The DoE will provide $120 million over five years to continue the Joint Center for Energy Story Research, a DOE Energy Innovation Hub led by Argonne National Laboratory.

The cash will be used to continue research on new materials to improve the energy density of lithium

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ion batteries and devise new concepts for flow batteries.

During the first five years, the center has helped launch three start ups — lithium ion electrolyte firm Blue Current, advanced membrane company Sepion and long-duration sulfur–based battery firm Form Energy — and published more than 380 scientific papers.

Of those projects, three can be used for grid-scale applications: Primus Power was awarded $3.5 million to develop

a long-duration storage system using a zinc-bromine flow battery.

Brayton Energy was awarded $2 million to develop an energy storage system that combines thermal energy storage with a gas turbine.

Echogen Power Systems was awarded $3 million for a system that uses a carbon dioxide heat pump cycle to convert power to thermal energy by heating a reservoir of low cost materials, such as sand or concrete.

negotiations and commercialize NiZn batteries on a global scale,” said ZAF, whose batteries are used in automotive, heavy trucking, remote telecoms and renewable energy applications.

China’s Camel builds lead battery manufacturing and recycling plant Camel, one of China’s largest lead battery makers and recyclers, has begun building a manufacturing and recycling plant in Anhui Province, the Shanghai Metal Market reported on February 26.

The facility at Tianyang Technology Park, Fuyang city, will make 4 million kVAh of lead acid batteries and recycle 200,000 tonnes of used lead batteries year, the report said.

Camel already has plants in Hubei, Guangxi and Jiangsu province. The new factory at Anhui will cost Rmb1 billion ($150 million), the SMM said.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 27

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NEWS

Construction begins on China’s largest lead waste recycling plant Construction of what is being billed as the largest lead waste recycling firm in China has begun in Xinhe, China, the Shanghai Metals Market reported on February 25.

The new recycling plant has a potential capacity to recycle 300,000 tonnes of lead batteries and leadcontaining waste a year, the report said.

Songhe Recycling Resources’ subsidiary Xingtai Songhe Environmental Technology began building the project on February 23 and aims to produce 200,000 tonnes of secondary lead and lead alloy, plus 45,000 tonnes of plastic raw materials, every year.

The new plant was announced shortly after China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment ordered the country’s lead battery producers to increase their used battery collection rate to 70% by 2025.

The Shanghai Metals Market recently reported that Camel, one of China’s largest lead battery makers and recyclers, had begun building a manufacturing and recycling plant in Anhui Province that would make four million kVAh of lead batteries and recycle 200,000 tonnes.

Recycled lead production in China is around two million tonnes, with primary production about twice that amount. In March 2017, the information agency S&P Global Platts reported that China had more than doubled its output target for recycled lead to 2.5 million tonnes by 2020 The Chinese authorities have reiterated their determination to stamp out illegal lead battery recycling, telling a press briefing on March 28 that more investigations would be carried

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out to stop backyard recyclers.

The Shanghai Metals Market reported that the Ministry of Ecology and the Environment would launch a new round of probes with the country’s police — the Ministry of Public Security — into the illegal collection and dismantling of lead acid batteries and lead smelting.

The reiteration comes two months after the MEE published its Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Used Lead Acid Battery Pollution, which set targets for lead battery collection rates to rise to at least 40% by 2020. The SMM says the current rate is not more than 30%.

Ideally an official collection network for ULABs would be in place by the end of 2020 ‘to promote the development of a standard and orderly battery recycling system and control the pollution caused by used lead-acid batteries’, the MEE said.

Meanwhile, a reduction in the amount of lead required

by China is likely to affect global demand for lead this year, although it is still expected to rise, according to the International Lead and Zinc Study Group in its re-

cent forecast, which predicts a 1.3% fall in apparent usage in China.

“In 2018, Chinese apparent usage is expected to fall by 0.6% influenced by a combination of reductions in the motorcycle and e-bike sectors as a consequence of increased penetration by lithium-ion batteries and a slower growth in the automotive sector,” the report says.

“Increases in the e-trike production are not expected to be sufficient to offset this declining trend. A further 1.3% fall in apparent usage in China is anticipated in 2019.”

In Europe, the group said usage was forecast to increase by 1.8% in 2019, while in the US, a rise of 2.5% in 2019 would follow a reduction of 0.6% last year.

Farid Ahmed, principal analyst lead markets with Wood Mackenzie, agreed that slower automotive growth in China would act as a drag on demand, while e-bikes – which have for a long time acted as the powerhouse of China’s growing appetite for lead – were now in permanent decline.

“Further market development for e-trikes and

low-speed electric vehicles is being stifled by new regulations intended by the Chinese authorities to limit these largely unregulated and often unsafe additional vehicles spilling on to China’s already over-crowded urban road network,” he told BESB. “We expect to see this year’s growth in global lead demand to be similar to last year, at around 2.1%.

Automotive original equipment growth will be negligible, with any meaningful increase coming from replacement demand, which is anticipated to run at about 3.6%. This could indicate a weakening global economic performance manifesting as people putting off new vehicle purchases and holding on to their existing cars for longer.

“Continued worldwide growth in industrial batteries, forecast at 1.9% globally in 2019, is supported by demand from energy storage systems for renewable power generation and the rollout of 5G mobile networks.

“Overall, growth will be quite steady and the key questions around lead centre on supply more than demand.”

China reiterates clamp down on illegal back yard recycling The Chinese authorities have reiterated their determination to stamp out illegal lead battery recycling, telling a press briefing on March 28 that more investigations would be carried out to stop backyard recyclers.

The Shanghai Metals Market reported that the Ministry of Ecology and the Environment would launch a new round of probes with

the country’s police — the Ministry of Public Security — into the illegal collection and dismantling of lead acid batteries and lead smelting.

The reiteration comes two months after the MEE published its Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Used Lead Acid Battery Pollution, which set targets for lead battery collection rates to rise to at least 40%

by 2020. The SMM says the current rate is not more than 30%.

Ideally an official collection network for ULABs would be in place by the end of 2020 ‘to promote the development of a standard and orderly battery recycling system and control the pollution caused by used lead-acid batteries’, the MEE said.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 31

NEWS

Aqua Metals enters partnership with French resources firm Veolia Veolia, the France-based waste, water and energy giant, will partner lead battery recycling firm Aqua Metals at its facility in Nevada, US, the firms jointly announced on February 28.

Staff from Veolia’s North America Regeneration Services arm, based in Boston, began working at the McCarran plant on March 4, with a goal of bringing plant operations to 16 modules of AquaRefining capacity by the end of 2019 with future rate increases in 2020, Aqua Metals said.

The partnership will “drive scaling of the AquaRefinery and expand AquaRefining technology into battery recycling centers across the globe”, said Aqua Metals. “While Veolia will contribute operational

and technological expertise and organizational capabilities in aqueous based process chemistries and electrolysis along with taking on responsibility for operations, supply chain, off-take and management of the plant.”

“Veolia’s size and technical regeneration capabilities will provide valuable and additive expertise as we execute our business plan,” said Steve Cotton, who was officially made CEO in January after months as de facto president and CEO. On the same day as the Veolia announcement, Aqua Metals announced its financial and operational results for the year ended December 31, 2018, claiming it was on track to achieve a target contribution margin

by the end of the first quarter of 2019 that would allow it to ‘ramp production of ultra-pure AquaRefined lead and other products in a way that is fiscally responsible’.

Cotton said the company had recorded revenue of $4.4 million in 2018, more than twice as much as in 2017, when $2.1 million was recorded.

“Contributing to the more than doubling of revenue in 2018 was increased sales of AquaRefined lead in our product mix as well as having a full year of operations in 2018 versus approximately eight months during 2017,” he said.

Some 19% of total revenue came from AquaRefined lead, with the rest coming from the sale of me-

China certifies three lead battery makers despite policy shift to lithium Three lead acid battery manufacturers in China have been officially certified as having met industrial requirements to operate, the Ministry of Industry and Information said at the end of last year. It is the sixth batch of certifications being granted in recent months.

Anhui Uplus Energy Technology, Anhui Leoch Battery Technology and Zhaoqing Leoch Battery Technology bring the total number of qualified lead battery makers to 147, added to an estimated 50 non-certified firms that are either in the process of being granted certification or being closed down, according to Eve Yeo, editor at the Shanghai Metals Market.

“Current policy raises the requirement for industry access and gives the government greater control over industry access. To the best of our knowledge, there are

no caps (on the number of new facilities),” she said.

The certifications fly in the face of Chinese government policy to lean towards lithium batteries and away from lead batteries as it encourages the EV market, says Neil Hawkes, principal consultant at business intelligence company CRU. “Broadly speaking, Chinese lead demand — which is dominated by lead batteries — has been slowing through last year and the omens are not good for this year either as the government stimuli announcements keep coming,” he said.

“Slower broader economic growth in China is being compounded by weaker vehicle sales (falling last year for the first time in many years), which hits OEM automotive lead-acid battery sales/ demand. Structural policy

32 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

has shifted away from LABs to LIBs in telecoms, and the boom in e-bikes is already long gone and on the way down.

“So the prospects for lead demand in China are not great — we have it growing at no better than around 1% per year over the next few years, which is far removed from the days of double-digit growth in the 2010s. Beyond that it will do well to stay in positive territory, assuming EVs continue to take off through the 2020s.

“Which does make it somewhat surprising to hear of more LAB plants being built, though part of it is probably the government realization that LABs will still be needed for a while yet, so as part of the cleaner skies push it makes sense to make them at shiny new big plants rather than the older smaller ones

tallics, lead compounds and plastics from lead batteries, the report said.

Despite the increasing revenue, the company reported an operating loss of $37 million for the same year, with $12.4 million of that coming in the last quarter.

The overall loss for 2017 was $24.9 million.

In its outlook for 2019, Aqua Metals warned that first quarter revenue was likely to be well below the $1.1 million achieved in the last quarter of 2018.

However Cotton said it was an exciting time for the company.“The world’s first AquaRefinery is set to begin producing ultra-pure lead in growing quantities and directly supplying battery manufacturing facilities,” he said. that have been shut.”

Almost 90% of China’s lead-acid battery makers were closed after a cull was launched in 2010 to either shut the unregulated factories or absorb them into larger ones. In total, 1,744 lead storage battery makers were inspected and just 229 left open, deputy secretary general of the China Battery Industry Association Cao Guoqing was quoted by news sources as saying in November 2011.

In 2012, the MIIT announced its ‘Lead-Acid Battery Industry Access Conditions’, which went into effect in July that year.

Under the conditions, new, reorganized and expanded lead battery factories had to have battery capacity of no less than 500,000 kVA, and existing plants had to be 200,000 kVA or more.

Any reorganization or outsourcing of plates or plate-assembled batteries was banned, and production equipment and technology had to be updated.

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NEWS

ULAB recycling initiative launched for remote Canadian regions Tens of thousands of used lead vehicle batteries in remote areas of Canada are being collected and taken to recycling centres in a joint venture between the Responsible Battery Coalition and the Canadian Battery Association, the RBC announced on March 19.

The project, which has begun in the state of Manitoba, brings together RBC’s Million Battery Challenge and CBA’s Battery Stewardship Programme in a move that aims to retrieve and recycle used car batteries from far-flung regions in the country. The programme will help native Canadians,

known as first nation communities, protect their local environments by properly managing the collection and recycling of used car batteries.

So far, 11 out of 63 first nation communities in Manitoba have pledged to participate in the programme, where since 2010 the CBA has retrieved and recycled approximately 2.6 million used vehicle batteries.

CBA executive director Colin McKean said: “With 63 first nations in Manitoba alone, we believe there are potentially tens of thousands of used vehicle bat-

teries in these communities that need to be isolated from the environment and transported to recycling centers. It’s great that most of the 11 communities signing pledges in Manitoba are among the most challenging, the ones that will require the most help from us.

“We have a lot of vehicle batteries going into these communities, so we want to do everything we can to help them protect their local environment.”

The executive director of the RBC, Steve Christensen, said: “The opportunity to bring additional educational, transportation and

recycling resources from the US to Canada’s programme makes sense for everyone.”

The Responsible Battery Coalition is an association of companies, academics and organizations that was formed in 2017 to responsibly manage the production, transport, use, recycling and resource recovery of energy storage devices.

The Canadian Battery Association was established in 1970 by Canadian manufacturers of lead batteries and represents the lead acid industry in Canada, providing information about the responsible management of energy storage devices.

Environmental group to upgrade backyard battery recycling in India A pilot programme to train backyard battery recyclers and assemblers is being launched in India’s poorest state of Bihar by Pure Earth, formerly known as the Blacksmith Institute.

Pure Earth is an international non-profit organization that cleans up pollution problems in lower income countries, especially where it can have devastating impacts on health.

Promila Sharma, the South Asia co-ordinator for the institute, told Batteries International that up to 50% of India’s secondary lead came from a secondtier industry of backyard recyclers. These sell their produce to street-corner battery manufacturers and assemblers, who in turn sell their products on for cash.

Instead of levying huge fines and prison sentences on those responsible, Sharma said state governors had agreed to allow the institute to try a programme of education, where the small units were encouraged to

upgrade their systems and equipment to standards that were acceptable to the industry at large.

“Our focus is on public health,” Sharma told Batteries International. “We went on a reconnaissance mission to Bihar, where we found many sites, and at one such place we found kids in school next to a small recycling unit.

“We tested children under 10 years old and on average, their blood measured 30mcg/dl. The safe level is just 5mcg. But they’re not aware of these health issues, and with our partners in industry and government we are trying to figure out how to solve it.

“One solution is to encourage and persuade them to get into the mainstream, to do it the right way. So we are going to do an experiment in Bihar.

“We are going to collectivize a group of up to 25 informal recyclers and try to help them build the capacity and qualifications to

34 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

do it properly, maybe joining forces to become bigger organizations but with universally accepted standards.

“The project will look at developing medium and small size units and give them money to develop a small industry; we will hold their hand and try to showcase this as an experiment.”

Sharma says the idea has been well received, and while the national government has not supported it with cash, it is allowing it to go ahead.

Sharma said the institute had secured funding to send teams of investigators around the country to identify and report back on contaminated sites and informal recyclers.

“We estimate that there are more than 200 sites

contaminated with lead, which means 40 million people could be exposed to this,” she said. “And although we haven’t covered the entire country yet, we have found that Bihar has the worst case scenario.”

The institute is also collecting data to compile an index of sites identified as contaminated, Sharma said.

Between 2009 and 2011, they had identified more than 350 sites that were contaminated with a variety of heavy metals.

“At more than 100 of those sites the government had to make an intervention to save lives,” she said.

“The government took notice from 2012 onwards and they are working on getting those sites cleaned up.”

“We estimate that there are more than 200 sites contaminated with lead, which means 40 million people could be exposed to this” www.batteriesinternational.com

NEWS

Battery maker to use VRLA plus solar for two Portugal projects US battery maker Exide Technologies will use its VRLA lead acid batteries alongside solar to power two of its plants in Portugal, the company announced on April 10.

The systems will cover part of the power demand at Exide’s production facility in Castanheira do

Ribatejo and its battery recycling plant in Azambuja when completed in the first quarter of next year.

The systems will include around 10,000 photovoltaic panels, around 70 inverters and a 500kWh bank of GNB Sonnenschein A600 VRLA batteries from Exide’s subsidiary GNB In-

dustrial Power.

The project will be managed and delivered by energy provider EDP. The batteries would be charged by the solar panels, with surplus energy stored for use at night-time and during periods of reduced sunlight. Surplus power will be fed on to the grid when the

plant’s energy consumption was lower.

The project forms part of a range of investments

by Exide at its Castanheira plant, including the start of a AGM Network Power production line.

Stefan Stübing, Exide’s president EMEA, said he believed more and more companies would rely on self-generated power backed by a BESS in years to come, especially in energy-demanding sectors like manufacturing.

Picture left: Stefan Stübing, Exide, and Vera Pinto Pereira, CEO and executive board member of EDP.

Exide sells battery distribution business Lead battery manufacturing and recycling giant Exide Technologies has sold its North American distribution business to Battery Systems, Inc, the firm announced on April 2.

BSI, which is based in Pennsylvania and has been in business since 1975, will be the only distributor to serve the aftermarket for the US, Canada and the Caribbean, which ‘enables both companies to focus on core competencies, prepare for future growth and better serve customers’, Exide said.

“Our customers will now have access to BSI’s newly expanded distribution footprint of 120 locations and will have access to a robust supply of Exide batteries with improved service levels,” the company said.

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NEWS

Argonne promises ability to recycle lithium batteries cost-effectively by 2022 Argonne National Laboratory and the US Department of Energy have begun setting up a research centre that they say could recycle lithium batteries in a costeffective — even profitable — way within three years.

If successful, this would render void one of the lead battery industry’s main arguments against lithium technology, that it cannot be recycled in the same way as lead.

A new R&D center at the ANL is being set up with the ultimate aim of making the lithium battery industry a closed-loop sector like the lead battery industry, which prides itself on the fact that used batteries are almost 100% recyclable.

Lithium batteries are notoriously not worth recycling, and although some

companies, such as Belgiumbased Umicore, claim to be making profit from doing it — primarily through the extraction of cobalt and manganese in some lithium chemistry types — it is widely recognized that the imminent end of life for so many electric vehicles will add to the already growing problem of what to do with so many used Li-ion batteries.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, for example, last year said that just 2% of Australia’s annual 3,300 tonnes of waste lithium batteries was recycled. By 2036, if the amount of waste continues to grow at 20% a year, there will be 188,000 tonnes generated, according to the Lithium Battery Recycling in Australia report by the organization.

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The Department of Energy is supporting the research center with $15 million over three years — by which time the scientists are aiming to have a pre-commercial prototype available that the industry can take and scale up on its own.

Linda Gaines, transportation analyst for the Argonne National Laboratory and chief scientist at the new ReCell Center, said the methods being explored differed from anything being used at the moment.

One of the principal research tasks was to look at extricating the cathode structure in its entirety rather than separating its constituents, which would mean it could be put straight into a new battery without having to be processed.

“One of the key things about lithium batteries is that the materials are very specialized,” said Gaines, who has 40 years’ experience in applied energy research.

“There are several steps you have to go through to get to the specialized geometrical structures that are in the battery materials and our main focus is to recover those complicated structures from the batteries.

“None of the materials in the battery makes up the lion’s share of the mass and you have to separate them from each other, which isn’t so easy because there isn’t one that’s a lot heavier than everything else. Right now cobalt is driving the recycling process in the plants where it is happening, because it’s profitable. But one of the areas the DoE is concentrating on is how to make batteries with less and even no cobalt — which is good news in that we won’t be dependent on importing it, but it also means at the end of life there will be less of it to recover, reducing the

amount of materials that have value from the process.

“So the structure of the cathode is a valuable commodity to recover. It’s complicated because there are so many different structures you might want to recover and it’s unclear whether recovering a mixture of them will be as good as recovering them separated, so we’re looking at separation technologies and conversions as well.

“The valuable elements in the cathode include nickel, manganese and aluminium, and there’s also graphite in the anode — but we’re hoping you don’t have to separate those materials from each other but use the complicated compounds per se. This is the valuable part.

Even if you have less valuable elements, if you put them into a structure that’s valuable and you can recover that structure, then you have the possibility of having an economical process.”

Tona Kunz, a spokesperson at the ANL, said: “One of the key things is that this is an open collaboration space and we are looking for more academic researchers to come and work with it. With them coming and telling us about their best practices in manufacturing at their facilities, what their needs are, it can all be added to the research and help shape it. This is going to be a growing facility and that’s going to help accelerate this process.”

Already working with the ANL and the DoE are the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and several universities including Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of California and Michigan Technological University. OEMs, battery manufacturers, recycling centres and material suppliers are also working with the centre.

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NEWS

Furukuwa UltraBattery installed in first cargo ship An UltraBattery made by Furukawa Battery has been installed on a ship for the first time, ship energy systems developer Eco Marine Power announced late December.

Shipping company Masterbulk, set up in Singapore in 1995 as a subsidiary of the Norway-based Westfal-Larsen, had the battery system installed on its MV Panamana ship, a large general cargo ship.

The battery pack uses Ultrabattery (UB)-50-12 VRLA batteries and was installed by the ship’s own technical team, with only remote support needed.

Furukawa Battery and Teramoto Iron Works, Eco Marine Power at the end of June 2018 announced the release

of two UB-50-12 hybrid battery packs for ship, offshore and land-based renewable energy projects.

These battery packs were made available in 2.4kWh and 3.6kWh configurations.

Multiple battery packs can be installed together to provide the amount of energy storage needed from smallscale installations to larger energy storage projects.

The battery packs incorporate UltraBattery technology supplied by The Furukawa Battery Company and a battery rack system developed jointly by Teramoto Iron Works and Eco Marine Power. This battery rack system is scalable, and the design based on experience from EMP’s renewable energy

projects on ships. Each battery pack includes UB-50-12 batteries, internal cables and frame kit.

“UB-50-12 valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) batteries are the ideal solution for smart grid, wind power and solar power applications. In addition they are reliable, require little maintenance and are recyclable. UB series batteries have also been approved for use by ClassNK and certified by EMP,” said Yasuhiro Kodaka, general manager for overseas sales and marketing at Furukawa.

He said the key to using the UltraBattery on ships was its long life, safety and recyclability.

Because of a non-disclosure agreement about the

project he would only say: “We are very pleased to see our high quality UltraBattery series being used on ships. These long-life and very reliable batteries offer a cost-effective alternative to lithium-ion type batteries and are also relatively easier to install and maintain.”

The battery pack will ultimately form part of an Aquarius Marine Solar Power system developed by Eco Marine Power.

Last year, an UltraBattery was deployed by the US Department of Defense at its Cape Cod Air National Guard base in Massachusetts. This Otis Microgrid is capable of responding to outages within less than 60 milliseconds thanks to its UltraBattery support, according to project manager Shawn Doyle, VP operations and energy resilience, with the DoD.

Power Sonic opens warehouse in Reno Lead-acid battery company Power Sonic announced on January 18 it had opened a 4,600m2 warehouse in Reno, US, which will boost its distribution capabilities in Canada and give it a logistical advantage for incoming containers from Asia, battery division president Brian Crowe told BESB. “After significant research, Power Sonic will focus on five markets for growth in our planning horizon,” he said. “Industrial automation, power sport and life safety are legacy verticals, however there is more sub vertical opportunity underneath that for growth. In addition, we will drive the medical and utilities/infrastructure verticals into the future.”

The Reno warehouse is Power Sonic’s sixth battery warehouse operation, joining its facilities in San Diego, Illinois, Miami (as a third party), the UK and France.

“Power Sonic anticipates unprecedented growth in the coming year, and this growth

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necessitates a large new facility. Power Sonic is dedicated to maintaining and expanding its footprint in the battery industry,” he said.

“Our growth will be driven through our significantly expanded sales presence, new vertical markets and deeper

penetration of existing markets and new production introduction.”

Power Sonic’s range of batteries included sealed leadacid, lithium iron phosphate, nickel cadmium and nickel metal hydride chemistries before it was taken over in

January 2018 by the investment management company Blackbird Group, which announced it would move into lithium-ion products as well.

The company also announced in January a line of Super Sport batteries, using lithium ion technology.

ABC signs up Crown Battery as sixth bipolar licensee Advanced Battery Concepts, the bipolar lead battery firm, has signed up Crown Battery as the sixth licensee to its GreenSeal bipolar technology, it confirmed on January 23.

The deal comes just a few weeks after Bulgarian company Monbat joined Johnson Controls, EnerSys, Exide Industries and Trojan Battery.

Crown Battery is based in Fremont, Ohio, US, and makes industrial and SLI lead batteries as well as a line of advanced AGM batteries.

In April 2017, president

and CEO Hal Hawk made an undisclosed investment in the company.

“We are excited to increase our level of involvement with Advanced Battery Concepts and to expand Crown Battery’s investment in advanced lead battery manufacturing,” said Hawk.

“Crown Battery has worked closely with ABC’s development team for a number of years now — and the licensing rights will allow us to decide how best to use it in our market space. We believe that bi-polar lead bat-

tery technology delivers significant competitive advantages over competing battery chemistries and see many potential uses for GreenSeal technology.”

Ed Shaffer, CEO of ABC, said Hawk had long supported ABC and bipolar technology and the agreement showed a strengthening of support for the technology.

“Crown Battery’s participation in all major battery markets will provide a great boost to this technology and allow them to capitalize in new market segments,” he said.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 37

NEWS

North Star signs up its winning ACE system to first automaker, Daimler North Star, the SwedishUS battery manufacturer, has signed a deal with German automaker Daimler to install its award-winning ACE remote battery monitoring system in all of its truck service centres in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, the firm announced on April 9.

The announcement comes eight months after North Star agreed a $500 million seven-year contract with Daimler to supply its Freightliner Cascadia trucks with pure lead AGM batteries.

around the world.

“They don’t have to acquire any hardware, they just download the app and can then read the history of the battery, the temperature, the state of charge, and so on, and any battery that needs replacing or servicing can be located and replaced immediately by the service staff before it breaks down.”

The company says all service centres in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America will be equipped with the ACE system, which has been specifically tailored to

Daimler’s requirements.

North Star’s batteries will become standard in the 30,000-40,000 Mercedes trucks — a division of Daimler — that are made every year. Each truck will have at least two batteries.

“North Star’s batteries are also available for additional truck models at Daimler, which means that this number of trucks can be increased by a factor of three to four,” says the company.

The sale price of a premium AGM truck battery is between $300-$400.

Two US lead battery case makers merge to become one

changes before Saugatuck bought its Milwaukee and Niagara Falls sites in 2012, and renamed it Tulip Molded Plastics Corporation.

Richardson Molding began in the paper business in 1858, when it produced roofing paper and shingles.

Paper expertise led to battery cases, shingle expertise led to asphaltic battery containers, and now the firm makes eight million battery containers, cases and jars a year.

Richardson Molding and Tulip Molded Plastics Corporation, two plastic injection moulding firms that make equipment for the lead battery industry, have merged to become one firm —Tulip Richardson Manufacturing — the companies announced on March 29.

The two companies make injection moulding products for industrial lead batteries, and Tulip also makes lead terminals and reprocessed polypropylene.

The company’s manufacturing platform will now have four facilities in the US states of Indiana, Massachusetts, New York and Wisconsin — which, combined, operate more than 135 injection moulding presses ranging from 10 tonnes to 1,100 tonnes in size.

Owner Resource Group and Saugatuck Capital are the majority owners of the new merger and will continue to invest in the business, the company said, and it would focus on product development, operational excellence and

North Star’s ACE system, which won the BCI Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz Innovation award in 2017, remotely assesses the state of a battery via a bluetooth connection and chip installed in the battery.

The deal with Daimler is the first time it has been installed in an automotive application, according to CEO Hans Liden.

“We had the basic product, then co-developed an app that was suitable for Daimler,” he said.

“Now they’re training their service technicians

increased service levels across the organization.

“Our current and new customers will both benefit from the expanded footprint and strengthened capabilities,” said Saugatuck managing partner Stuart Hawley.

“ORG looks forward to supporting the management team’s efforts to in-

38 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

tegrate the two businesses and realize the full potential of the combined organization,” said ORG managing director Brad Esson.

Tulip Corporation was incorporated in June 1977, when it comprised Automotive Battery Products and PHI, a hydraulic press manufacturer. It went through a variety of

Leoch doubles overseas Pb-A capacity with two new plants China battery maker Leoch International expects to begin operation and delivery of lead acid batteries from its two Vietnam manufacturing plants in the second half of this year, the company told Batteries International.

Investor relations director Joyce Lam said the two factories would more than double the company’s total overseas production capacity as it looks to further its business expansion in abroad.

“With the new plants, we will be able to offer our overseas customers the most cost-effective battery solutions by eliminating market uncertainties such as trade barriers and fluctuations of raw material price in the PRC. “In addition, the released production capacity in our Chinese plants will serve to support growing demand in the local market.”

Last December Leoch started construction of

a 4GWh lithium battery plant in Anhui, China ‘in view of increasing demand for lithium battery applications’. The plant should start operation by the last quarter of 2019.

In recent years the company has expanded its reach into Europe with the addition of DBS Leoch (formed this January from a restructuring of DBS Energy) in the UK, Leoch Nordeuropa in Germany, Leoch Italia and Leoch France.

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Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 39

NEWS

JCI and Toshiba in partnership to create hybrid lead lithium vehicle system For the record, Johnson Controls Power Solutions and Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation announced on November 27 they will work together on developing low-voltage lithium ion batteries that will be paired with lead acid for

Japanese firm which split from Toshiba last year.

The two firms will work together to pair the new lithium battery with existing lead acid battery technology for dual-battery vehicles.

“Low-voltage dual-battery technology is the next

step in the evolution of vehicle systems that helps to strike a balance between consumer demands, increasing regulations and automaker economics,” said Brian Cooke, group vice president, Products, Power Solutions, Johnson Controls.

Sunlight to become largest lead battery plant in Europe following EIB loan

mentioned territories while we strategically increase our positioning in Europe.”

Some of the investment will also go into research and development, including work on a new motive power solution to be revealed at the beginning of 2019 and in mid 2019, a new solution for the solar/reserve industry, Trokoudi said, without giving further details.

Sunlight also has a recycling arm in Greece, for which Trokoudi said a decision on expansion would be made some time next year.

“We see that lead-based products are going to remain the primary selection for customers in years to come due to certain advantages, ie financial and environmental,” Trokoudi said. “We also see other technologies taking part in the growing market, and this is reasonable.

“At Sunlight we believe the customer will select the best option to fit their needs. This is why we keep investing in both lead and lithium batteries since we want to keep up with customer requests and be at the forefront of technological developments.”

Sunlight Battery Solutions is based in Xanthia, northern Greece, where this May a fire broke out, causing five nearby villages to be evacuated.

“Following the investment, the plant would be the largest lead-acid battery manufacturing plant in Europe, thus allowing for substantial economies of scale,” said the EIB.

For the record, Greek leadacid battery maker Sunlight Battery will become the largest lead-acid battery plant in Europe after an expansion funded by the European Investment Bank. The €12.5 million ($14 million) loan was disbursed on November 21.

Production capacity at Sunlight, which is one of the Olympia Group of companies, will increase from 2 million cells a year at the end of 2017 to 3.5 million by 2020, Olympia Group chief communications officer Anthi Trokoudi told BESB,

use in hybrid vehicle applications.

The new battery will be developed at a plant in Michigan, US, following the partnership between the US company — being sold for $13 billion to equity firm Brookfield Business Partners — and the

‘if the market fundamentals continue to be robust’.

Sunlight develops, produces and recycles batteries for forklifts, industrial vehicles, off-grid renewable energy systems and smart grids, telecoms and back-up rail signalling.

“The funded investment will result in a capacity exceeding 2.5 million motive power cells, but it is our intention to increase it further to 2.8 million motive power cells plus another 120,000 reserve power cells in 2019, with the prospect of further expansion of up to 3.5 mil-

lion cells in 2020 onwards,” he said. Sunlight exports its products to more than 100 countries but is seeking to grow its customer base geographically and with more OEMs, said Trokoudi.

“Sunlight has been strong in European markets over the years, especially in central and western European countries. In recent years we have seen ourselves growing rapidly in areas such as southeast Asia, US, Africa, Middle East and Latin America. We continue to pursue opportunities for further penetration in the

DTSC orders expansion of sampling area around Quemetco recycling facility For the record, new modelling and analysis by California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control led the agency on December 17 to order an expansion of the area being investigated for contamination around the Quemetco lead battery recycling plant in the City of Industry in Los Angeles.

Historical operations may have deposited lead up to 1.6 miles away from the facility, the analysis suggests, and as a result the DTSC has ordered Quemetco to provide a plan to conduct more thorough sampling outside the current quarter mile area being sampled.

“If Quemetco’s operations

deposited lead in the area, much of it likely pre-dates 2008, which is when Quemetco, under a requirement from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, installed an advanced air pollution control system that greatly reduced emissions of lead and other toxic compounds,” the Department of Toxic Substances Control said.

“Earlier sampling results in the industrial and commercial areas immediately outside the Quemetco facility found lead levels in soil exceeding 1,000 parts per million, the level considered hazardous waste.”

The DTSC ordered a

40 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

clean-up of those areas in November, a draft work plan for which is due to be submitted this month.

But if the new sampling finds contamination that presents an immediate threat to people or the environment, the DTSC will take further action, it said.

The DTSC enforcement order lists the battery storage area, the battery wrecker, the containment building, the furnace area and the wastewater treatment plant as solid waste management units ‘that have or may have released hazardous waste or some such hazardous waste constituents into the environment’.

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FLOW BATTERY NEWS

Cellcube Energy and Immersa in 20MW/80-120MW deal for UK market A strategic partnership deal between Canadian firm Cellcube Energy Storage Systems and UK-based Immersa aims to bring 20MW/80-120MW of vanadium redox flow battery systems to the UK market.

Immersa plans to straddle both short and long term markets with a goal of delivering up to 15 projects this year under multiple operating modes.

The company aims to use flow batteries to also enter the UK’s Firm Frequency Response and demand side response markets, despite flow batteries traditionally associated with the longer duration and longer response applications.

CEO of Immersa, Robert Miles says he believed there was a shortage in the deployment of energy storage projects due to a lack of regulatory focus.

Miles, the former head of commercial at British Gas said: “The UK energy storage market had a stuttered start due to continuous policy change, contract ambiguity and failure to recognise the benefits of battery storage projects under legislation definitions.

“Even now we see a contradiction between what DNO and National Grid innovations departments and the actual implementation and current policies to which the engineers are working to.

“This will see a boom in the market sector growth to catch up with what were the projected requirements.

“The UK energy storage market had a stuttered start due to continuous policy change, contract ambiguity and failure to recognise the benefits of battery storage projects” — Robert Miles VFRB will be the predominant player over the next 10 years.

“This is extended with the paradigm shift to a requirement for longer duration batteries and the ability to service the capacity market, VFRB seems the most suitable technology as we go forward. Enhance this by commodity price volatility and restricted grid capacity, VFRB really can assist every market segment in this sector.”

Cellcube in agreement for 100MW deployment in US Cellcube Energy Storage Systems, the Canadian flow battery firm, announced on March 13 it had signed an agreement with an unnamed US-based energy asset development company to develop up to 100MW of vanadium redox flow battery storage systems in the US. The front-of-meter and behind-themeter systems will be deployed throughout the US over the next three years.

Stefan Schauss, president of CellCube, said the deal signalled a milestone for deployments of vanadium redox flow technology capacity.

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Immersa is in multiple discussions with developers, and any one of the below projects could be deployed first.

• A VFRB to charge overnight and discharge over an eight-hour period during production times at an industrial and commercial company that wants to extend its production facilities but the local network has no capacity. This will enable the firm to increase its onsite load throughput the day while not increasing their imported capacity restriction. It will also be able to access demand side response revenues.

• An industrial and commercial company is increasing utilisation of onsite generation but production exceeds real time usage, so the VFRB will utilise excess energy on site during times of consumption.

And furthermore be able to access DSR revenues.

• Co-location. Both wind and solar farms that have export constraints or want to maximize on the sale price of the commodity by choosing when to sell the power. In addition they will be able to access stacked balancing service revenues due to the available capacity of the battery to either charge or discharge.

• Development stand alone projects.

Under agreement with a few sites that are grid connected to enter the FFR and other balancing revenues.

• Co-location with Combine Cycle Gas Turbines to enhance revenues and profitability.

CMBlu and Schaeffler deal to develop organic redox flow batteries German firms CMBlu and Schaeffler announced on November 30 they had signed a joint development agreement to cooperate in the development and production of large-scale redox flow battery energy storage systems.

Both firms will jointly develop and industrialize commercial products to be marketed by CMBlu. In the next step, CMBlu will establish the full supply chain including all preproducts with other industry partners.

In addition, a prototype production site was set up in Alzenau in Germany.

The first commercial systems are planned for 2021.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 41

FLOW BATTERY NEWS

China commissions first phase of 40MWh VRFB project

A 3MW/12MWh vanadium redox flow battery has been commissioned in China by Canadian firm VRB Energy (formerly Pu Neng Energy) — a subsidiary of Sparton Resources — and Chinese

company China Operations, the companies announced on January 11.

The deployment is part of the 10MW/40MWh Hubei Zaoyang Solar and Storage Integration Demonstration Project, which when completed will be one of the biggest flow batteries in the world.

The project will use Hubei Province’s abundant vanadium mineral resources with VRB Energy’s energy storage technology.

VRB Energy said the project investor and all parties involved in the construction are pursuing multiple 100MW class vanadium redox battery storage

Hybrid VRFB and Li-ion microgrids bring power to remote Thai village A microgrid project will combine lithium ion and zinc bromide flow batteries coupled with solar at a remote Thai village, flow battery maker Redflow announced on February 13.

The Thai government backed project, in the village of Ban Pha Dan in Lamphun province, combines 10 Redflow ZBM2 10kWh batteries, three 100kWh lithium batteries from Chinese firm KStar and solar cells.

TSUS (Tusas Excellent Engineering Company) installed the flow batteries that will supply power to the community’s school, town hall and temple while the lithium batteries will deliver power to individual houses. Villagers can also use the power for their water systems for drinking and agriculture.

A Redflow spokesman said the initial configuration might change as the deployment evolves: “Redflow batteries are designed to support high cycle-rate, long time-base stationary energy storage applications — in a nutshell, they thrive on heat and hard work.

“The school, town hall and temple are three of the village’s larger buildings, so the system designers focussed the Redflow batteries on supplying their energy needs.”

While primarily meeting the energy

ViZn Energy signs deal to bring ZnFe energy storage to China Zinc iron flow battery firm ViZn Energy Systems announced on January 9 it had entered into a strategic alliance with WeView Energy — a joint venture between Hasen Electric, Shanghai Lingxin (controlled by Jingyi Electrical), Intelion and Jiangxi Lelai — to enter the China utility scale storage market.

The deal includes a China licensing agreement.

WeView is a strategic partner with Jiangxi Electric Power Construction Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of

42 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

state-owned enterprise PowerChina.

A demonstration project using VizN’s technology is due to be developed following the deal.

projects in Hubei, China.

However, the Hubei system will be dwarfed by Rongke Power’s 200MW/800MWh flow battery system in Dalian, China.

The biggest ESS under construction in the world is due to be completed in 2020.

Rongke delivered a 5MW/10MWh system, in 2013 in Shenyang.

In 2015, Hokkaido Electric Power and Sumitomo Electric Industries installed a 15MW/60MWh redox flow battery manufactured by SEI at Minamihayakita Transformer Station in Abira, Hokkaido. needs of Ban Pha Dan, this hybrid ESS is intended to provide experience and insights for future projects.

The project is the first commercial installation of Redflow batteries in Thailand since it began manufacturing batteries in its Bangkok facility last June.

ESS and CWL Energy partner to work in Canadian markets ESS, the iron flow battery firm, signed a partnership and collaboration agreement with Canadian energy project owner and developer CWL Energy, the Oregonbased firm announced on December 10.

The companies will collaborate to deploy ESS’s systems across Canada’s industrial, remote community, mining, and utility sectors, using CWL Energy’s MultiGen Energy Platform, which incorporates distributed energy resources, such as renewables, battery storage, and energy management software.

Protean Energy names Soowhan Kim as technical adviser Korid Energy, Protean’s 60% owned subsidiary, announced on December 5 it had appointed Soowhan Kim as a technical adviser.

Kim will help develop the $7 million 1MW/4MWh vanadium redox flow battery system managed by the Korean Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning Kim is also the administrator of the KETEP grant for the project.

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FLOW BATTERY NEWS

World’s biggest hybrid lithium ion, flow battery ESS starts in the UK A project to decarbonize the UK city of Oxford will see energy management firm Pivot Power install a 50MW hybrid lithium ion/vanadium redox flow battery coupled with smart energy management, the company announced on April 3.

The £41 million ($54 million) project by the Energy Superhub Oxford consortium will combine energy storage with electric vehicle charging stations.

The project should be completed by 2020.

The hybrid system, a combination of a 48MW lithium ion battery and a 2MW/5MWh vanadium redox flow battery from UK firm RedT, will be the world’s biggest energy storage system of its type when installed.

RedT said: “Lithium is well-suited to delivering short power bursts but it degrades with heavy use. Projects can get best return on investment by using flow as the workhorse supplying routine power demand and extending the life of lithium batteries by saving them

for power spikes.

“The complementary technologies will work in harmony to deliver a wide range of services and meet the complex energy requirements of the ESO project.”

The project includes a network of 100 power transmission systems connected, ultra-rapid public charging stations, with others at Oxford council’s main vehicle depots and the city’s two main bus depots, providing the opportunity for their fleets to go electric.

Habitat Energy will develop software to balance the grid second by second allowing the management of the energy storage and EV charging to reduce the strain on the grid and allow it to accommodate more renewably sourced energy.

The optimization platform will also manage electric vehicles to provide additional flexibility to the electricity network.

Pivot Power’s chief commercial officer Matthew Boulton said: “The pro-

ject allows us to demonstrate UK-based flow machine technology, which should have a key role to play in the future as longer-duration energy storage technologies are required to balance the grid.”

Oxford City Council aims to save 20,000 tonnes of CO2 per year by 2021, rising to 44,000 tonnes annually by 2032 through the project.

The University of Oxford, with energy research consortium EnergyREV and the Energy Systems Catapult “Energy Revolution Integration Service” will study the project to produce recommendations supporting the rollout of similar initiatives.

RedT says it has already demonstrated the benefits of hybrid, behind the meter ESS at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Its 1MWh hybrid system combined a flow battery with a lithium ion one to integrate the university’s building management systems, electric vehicle charging stations and energy sharing and trading mechanisms.

Statkraft and RedT form partnership in VRFB and VPP technology mix Norwegian renewable energy firm Statkraft and vanadium redox flow battery company RedT announced a partnership on March 25 to deliver solar+storage projects for commercial and industrial customers in the UK. “Statkraft and redT will provide a fully-financed and 100% renewable energy solution for customers to save up to 20% on their energy costs for 25 years,” said a Statkraft official.

“Statkraft provides a long-term structured corporate power purchase agreement for the solar and energy storage, alongside a 100% renewable supply agreement from subsidiary, Bryt Energy, for remaining energy required from the grid.

“In addition, Statkraft provide flexibility optimisation services using their sophisticated in-house virtual power plant (VPP) to maximize value for the customer.”

“RedT will provide energy storage machines, fully integrated with solar and designed and operated in accordance with its infrastructure business

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model. This solution is focussed on low-risk energy savings, maximising the use of low-cost solar on customers’ sites and reducing exposure to volatile energy prices and solar price cannibalization.”

The partnership will provide behind-the-meter solar and energy storage projects, initially up to 10MWp of solar and 6MWh of energy storage, scaling to 100MWp of solar and 60MWh of ESS over three years.

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Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 43

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PRODUCT NEWS

Australian start-up targets stationary markets in non-flow battery, zinc bromine chemistry Gelion Technologies — a start-up owned by Gelion UK, a joint venture between the company’s management and Armstrong Energy — launched its Gelion Endure battery on February 27. The battery uses zinc-bromine chemistry as the energy storage medium but is not a flow battery — as is more common for the chemical pair.

Gelion, formed in 2015, uses technology developed at the University of Sydney by the firm’s founding chairman Thomas Maschmeyer.

The Endure system is the company’s first commercial product, and will be

used to store solar power to run mobile light towers on the university’s campus.

However, the battery can be connected in series or parallel depending on the size of deployment from a kWh to MWh+ applications.

The firm plans to market the product as a low cost and safe alternative to lithium ion.

The firm’s CEO, Rob Fitzpatrick, told ESJ the company’s focus for the next 12-18 months would be on solar farms — its majority shareholder Armstrong Energy is a UK renewable energy management firm — and in

commercial and industrial applications.

“Endure is perfect for stationary storage,” he said. “The profile for these batteries is energy, more than power. These batteries are better for capturing energy during the day and evenly discharging that power when needed.

“The long duration batteries we have put to market have four-hour charge cycles and are good for peak load shifting, stability and frequency control grid services.

“They will be effective for everything from small mobile units through to residential and commercial

and industrial applications through to solar farms at utility scale.”

Using a gel electrolyte, the technology has a specific energy of around 120Wh/kg, which matches the lower end of lithium ion but with the advantage of a 3,000+ cycle-life at 100% depth of discharge at up to 55°C (making less need for air cooling), according to Gelion.

An integrated battery management system is able to remotely detect zinc growth and rejuvenate the system to avoid electrode failure, says the firm but has not released details on how this works.

Battery life prediction AI opens up potential for second life deployment of EV packs Scientists at Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Toyota Research Institute say they have developed an algorithm that can predict the cycle life of lithium ion batteries within 9% of actual lifetime cycles.

By combining experimen-

tal data with artificial intelligence the algorithm can also predict with 95% accuracy the life expectancy of cells based on the first five charge/discharge cycles.

The findings were published in Nature Energy on March 25. The researchers have made the dataset

— the largest of its kind — publicly available.

Using millions of data points from cell cycles, the scientists used AI machines to predict cycle life based on factors including voltage declines during early cycling.

Peter Attia, a Stanford doctoral candidate in ma-

Start-up hits 1,000Wh/kg milestone with new lithium battery, driving Innolith, the German startup that rose from the ashes of Alevo, reported on April 4 that it had developed the world’s first 1,000 Wh/kg rechargeable lithium battery with a driving range of 1,000km.

Under development in the company’s German laboratory, the Innolith battery uses a non-flammable inorganic electrolyte and conversion reaction materials — although the company would not say what those materials are at this stage.

The firm said the results

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had been achieved in the firm’s R&D laboratories in Bruchsal and that commercial production was around three to five years away.

Sergey Buchin, CEO of Innolith, said: “The EV revolution is stymied by the limitations of available batteries. Consumers want an adequate range on a single charge in an affordable EV, and confidence that it is not going to catch fire.”

Innolith will be bringing the energy battery to market via an initial pilot production in Germany, followed

by licensing partnerships with major battery and automotive companies.

Innolith has patents pending for the key inventions of the Energy Battery and is also maintaining commercial confidentiality on the cell chemistry mechanism.

Innolith’s non-flammable, inorganic rechargeable batteries are being used in its technology on the US PJM grid to provide fast frequency regulation services. The battery has operated for more than 55,000 full depth of discharge cycles.

terials science and engineering and a co-lead author of the report, said the algorithm cleared an expensive bottleneck in battery research whereby new cells were charged and discharged over many months and even years until they failed.

Study co-author Patrick Herring, a scientist at the Toyota Research Institute, said: “For all of the time and money that gets spent on battery development, progress is still measured in decades.

“In this work, we are reducing one of the most timeconsuming steps — battery testing — by an order of magnitude.”

The new method has many potential applications: it can shorten the time for validating new types of batteries, determine the life span of end-of-life electric vehicle battery packs, and optimize battery manufacturing, such as shortening the formation process, said the researchers.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 45

PRODUCT NEWS

Lead faces lithium challenge with UPS eight-year warranty, 10-year service life Generex, the battery monitoring specialist with headquarters in Germany and the US, has developed a Smart Battery with an integrated battery management system designed to work with uninterruptible power supplies or other stationary applications that will close the gap in performance between lead acid batteries and lithium-ion cells.

Generex is so confident in its reliability that it will even issue an eight-year warranty on the product.

The battery, which Generex developed in partnership with Leoch International Technology and the University of Berlin, improves the performance of lead-acid batteries in UPS systems by 20%, closing the capacity gap in performance with lithium batteries, while delivering higher reliability and safety.

The company says it will replace 7Ah batteries in most applications seamlessly.

Integrated into the Smart Battery is Generex’s patented integrated Battery Management and Care System (iBACS), which allows the user to control performance of each individual battery.

Lead warranty first

In a first for lead-acid batteries used in this way, Generex offers an eight-year warranty on the 10-year design life of each battery as long as its iBACS system is installed and used correctly.

Generex says the key to both warranty and design life is in iBACS’ approach to charging, which respects the fact that individual cells have their own unique internal electrochemical properties and some batteries will charge at levels more quickly than others. iBACS eliminates over-charging and under-charging in a bat-

tery string and so extends battery life.

The Smart Battery is a VRLA battery — valve regulated lead-acid batteries are sealed meaning the electrolyte cannot escape, making the Smart Battery suitable for horizontal and vertical installation.

Other key features of the Smart Battery include the fact that measurement data can be determined without contact so that even a 100% insulated system still allows access to measured data. This means historical battery monitoring data is collected at all times.

Prototype testing

Generex has already manufactured prototypes of the battery and is conducting tests to verify its performance.

In tandem with this process, Generex is seeking partners including battery manufacturers, UPS importers and OEM partners to help it commercialise the product and take it to market.

The product is designed to solve a long-term challenge for lead-acid batteries.

While the chemistry has been the primary choice for use in UPS applications since the 1960s, due to its low cost and availability of materials, when used in UPS devices they typically only deliver a 50%-60% design life.

UPS technology is now so advanced, one of the few improvements that can still be made is on the performance of the battery. Generex and Schneider believe they can help develop UPS devices that are as close to being 100% maintenance free.

Over the past 10 years, the sector has increasingly been exploring the potential of other chemistries, mainly lithium-ion-based products,

46 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

which, though more costly, can provide a longer service and, on the face of it, a comparable total cost of ownership.

Lithium ion manufacturers promote a battery with a 10-15 year service life and a 10-year warranty. They also claim several other benefits including lower total cost of ownership, higher energy density, lighter weight, smaller footprint, high cycling, and built-in battery management.

Lithium problems

But many of these claims are disputed by lead acid battery manufacturers, who point out that the materials used by lithium ion batteries are far more expensive than lead and no meaningful recycling of these batteries exists, making their environmental impact problematic. Especially as lithium batteries cannot go into landfill.

They also point out that while the energy density and the weight are an advantage in comparison to lead-acid, a true comparison is more complex than that given that other factors may need to be included.

While lithium-ion batteries do have a higher charge/ discharge cycle range as compared to lead-acid batteries, this offers no benefit in UPS applications in which batteries will rarely be deep cycled more than 8-10 times in their service lifespan.

All lithium-ion batteries have a built-in BMS; due to the high energy density and construction of the cells it is essential in this chemistry to keep the voltage of the cells from becoming imbalanced or overcharging.

Generex’s development of a BMS designed for leadacid batteries represents a breakthrough in closing the performance gap between

the two products.

Generex also notes that there is evidence that the high-frequency RF noise present in most UPS systems can cause some BMS system instrumentation to not function. For lithiumion batteries, this would be catastrophic.

Daniel Baileys, chief executive of Generex US, said: “Over the past 15 years, we have engineered and manufactured a battery management system for lead-acid batteries that provides a full state of health monitoring as well as balances the voltage across the string.

The results are extended service life, higher capacity/ runtime, and less premature failures.

“We are delighted to have also extended this innovation to develop the Smart Battery.

This is a lead acid battery with an integrated battery management system which equips the battery with onboard cradle-to-grave monitoring and management.

Generex provides another first for the VRLA battery industry a design life of 10 years alongside an eightyear warranty.

Achilles heel

Frank Blettenberger, chief executive of Generex, said: “UPS manufacturers see the battery as the Achilles heel of the technology and as they explore the use of other chemistries, the market share of lead acid batteries has started to fall.

Yet a comparison between the two is often based on misconceptions and the perception that lead-acid batteries fail to reach their design life. With the Smart Battery, we can control the quality of every single battery and can grant the warranty the moment the user inserts our new iBACS.”

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PRODUCT NEWS: HAMMOND’S HALO The phrase ‘advanced lead battery’ is not a contradiction in terms, despite what some in the lithium business believe. Lead batteries continue to make huge strides in progress at the cell, pack and manufacturing level.

Debbie Mason spoke to Terry Murphy, chief executive of Hammond Group about the advances his company is making.

HALO — another leap forward in lead battery manufacturing If you think that lead battery technology is at a standstill — surely a century and a half of research must have uncovered its every secret? — then you’d be terribly wrong.

“There’s a new world of lead battery technology that’s been emerging in the past few years,” says Terry Murphy, president and CEO of the Hammond Group. “Our understanding of everything to do with lead — from boosting the performance of the chemistry in the battery to step changes in battery design — has undergone a critical rethink.

“A new generation of advanced lead batteries with most of the capabilities of lithium batteries but more economical in price and totally recyclable is on the way.”

Speciality chemical company Hammond Group is at the forefront of much of this research, winning accolades including the 2016 BCI Sally award for innovation for its E=(LAB)2 laboratory and range of expanders, the additives that can be added to a lead battery’s negative active material and tailored to a specific battery depending on its application.

The firm’s latest technological process is an entirely new system that will be able to do the same for oxides.

HALO, which stands for Hammond Advanced Leady Oxide, is a new oxide-making process that will come online this March.

Murphy said the new “Barton-Like” process is an entirely new system that can control particle size and the amount of free lead produced. It will allow oxides to be tailored for specific battery configurations at less cost and with far greater control, he said.

“We’ll have a new centre-line machine going into production next month,” Murphy told BI. “No one else has anything that looks like this.

The HALO process could become another tool in the battery manufac-

48 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

“We’re now taking lessons learned from handling liquid metal in solar, combining it with rocket engines and applying it to our HALO processes.” turer’s toolkit, said Murphy.

“Right now, making oxide is hard to do,” he said. “It’s capital intensive, and it’s not as controlled as it should be. We think that we can do a better job in controlling it. Current variations in the oxide production process are corrected in the down-stream processes, so we think that producing to a tighter specification would allow our customers, the battery manufacturers, to shorten their curing times.

“We have also proven that we can tailor the ‘free lead’, so we think we can make better red lead, better litharge, and tailor everything else in between.

“It’s mainly about achieving cost reduction in downstream process, optimizing the oxide, the “free-lead”, for a particular battery configuration, but there may also be some untapped

potential in performance as well,” he says.

“The bottom-line message is we are 100% committed to tailoring oxides just as we tailor expanders. That’s our goal.”

Industry-wide collaboration

As far as Murphy is concerned, any improvement is a benefit across the industry, which he applauds for being so collaborative.

“I very much appreciated being elected to the board of Battery Council International in the past year,” he says. “To be a part of companies working together to make sure the industry moves forward.

“I’m new to the group and I respect the people who have been there for a long time. We are a supplier where most of the people in the room are

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PRODUCT NEWS: HAMMOND’S HALO manufacturers, and we recognize we’re not at their level, but I’m happy to be a representative to the group.

“It says a lot about the industry that they are willing to include a supplier like us.”

Hammond Group is also a member of the new Consortium of Battery Innovation, formerly ALABC. “We work closely with them,” he says. “We don’t necessarily look for funding from them, but we would like them to help us work with the battery companies in assessing the benefits of certain technologies, like the benefits of tailored oxides.

“What’s interesting about the Hammond Group is that we have the capability to isolate capital equipment, processes and new materials — for instance, we’ve taken experimental alloys from RSR and others and processed them for into oxides for the battery manufacturers.”

“We’re active in both expanders and in oxides on evaluating new materials, new electrolytes and different alloys and our own process; how we might affect the particle size of free lead and how that affects the manufacturing process.”

Much of this research is carried out in the (LAB)2. “There are so many people out there with so many different additives and potential solutions that you can get overwhelmed, but we have over 200 cells that are constantly doing nothing but building a Rosetta Stone of what we might be able to offer the industry; and we now have our own scanning electron microscope, so we no longer need to farm out that capability.

Early space ambitions and next steps

Murphy’s introduction to lead wasn’t particularly glamorous — he worked as a summer hire for Hammond Group in 1975, packing oxide into 50lb bags to earn his college fees.

“I’ve always respected and was very grateful for everything that Hammond was doing, my Dad worked for Hammond until he died, but I had my sights set on the space industry. Growing up as a kid, I was in complete awe of the Apollo program; all I talked about was building rockets.

“So I went to Purdue, famously home of the astronauts, earned a degree in Astronautical Engineering and moved to s §outhern California to work on the Space Shuttle’s Main Engines. It was something that I wanted to do since I was 10 years old, so

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Hammond won the BCI 2016 award for innovation for the fruits of its E=(LAB)2 laboratory and its product — a range of expanders, the additives that can be added to a lead battery’s negative active material and tailored to a specific battery depending on its application. my I think my dad understood that I was never going to follow in his footsteps, but life is full of surprises!

Murphy became division director at Boeing Rocketdyne, where his Advanced Programs organization supported NASA, the US Air Force and other government agencies with liquid rocket engines and space power systems.

He believes his time as an executive at Boeing helped him to become a better manager at Hammond.

“I was fortunate to have been mentored in a big corporate management/ operations discipline, that training forces you to look at the data. Running advanced programs in a large organization is being in charge of finding new opportunities, so you’re basically running a bunch of startups, but you’re in a large corporation doing it.”

“So it was a natural and more similar to my job than people thought when I left aerospace to start SolarReserve, a utility-scale developer of solar power projects.

The move into solar was like a bridge between rockets and energy storage, and the lead industry.

“The SolarReserve system is very much predicated on rocket technology — it’s not photovoltaic, but concentrated solar power that focuses the suns thermal energy on a heat exchanger. That technology is actually right out of a rocket engine!

“We run liquid metal, molten salt, through the heat exchanger and store the thermal energy to run steam tur-

bines. We use sodium and potassium nitrates, but amazingly enough, lead was a very good second choice as it has similar high density and large heat capacitance.”

Murphy was invited on to the Hammond board in 2011 and helped moved the company to focus more on energy storage. He became chairman of the group in 2013.

“We’re now taking lessons learned from handling liquid metal in solar, combining it with rocket engines and applying it to our HALO processes,” he says.

“And there is still so much more we can do with lead batteries.

“Bipolar batteries are certainly the next step. We have been working with Gridtential and Advanced Battery Concepts, and are anxious to see those technologies move forward.

These types of configurations would be a huge step forward for the lead battery industry — it’ll be a game changer.

“Some folks like to compare lead versus lithium at the cell level, but the real comparison needs to be at the systems level. Bipolar configurations are very competitive in an automotive hybrid application. The total system mass is close, but the bipolar cost is less, the safety is better, the weight can be distributed, and the recyclability cannot be overlooked.

“The question is whether they can get these configurations into mass production, but the industry is very collaborative and there are a lot of people working on that.”

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 49

VPP NEWS

Moixa will create UK’s biggest mixed asset virtual power facility Energy storage firm Moixa announced plans on April 18 to create 17MW of virtual power plant capacity in the UK using smart technologies including batteries and electric vehicles.

The first stage of the project in the county of West Sussex will involve Moixa creating the UK’s largest mixed asset VPP aggregating up to 2MW of capacity using batteries from a range of manufacturers in combination with EVs plugged into the power

network. Once operational, the UK firm will integrate other smart technologies to form a VPP with 17MW of capacity, managed by demand-response company Flexitricity.

The firm will supply its residential, 4.8kWh lithium iron phosphate energy storage systems to homes, schools and council buildings as well as 250 EV chargers.

The project is part of a consortium of UK technology firms and organizations that has secured £13 million ($17

million) from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Moixa will use £7.2 million of the project budget for this project.

The project assets will include: a marine source heat pump and combined heat and power system; grid-scale energy storage using secondlife electric car batteries; a hybrid refuelling station serving electric and hydrogen vehicles; and air source heat pumps supporting domestic boilers.The project should be completed in 2022.

AEMO to test operational capabilities on Australian energy market Power and gas organization Australian Energy Market Operator is set to run a trial virtual power plant integration project after it received A$2.46 million ($1.7million) from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the agency announced on April 5.

AEMO will run the trial over a 12-18 month period to demonstrate the operational capabilities of VPPs to deliver frequency control ancillary services, system security and deliver local network support services.

The VPP portfolio consists of distributed energy resources including rooftop solar, batteries and controllable behind-the-meter loads.

Existing pilot scale VPPs around Australia including the ARENA-funded AGL and Simply Energy pilot scale VPPs in South Australia have been invited to take part.

The organization will collect data to inform changes to regulatory settings and operational processes.

AEMO forecasts the scale of VPP capacity to rise from 5MW-10MW to 700MWs by 2022.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the ability to test how VPPs operate within the market could maximize the benefit to consumers and to the power system.

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He said: “This trial will allow us to learn how to better integrate larger scale VPPs in the coming years as we transition to a more decentralized energy system.”

World’s largest virtual power plant opened in Abu Dhabi The world’s biggest virtual power plant, a 108MW system spread over 10 sites, has been deployed in the United Arab Emirates to deliver load balancing services, reported the government’s official Emirates News Agency on January 17.

The Abu Dhabi Department of Energy delivered the region’s first grid-scale VPP system and the first integrated control system for energy storage in Abu Dhabi.

The deployment aims to deliver a sustainable energy supply to meet demand across several key sites in Abu Dhabi.

The VPP will secure additional power supply for six hours at a time when the solar power

plant, Noor Abu Dhabi, comes online with 1.2GW of renewables in the second quarter of this year.

Three days later, the country opened a smart grid station in Al Ruwayyah, Dubai, which includes 200kW of photovoltaic power, a 9kW wind turbine and a 500KWh lithium ion storage system.

The system will use thermal energy storage system to store surplus energy.

The station will deliver peak shifting services as well as real time monitoring to reduce demand when required by eliminating noncritical loads through smart lighting, smart power outlets, and smart air conditioning system.

UK start-up aims to become the Uber of VPP markets UK start-up Resilience Energy announced on January 14 its was to supply end-users the tools to join a virtual power plant that aims to sell excess electricity on the spot market and extra battery capacity to transmission operator National Grid to help balance the grid.

Homeowners will have access to hardware, software and contracts to produce, store and sell renewable energy, and an app to monitor the system’s performance.

Resilience founder and CEO, Loïc Hares, said: “Resilience aims to be the largest decentralized renewable energy generator, the Uber of the electricity industry.”

Resilience’s system allows for the integration of emerging technologies, such as heat pumps, EV chargers and electric panel heaters.

The company has won a loan from Virgin Start Up and has formed partnerships with, among others, residential storage firm Powervault & VPP operator KiWi Power.

Enbala to supply software to Australia VPP project For the record, Australia’s AGL Energy announced on December 10 it had selected software firm Enbala to provide the cloud-based control and optimization platform for its virtual power plant project being built in South Australia.

Enbala will provide a VPP platform to manage a range of distributed energy resources from residential and behind-the-meter applications through cloud-based control systems.

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ENERGY STORAGE NEWS

Munich Re offers insurance to makes project financing easier German insurance firm Munich Re has launched an insurance product that allows large-scale energy storage developers to guarantee their project’s long-term performance, the company announced on March 7.

Munich Re believes the insurance will make it easier for developers to obtain project financing because it caps the maximum warranty costs incurred in the repair or replacement of defective or weak battery modules.

The cover is primarily aimed at major projects, such as those delivering grid stability and peak

shifting services. In a second phase, the product will be introduced onto the mobility market to insure performance of batteries in electric vehicles.

Peter Röder, member of the board of management

“For the first time, battery manufacturers can insure against the risk of their products not delivering as promised.”

at Munich Re, said: “The ability to insure battery performance is a key piece of the puzzle in decarbonising our energy sector.

“For the first time, battery manufacturers can insure against the risk of their products not delivering as promised.”

The first customer for the new insurance product is US redox flow battery manufacturer ESS Inc. The entrance of a huge re-insurer to this part of the developing project finance market is a clear signal of its greater maturity, as reflected in the increased financial sophistication, of this sector.

Australia to pilot compressed air technology in 5MW/10MWh mine Plans to turn a disused mine in South Australia into a compressed air energy storage facility by Hydrostor Australia, a subsidiary of the Canadian start-up, were boosted on February 8 when the Australian Renewable Energy Agency announced it had earmarked A$6 million ($4 million) for the project.

The 5MW/10MWh pilot project to re-purpose the Angas Zinc Mine in Strath-

albyn, 60km southeast of Adelaide will cost a total of A$30million. It has also received A$3 million in funding from the South Australian government through its Renewable Technology Fund.

The commercial demonstration project will provide synchronous inertia, load shifting and frequency regulation, reliability and security-of-supply services to the grid.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the pilot project could open up a new form of renewable energy storage in Australia. “Compressed air storage has the potential to provide similar benefits to pumped hydro energy storage, however it has the added benefits of being flexible with location and topography, such as utilising a cavern already created at a disused mine site.

NextEra plans world’s biggest Li-ion ESS in Florida Plans to replace two fossil fuel generation units with the world’s biggest lithium ion energy storage system were unveiled by Florida Power & Light Company, a subsidiary of Floridabased NextEra Energy, on March 28.

The FPL Manatee Energy Storage Center includes 409MW of storage charged by an existing FPL solar power plant in Manatee County. The system is due to begin serving customers in late 2021.

The project is part of a modernization plan to accelerate the retirement of two, 1970s-era natural gas generating units at FPL’s neighbouring power plants.

APS plans to deploy 850MW of battery storage plus solar projects US power utility Arizona Public Service announced three major clean-energy initiatives totalling 850MW on February 21 that will deliver peak shifting services and increase the company’s renewable energy mix.

The storage capacity will be delivered by 2025.

India gigafactory planned as it looks for battery independence India’s government announced on January 21 it is in talks with battery industry companies to build a gigafactory in the country as part of its prime minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India, for India” program.

India government owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and Libcoin — a consortium including Magnis energy Technologies, Duggal Family Trust and Charge CCCV — are in discussions to build 1GWh lithium ion battery plant in India, with the potential to be scaled up to

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30 gigawatt hours.

A team from BHEL will evaluate and make recommendations on facilities, R&D infrastructure and other techno-commercial issues with the aim of forming a joint venture between the four parties.

Magnis, which has a 20% nondilutive stake in Libcoin, said the partners had been in discussions with BHEL for around nine months.

Libcoin chairman, Rajan Duggal said the plan was to be the first mover in one of the world’s most

rapidly increasing markets.

Separately, Tecchren Batteries is to build a 200MWh LiFePO4 battery manufacturing plant in Sri City, in India after signing a memorandum of understanding with Andhra Pradesh’s Economic Development Board, the company announced on January 11.

Tecchren Batteries, a subsidiary of the US-based, privately owned company Tecchren, plans to invest around Rs4,460 million ($61 million) to set up the plant.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 51

ENERGY STORAGE NEWS NEWS IN BRIEF NEC announces 24MW of storage in China NEC Energy Solutions — through its exclusive distributor in China, energy provider Puxing Energy — announced on April 4 it had commissioned two projects totalling 18MW and a won a third tender for a 6MW project.

A 6MW project by Ray Power, is under construction in Puzhou City, Shanxi Province. Once completed in the middle of this year it will provide frequency regulation services.

NYSERDA plans to deploy 3GW of storage by 2030 On March 11, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority filed its proposed implementation plan to administer its Energy Storage Market Acceleration Bridge Incentive Program.

The plan describes the proposed use of $310 million in incentive funds authorized in the ‘storage order’, and related program implementation costs. The storage order supports the New York Public Service Commission order requiring 1.5GW of energy storage in New York by 2025 and 3GW by 2030.

CATL to deliver 2GWH of cells for BESS projects Chinese cell maker Contemporary Amperex Technology has signed a deal to supply 1.85GWh of lithiumiron-phosphate cells to Powin Energy Corporation, the US firm announced on March 13.

CATL’s cells will be integrated into Powin’s Stack modular energy storage systems for utility-scale, commercial and industrial, and microgrid applications through to 2022.

55MW of energy storage to halve black-outs in Massachusetts Plans to deploy 40MW of lithium ion batteries to deliver emergency power in Massachusetts, US, have been approved, power utility Eversource announced on April 5. A further 15MW is to be agreed later.

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SA continues to pioneer utility-scale solar+storage deployment South Australia’s latest energy storage system, a 30MW/8MWh system at the Dalrymple substation on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, was officially connected to the grid following eight months of testing, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency announced on January 16.

Pioneering Hawaii adds record-breaking solar+storage project to 1GWh commitment Hawaii’s 100% renewables goal received a boost on January 8 when the AES Corporation and Kauai Island Utility Cooperative inaugurated the world’s largest solar and storage system.

The Lwa’i Solar and Energy Storage Project owned and operated

by AES Distributed Energy, combine a 25MW/100MWh, five-hour duration energy storage system with 28MW of photovoltaic.

180MWh of storage to be delivered in Hawaii after PPA deals Canadian firm Innergex Renewable Energy entered the energy storage market on January 4 with the announcement it had signed 25-year power purchase agreements to deliver 180MWh of storage to Hawaiian utilities Hawai’i Electric Light Company and the Maui Electric Company.

Toyota and Panasonic form automotive prismatic battery JV Toyota Motor Corporation and Panasonic Corporation signed a contract on January 22 to form a joint venture to research and manufacture prismatic, solid-state batteries, and lithium ion batteries.

Toyota will have a 51% share in the JV.

Shell buys Limejump, Sonnen Limejump and residential storage company Sonnen will become wholly owned subsidiaries of petroleum major Shell following post-regulatory approval.

Australian gigafactory plans advancing after licensing deal

The battery start-up Cadenza Innovation announced on February 20 it had signed a licensing agreement with Energy Renaissance, the company that signed a memorandum of understanding in 2017 with the Darwin government to build a lithium ion battery gigafactory in Australia.

The deal gives the Australian company exclusive manufacturing rights to the US firm’s patented technology in Australia, as well as worldwide sales rights, excluding China and the United States.

Renewable energy forecourts to allay range anxiety for UK EV drivers Plans to build a UK-wide network of solar farms coupled with battery storage to deliver power to more than 100 forecourt charging stations were announced by energy storage firm Gridserve on March 29.

Initial construction of the £1 billion ($1.3 billion) programme is to begin later this year, with all 100 multi-MW battery sites due to be completed within five years.

Firms join to bring 10MW grid-connected ESS to India Tata Power, The AES Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation announced on February 13 they had inaugurated a 10MW/10MWh lithium ion energy storage system project in India.

The grid-connected system is owned by AES and Mitsubishi Corporation, with Fluence supplying its Advancion technology.

Investment group secure funding to complete 340MWh project in US Project developer Macquarie’s Green Investment Group, the business formed when Green Investment Group was bought by Macquarie Group in 2017, announced on March 26 it is to build 97MWh of storage in Southern California, US, after closing its final debt-financing round.

The third funding will allow the group to complete construction of a 63MW/340MWh project for power utility Southern California Edison.

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ENERGY STORAGE NEWS NEWS IN BRIEF Switzerland completes biggest ESS a year after initial finish date NEC Energy Solutions has delivered Switzerland’s largest battery storage system, a 18MW/7.5MWh GSS (Grid Storage Solution) system owned and operated by Swiss power company Elektrizitätswerke des Kantons Zürich, the US energy storage firm announced on March 20.

RedT raises £3.2 million through share offering On March 14, the RedT announced a proposed open offer of a maximum of 113,031,304 new Ordinary Shares. The whole of the offering has been taken up by qualifying shareholders and a share placement.

The firm said it will have raised a total of £3.2 million ($4,3 million) before expenses as a result of the placing and open offer, being £2.26 million before expense) through the open offer and £0.94 million (before expenses) by the placement.

SEIC invites tenders for more than 42MWh of storage in India Solar Energy Corporation of India, a central public sector undertaking under the administrative control of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, opened online bids for 42MWh of battery energy storage on February 26.

New firm sets out $100m microgrid deployment plans across south-east Asia Plans to create a $100 million portfolio of renewable energy and microgrid projects were unveiled for south-east Asia on January 22 by CleanGrid Partners. This is a newly formed Singapore-based investment company made up of WEnergy Global Partners, ICMG and Greenway Grid Global, an investment company owned by Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company PowerGrid, Chubu Electric Corporation and ICMG.

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Oxis Energy to build Li-S plant after $60 million investment

Oxis Energy is to build the world’s first commercial scale lithium sulfur battery manufacturing plant after securing $60 million in funding from Brazil’s Codemge Participações, the UK firm announced on February 12.

Phase 1 of the plant, being built in the city of Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais, should be completed in 2022. The plant’s initial output will be two million cells per annum rising to five million by the mid 2020s.

China ratifies plans for 500MWh of Li-ion storage Plans for a 500MWh lithium ion energy storage system were ratified on January 16 when representatives of the Xiuyu District of China signed an investment project agreement with Zheng Jiaqing, secretary of the district party committee, Cai Jinshan and Yin Hui, deputy district heads of the district government.

SUSI and ABB partner to deliver microgrid and ESS projects Investment firm SUSI Partners and ABB announced on January 31 they had entered into an agreement to deploy microgrid and energy storage solution projects. SUSI has pledged €100 million ($110 million) through its SUSI Energy Storage Fund to provide projects through qualified engineering, procurement and construction partners.

Storage and renewables first as China deploys unique project A 100MWh lithium ion storage system has been deployed by Contemporary Amperex Technology as part of the Luneng Haixi Multi-mixed Energy Demonstration Project in China, the company announced on January 30.

V2G testing centre opens to increase solar penetration on Texas grid The US state of Texas has deployed its first vehicle-to-grid research and testing facility as it looks to increase renewable penetration on its power supply, energy research center Pecan Street and utility Austin Energy announced on February 6.

Russia and Aggreko agree partnership on microgrids The Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, and engineering firm Aggreko announced an agreement on March 20 to cooperate on the development of microgrids.

The deal includes building facilities that will provide uninterrupted power supply and temperature control to industrial enterprises and utilities in the Russian regions.

ABB and Rolls-Royce team up for microgrid deployment Technology giant ABB and automotive OEM Rolls-Royce announced a global partnership on microgrid technology and advanced automation on April 2. The two companies will offer microgrid solutions for utilities, commercial and industrial applications.

China commissions first phase of 40MWh flow battery project A 3MW/12MWh vanadium redox flow battery has been commissioned in China by Canadian firm VRB Energy (formerly Pu Neng Energy) — a subsidiary of Sparton Resources — and Chinese company China Operations, the companies announced on January 11.

The deployment is part of the 10MW/40MWh Hubei Zaoyang Solar and Storage Integration Demonstration Project, which when completed will be one of the biggest flow batteries in the world.

Robert Friedland, chairman of VRB Energy, said the project represented a key step in applying China’s rich vanadium resources to renewable energy development.

The project will use Hubei Province’s abundant vanadium mineral resources with VRB Energy’s advanced energy storage technology.

VRB Energy said the project investor and all parties involved in the construction are pursuing multiple 100MW class vanadium redox battery storage projects in Hubei, China.

However, the Hubei system will be dwarfed by Rongke Power’s 200MW/800MWh flow battery system in Dalian, China.

The biggest ESS under construction in the world is due to be completed in 2020.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 53

BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019

A bright new landscape as invention comes to the fore For the past four years Battery Council International has presented an award dedicated to the memory of East Penn’s chief executive Sally Breidegam for the most innovative lead acid battery firm that year. In 2016, Hammond Group won the award with its Advanced Expander paste formulation. In 2017 Northstar’s remote monitoring process took the accolade. And last year’s winner was Gridtential with its silicon joule technology. This year’s winner will be announced after this magazine has gone to press.

This year, 11 companies — Abertax Technologies, Battery Rescue Australia, Customized Energy Solutions, Daramic, Microporous, Narada, Philadelphia Scientific, Power Sonic, RSR, Terrapure and Voltific — submitted entries for the 2019 Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz Innovation Award.

Submissions were opened in December and remained open until February.

Each submission was judged by an independent panel on eight areas: sustainability, safety, cost, performance, detail, uniqueness, value and quantifiablity.

Sustainability – Does the submission show environmental stewardship and /or innovative recyclability? Submitters were asked to provide tangible aspirations, goals and objectives in helping to create a greener tomorrow.

Safety — Does the submission show

54 • Batteries International • Spring 2018

product or process stability and the ability to be safely commercialized?

Submitters were asked to demonstrate a clear commitment to the best interest of the general public and industry from a safety standpoint.

Cost — Can the submission be easily commercialized, provide cost-optimized advantages and be an affordable alternative to existing technologies and processes?

Performance — Does the submission meet or exceed the needs for application and industry requirements?

Submitters were asked to demonstrate how the innovation meets its intended key objectives, goals and benefits as well as other outstanding attributes.

Detail — Does the submission provide adequate information that thoroughly explains the innovation?

Uniqueness — Is the submission the first of its kind to market or rarely used by other organizations? How does it differ from existing products? Submitters were asked to provide information about similar applications and clearly define what makes this product, process or discovery unique or innovative.

Value — How does the submission directly benefit the lead battery industry? Can the value be quantified with numerical data, such as material reduction or pollution avoided? Can the product be utilized outside of the company that created it?

Quantifiable — Does the information provided meet the criteria and clearly describe in numerical data the key measurable areas. Submissions that provided actual data received a higher score.

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019

“Innovation is the thing that gives you the opportunity.

It’s the promise of our future.”

Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz

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Batteries International • Spring 2018 • 55

BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: RSR TECHNOLOGIES

RSR Technologies has developed SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE, an engineered suite of micro-alloying additions, which enhance the cycling and charge acceptance of the active material in a lead acid battery — closing the performance gap on lithium-ion in the process.

Closing the performance gap with lithium-ion

R

SR Technologies, a subsidiary of the engineering unit of EcoBat Group, the largest producer of lead in the world, has developed a ground-breaking lead alloy for the active material of lead acid batteries that potentially doubles the cycle life of lead batteries.

The new product, branded and patented as SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE, contains an engineered suite of microalloying additions, which enhance the cycling and charge acceptance of the active material in a lead acid battery.

Known as 009, it is a grid alloy engineered for higher use temperatures, developed by RSR Technologies following a long history of development.

Tim Ellis, the president of RSR Technologies, says SUPERSOFTHYCYCLE is now undergoing trials with half a dozen companies in North America and Europe after initially being launched in the South African market. He anticipates it will be fully

available commercially by the end of the third quarter.

This global launch follows it already going into commercial production at the South African lead battery firm Auto-X, the maker of the Willard brand of batteries. Tests showed it doubled the cycle life of lead batteries and greatly reduced water loss, something Ellis says will revolutionize parts of the market.

He says the improvement in performance that this product delivers has the potential to help lead acid batteries level the playing field with its main competitor, lithium-ion batteries.

“The fact is that lead acid batteries now have a real competitor in the form of lithium and this can help it compete on performance,” Ellis says.

“For such a dominant and widely used technology, lead acid batteries were pretty poorly understood. What we have done is apply science to better understand how they work and,

as a result, move their performance closer to what it should be.

“Lead batteries have many other advertences over lithium, especially the success with which they are recycled, and the availability of the raw material compared with lithium.

“Lithium has always had great cycling and great energy but higher cost and nowhere near the recyclability of lead,” says Ellis. “Lead is less expensive and more recyclable but didn’t have the energy or the cycling. Now it can maintain its low cost and improve its cycling and energy as well.

“If we can improve the performance of lead, without having to reinvent the product, this represents a boost to the entire industry. We are very excited about the potential of what we have achieved here.”

A prestigious history

RSR Technologies has around 16 full time staff, around a third of them

DOD 17.5% testing of Willard Batteries with and without SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE show the improvement offered by crystal modifying leady oxide.

56 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: RSR TECHNOLOGIES with PhDs. It focuses on new product development and environmental and analytical chemistry for a variety of types of batteries – it has a much wider scope than focusing only on lead and lithium.

The foundations of the work that resulted in the development of SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE began with David Prengaman, the president of RSR Technologies until five years ago, when he retired and Ellis took the reins. Along with Matt Raiford, a senior process engineer, and the rest of the team at RSR, he has since moved that work forward.

In his earlier years with RSR, Prengaman completed extensive work to remove and analyze impurities in lead. This gradually moved to focus on the effect of adding selected alloys or ‘dopants’ to lead, and assessing the effect on the performance of the batteries in which they are used. Over the years, Ellis estimates that the company tested more than 100 combinations of different alloys in this way.

The tests would focus on the capacity of batteries, their dynamic charge acceptance and their cycle life.

“We tested these things extensively to see what would improve the performance of batteries and we realized that certain combinations would make a big difference to the electrical performance,” Ellis says.

He stresses that the level of the dopants being added is tiny. But he says that in some instances cycle life was improved by some 40%, dynamic charge acceptance by a factor of two and capacity by 10%.

The breakthrough

The big breakthrough, however, came when the company secured ac-

“The fact is that lead acid batteries now have a real competitor in the form of lithium and the SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE can help it compete on performance.” Tim Ellis cess to an Advanced Photon Source synchrotron, which is housed at the Argonne National Laboratory and is used in a huge range of scientific disciplines. This allowed it to accurately assess the effect of the proportions of the micro-alloying additions on the micro-structure of the active material. Although the technology had previously been applied to lithium, RSR was the first to apply it to lead.

In essence, it allowed them to watch the performance and evolution of the active material micro-structure in the batteries as they cycled in real time by using the APS synchrotron, allowing far more accurate analysis of the dynamics of crystallization phenomena occurring in the battery during charge/discharge cycling.

“How and why crystals do, or do not, dissolve is key to improving performance in applications,” Ellis says.

“Prior to using this, we knew there was an improvement in performance, but we did not know why. This allowed us to see exactly what was going on and the effect it was having on the battery.

“We were able to do this x-ray analysis of the battery plate as it went through the charge and discharge cycle, so we could understand exactly what was going on in the lead. That allowed us to understand how to better engineer the metals to make them more efficient.”

Ellis says the ANL welcomed the idea of looking at lead. In the labora-

tory experiments that followed, when the SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE alloy was placed against a control lead element typical of standard lead batteries, the careful selection of microalloying additions and removal of specific contaminants were found to directly aid in changing the PbSO4 to a more easily dissoluble crystal form — thus prolonging battery life.

The cyclability test was based on a specification of a 17.5% depth-ofdischarge; normally the cycle rate would be between 800 and 900, Ellis said. Using the RSR alloy it did up to 1,600 cycles.

These developments allowed the company to take things to the next step and work with Auto-X in South Africa. The results have been very positive, leading to the expansion into North America and Europe.

“This is real; it is not a promise or something that may or may not work. It is real now,” Ellis says.

He adds the response from the market has been very positive so far, and admits that the pricing of the product will be critical in its uptake by the wider market. But he believes the use of this product will become the new norm for the market, closing the performance gap on lithium-ion in the process.

“It’s only just now being marketed, but for us it’s already standard. It was a game changer to us — and I believe there’s still more development to follow.”

Product

One Hour Capacity (mA-Hrs/mg)

MHT Cycle Life (Cycles)

Dynamic Charge Acceptance (A/A*hr)

DoD 17.5% Cycles

DoD 50% Cycles

DoD 100% Cycles

Control

74

8,000

0.21

3,000

810

765

SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE® Patent 20170317351

84

42,000

0.49

4170

1140

990

Test Method

BCI

EN 50342:2015

EN 50342:2015

BCI

BCI

BCI

Improvement

13.5%

x5

x2

39.0%

40.7%

40.1%

Performance summary of SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE performance in 2V test cells.

www.batteriesinternational.com

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 57

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: MICROPOROUS

Microporous has developed a product that boosts the dynamic charge acceptance in lead acid batteries without the need for complex changes to the battery — and it can be used with its separator products.

Boosting dynamic charge acceptance

S

eparator product developer Microporous has come up with a dynamic charge acceptance booster for lead batteries that works without changing the negative active material.

The DCA Booster Mat can be bundled with its SLI or industrial separators and is suitable for the growing enhanced flooded battery market. It allows charge acceptance optimization and is suited to High Rate Partial State of Charge requirements for start-stop applications.

The company is still in the testing phase, but hopes to have completed prototype investigations in the next 12 months. It will then start developing partnerships with battery companies to evaluate the product.

Divya Tiwari, technical manager at Microporous, says the innovation can also be applied to other markets and applications. “At the same time, this separator component offers excellent charge acceptance in industrial markets such as motive power, where opportunity charging is required,” she says.

Tiwari says the Booster Mat fits tightly against the negative plate surface to add a powerful three-dimensional buffer layer that shuttles charge to and from the NAM. Initial testing demonstrates a 300% improvement in DCA over the control.

Microporous began 80 years ago as American Rubber Company, which created and patented the first rubber battery separator. It became Microporous Products in 1991 and, since then, has developed and patented numerous separator products while expanding its operations globally.

Tiwari says the company has for years explored ways in which carbon could improve lead-acid battery performance and tried to solve some of the problems previous studies had encountered.

“We put our concept to work in 2018. We saw the need for improved DCA in lead batteries and the immi-

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Microporous’ Tiwari, “innovation can be applied to other markets’

nent threat of Li-ion in start-stop vehicles. Previous studies have shown that mixing carbon into the NAM has its drawbacks and we looked for a better solution,” says Tiwari.

She says the work had four main aims: to improve the DCA in batteries; to do this without negatively affecting cold cranking amps; to do this with minimal impact on water consumption; and to eliminate the need for special NAM formulations.

Other individuals who deserve credit include Jeff Chambers, product development manager, who specializes in membrane technology and has de-

signed battery separators for 20 years.

Tiwari has worked in the lead acid battery industry for six years and has a background in chemical engineering, with experience in lead acid battery design and testing carbon formulations. But she stresses the work around the innovation was very much a team effort.

The main point of the Booster Mat was to address low DCA, “Improved DCA allows for more efficient opportunity charging, which reduces undercharging and increases cycle life,” Tiwari says. “For EFB battery design, improved DCA removes the phenomenon of battery walk down, which is often seen in automotive batteries used in start-stop operations.

“This innovation could reduce stratification. An additional benefit is that battery manufacturers have a readily available and versatile mechanism for carbon formulation additions to the negative, which do not involve significant processing complexity that occurs with direct addition to NAM.” Tiwari says the benefits could be far reaching, reducing the environmental impact of some products and slowing the erosion of market share by lithium-ion batteries. “The technical benefits outlined above will lead to potential energy savings, better environment sustainability and reduced risk for warranty exposure,” she says.

There is some way to go, and Tiwari says the company is still assessing the Booster Mat’s impact on different batteries and how to manufacture it most efficiently.

The main point of the Booster Mat was to address low DCA, one of the major problems with lead batteries. When used in different applications, this could have a significant impact on the performance of different types of batteries.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 59

BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: NARADA

Narada has partnered energy storage operator Upside Group in an innovative frequency regulation project, which represents the first large-scale application of lead carbon batteries in grid-level frequency regulation energy storage systems.

A new approach to gridlevel frequency regulation

T

he frequency regulation project was for the German power grid and the installation, at Langenreichenbach, has a planned construction capacity of 75MW. The installed capacity of the first phase of the project is 16.4MW, and the peak energy storage capacity can reach 25MWh. This project consists of 18 containers, and the battery consists of 10,584 units of 1200 Ah lead-carbon valve regulated cells. It is powered by nine inverters, each of which can provide 1.8 MVA. Narada was one of the pioneers in terms of developing lead-carbon battery energy storage systems in energy storage. In recent years, Narada has begun promoting commercial energy storage power plants by means of “Investment + Operation”. The company says this project is a symbol of transformation, representing the first investment and operation model project in the overseas market.

It says it elected to do this project in Germany because the utilization of renewable energy in the country is one of the most advanced in the world. Its power grid frequency regulation market is thus a mature power market auxiliary service trading market. The company says its entry to the German energy storage market marks the beginning of Narada’s entry into the global market.

The project was driven by the Narada Project Development Team, which was responsible for the finance and development of the entire project. It says it believes that the application of lead carbon batteries in energy storage systems is groundbreaking.

“This project is the first large-scale application of lead-carbon batteries in grid-level frequency regulation energy storage systems, and is of exemplary significance worldwide,” the company said. “In mitigating the power consumption of the local power grid, it adjusts grid balance, saves energy and

60 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

reduces carbon dioxide emissions.

And it provides electricity for local residents.”

Narada will now cooperate with Upside to finish building the project, with a total investment of around €42 million ($47 million). It will also incorporate advanced battery technology as well as a PCS system.

The company said the project will help Narada better understand this sector. It now wants to be heavily involved in the storage market of frequency regulation to promote energy storage systems throughout Germany and then Europe.

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: ABERTAX

Abertax has developed a charger that can communicate with batteries to establish which has been connected to a charger, gather data from the battery and then programme the optimal charging regime for that specific battery.

Achieving an optimal charging regime A bertax has developed a patented innovation involving the Abertax Battery Management Systems (e2BMS), which is designed to identify which battery, from a number of batteries, has been connected to a charger, and also gather relevant battery data allowing it to programme the most efficient and economic charging profile possible.

It allows a battery and the charger to communicate to ensure an optimal charging regime is delivered.

The product works by first identifying the particular battery and then adjusting its charging profile to suit that battery’s specific requirements.

This transfer of data from battery to charger takes place wirelessly through the Abertax e2BMS. “The charger will be able to charge the individual battery with the ideal and most efficient parameters depending on the particular battery’s requirements,” says George Schembri, president of Abertax.

Schembri says the development of the product started about 18 months ago. It was developed in collaboration between the research & development team at Abertax with charger manufacturer Industrie Elektronik Brilon in Germany.

The aim was to achieve the optimal charging regime to charge batteries depending on their requirements, extending the life time of the battery in the process.

He stresses that the most innovative part of the patent is the fact that the charger first needs to identify which battery is actually connected to it from a number of available batteries, each equipped with the Abertax e2BMS. It does this by delivering a series of voltage and current pulses to the battery.

It then asks the battery to send out the required data wirelessly through the e2BMS. Such data would typically

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include information such as the battery ID, battery Ah, nominal voltage, ambient and battery temperature, full voltage, half voltage, current, state of charge (SoC), and electrolyte level (for flooded batteries).

Battery Monitoring System – ABERTAX® e2 BMS

“Based on this data, the charger then adjusts its charging regime to charge the battery at its optimum requirements. This data is then continuously demanded by the charger periodically during its charging operation, typically even every second, in order to continuously change its profile accordingly to the best possible,” Schembri says.

Schembri says the product can achieve something that has long been a goal of battery manufacturers. “Charging a battery at its right requirements is an ideal scenario,” he says.

“Having a battery communicating with its charger to provide the re-

quired data to charge it at the right charging profile will have a huge impact on the lifetime and battery performance besides saving time and energy.

“On top of this, our innovation has the added important benefit that the charger would identify automatically the particular battery that is connected to it from a number of batteries.”

This could be particularly useful in an industrial scenario, he says, where, for example, an enterprise has a number of battery-driven vehicles such as forklifts, for example. They would connect any forklift battery to the charger and the rest would be done automatically. Without any intervention, the charging profile would be adjusted.

“The data transmitted by the battery to the charger first compels the charger to identify that particular battery, then communication between the battery and charger takes place and all the required data is transferred so that the charger would provide the ideal charging profile to suit the battery conditions. It therefore means better control of all battery/charger operation.”

In terms of the timeline of the innovation now, further R&D work is under way at Abertax where, Schembri says, the company has invested heavily in developing a very strong team.

“New products and improvements to existing products are always in the pipeline,” he says.

“Having a battery communicating with its charger to provide the required data to charge it at the right charging profile will have a huge impact on the lifetime and battery performance besides saving time and energy.”

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 61

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: BATTERY RESCUE AUSTRALIA

Battery Rescue Australia has developed a safer and more environmentally friendly way of transporting used lead acid batteries.

A safer way to recycle lead acid batteries

T

he Battery Transport & Storage container from Battery Rescue Australia provides an environmentally friendly, safer and more convenient method for storing and transporting used batteries.

The company was established as a demonstration battery collection business by its sister company Uniseg Products, using a BTS container developed by Uniseg as a safer, more environmentally sustainable and efficient method of storing and transporting used lead acid batteries destined for recycling.

Battery Rescue initially operated its closed loop battery collection service in Perth, but on the back of demand from regional mining companies it has now expanded the service to remote regional locations in Western Australia.

Battery Rescue’s customers include used battery generators, auto workshops, government councils, equipment and machinery hire companies, battery sales companies, transport companies and yacht clubs. They use the product to store their used batteries and when full, Battery Rescue switches the container with an empty unit. The full containers are ready for immediate transport to the recycler and require no additional wrapping, strapping or labelling as dangerous goods.

The product was developed by inventor, entrepreneur and managing director Fenton Goddard, who noticed when helping a friend in his recycling business that the transport and storage of used lead acid batteries was

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neither safe nor efficient.

Goddard has designed, manufactured and commercialized several successful, new and unique products and business operating systems in the automotive industry. These include the Autoarc, a unique direct-current welding machine; Robowash, an automatic industrial parts washing machine; and the Aquajet and Washpod, both automatic parts washing systems.

The BTS container, which has been provisionally patented, was a result of the need to find a solution for transporting batteries.

General manager David Bush joined the board in October 2013, took responsibility of the day-to-day running of the battery collection service and looked into solving the logistical challenges of operating a closed loop container pool for large, remote mining operations.

Bush and Goddard are committed environmentalists eager to see Battery Rescue help reduce the danger and impact on the environment caused by the unsafe and illegal transport, storage and disposal of all types of batteries.

“The containers provide an environmentally superior, safer and more convenient method for storing and transporting their used batteries,” says Bush. “The use of battery-powered 4G IoT technology has enabled us to overcome many of the transport challenges to large mine sites in remote areas.”

Bush says many mining companies such as BHP are seeking a safer,

regulation-compliant solution for the onsite storage and transport of used lead acid batteries (ULAB), while also reducing their environmental impact.

Storage of ULABs on wood pallets in the open, harsh environment of North West Australia results in acid leaking while in storage and subsequent transport.

“In addition, the difficulties and inconvenience of preparing batteries for regulation compliant transport on wood pallets from site has led to widespread non-compliance in the mining industry,” Bush says. “This task is not easy and combined with variations in workers’ attitudes and training, nonavailability of the required materials and tools (heavy-duty wood pallets, plastic wrap and straps, strapping tools and 30mm non-conductive separators) and it becomes apparent why compliance requirements are rarely being met.”

The product offers benefits including better safety loading and transport; improved environmental outcomes by eliminating acid leaks (containing high lead levels); more convenient and efficient stacking of batteries; regulation compliance and reduced legal risks; and improved battery recycling rates from remote mine sites.

Bush says it could be used globally.

Battery Rescue Australia’s next goal is to expand the service to further Western Australian mine sites. Its future goals then include expanding to other Australian states and implementing the automatic unloading and washing of BTS containers at an Australian battery recycler.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 63

BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: DARAMIC

Daramic has partnered Huff Technologies to design a mechanism by which the effect of motion on lead acid batteries can be easily assessed and analyzed.

Simulating the effect of movement on batteries D aramic and Huff Technologies have developed a way of better simulating how batteries perform in the real world by simulating how they move around during everyday use.

The Daramic Shuttle Table has been designed to mimic real world scenarios during testing. It was developed because the companies acknowledged that in all types of environments, vehicles and the lead acid batteries they use are constantly moving.

Together, they have developed a proprietary testing method along with innovative new machinery to allow battery manufacturers to test their products in a real-life scenario. The technology is able to test up to 12 group 31/L3 batteries simultaneously and the user can select a variety of different programmes offering different types of movements and cycles.

The system allows for a direct comparison between batteries based on different working patterns and battery environments.

It will enable the testing and validation of a variety of passive acid mixing devices, the company said, as well as many standard industry tests performed while the batteries are in motion. This includes the testing of tall motive power and deep cycle batteries, while providing a safer battery testing environment.

The company also highlights a number of operational designs. These include an advanced control panel, which allows the programming of desired parameters including acceleration and the time between movements and cycles.

Data is then collected via an external drive and transferred using USB ports on the machine. A versatile tslotted rail system allows for quick and adjustable tie down of batteries of multiple configurations and sizes.

Daramic has featured in the innovation awards since their inception in 2016 and has always been a strong

64 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

contender to gain top ranking. Last year the firm showcased its latest product using Carbon Coated Separator Technology. This reduces sulfation crystal growth, delivering a more active surface area on the plates for improved conductance of the electrode.

Carbon applied directly to the separator, using a proprietary method, while being in contact with the negative active materials shows increased dynamic change acceptance at the cell and battery levels versus standard separators,” said Matt Wolski, product marketing manager, Daramic at the time.

“This has proven to slow the growth of lead sulfate crystals, which otherwise tend to grow more rapidly in batteries continuously operating in partial states of charge.”

The innovation supports OEMs’ goals of reducing CO2 emissions over the next decade. “The separator advancements allows batteries to be improved in vehicles that have advanced architectures such as start-stop, which in turn reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In its first submission for the BCI innovation award, Daramic showcased its DuraLife product which has since been widely adopted, especially in Asia.

DuraLife, is a high performance polyethylene battery separator. Its design improves battery performance, improves efficiency and yield during battery assembly and, most importantly, compensates for lack of performance or lifespan in battery designs where manufacturers are looking to reduce the amount of lead.

Traditionally, the path to improving cost competitiveness was achieved by squeezing all components costs, but there is a limited impact to be achieved, and some approaches can lead to potential quality risks.

“The fact is that the majority — often over 70% — of the material cost of making a lead acid battery can be attributed to the cost of lead, Dawn Heng, global marketing director of Daramic told Batteries International at the time of the awards. “We can look at the cost of the other materials, but we are then only targeting less than 30% of the overall opportunity.

If we can help reduce the lead content, then we can really give significant value to the battery manufacturer.

“The problem is that reducing the thickness of the grid (lead) can compromise the performance and life of the battery in many applications. DuraLife helps solve that problem.”

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: PHILADELPHIA SCIENTIFIC

Philadelphia Scientific has developed a ‘charger splitter’ capable of doubling the capacity of a typical battery room, offering a much better return on investment in the process.

Doubling the capacity of battery charging rooms

P

hiladelphia Scientific’s iBOS Charger-Splitter is used in tandem with the iBOS [Intelligent Battery Organising System] battery room management system, effectively using one charger to charge multiple batteries, and increasing the charging capacity of a battery room.

The Charger-Splitters are installed on to conventional battery charging systems and when a battery is charged, a flashing LED alerts operators to disconnect it and plug it in to an uncharged battery. This enables the sequential charging of two batteries with one charger.

One of the biggest investments in a battery room is the cost of the chargers. They’re an essential piece of equipment but are only used an average of 22% of the time. The iBOS ChargerSplitter makes it possible to utilize unused charger capacity and halve the number of chargers to charge a battery fleet.

The company estimates that, for sites with 20 chargers or more, it will more than pay for the entire iBOS system with money left over.

Alerts are displayed on the remote operations display to ensure the switch gets done and reports on the iBOSWorld website track user performance using the system.

Marketing manager Andy Napoleon Hill says the need for a product like this has been apparent for some time and the research that led to the innovation was a response to that need.

But there were several technical challenges that the company needed to overcome.

The company claims that its data, from more than 25,000 chargers under management worldwide, show that the typical conventional charger is used only 15%-20% of the time.

This means a big opportunity to increase charger utilization and decrease their idle time. In some cases, Charger-Splitters will enable battery room managers to reduce the number

66 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

iBOS 2 – Battery Management System (above) Philadelphia Scientific charger-splitter (right)

of chargers used by a third to a half the company estimates. For the average battery room, that’s an annual saving of tens of thousands of dollars.

It estimates that warehouses and DCs that are planning a new battery room can achieve 50% savings on charger purchases because they will require only one charger for every two batteries, not one charger per battery.

For battery rooms that must increase capacity by purchasing more batteries or trucks, half the number of chargers will be required than if ChargerSplitters are not being used. ChargerSplitters also provide an ideal solution when managers do not want to install costly extra power infrastructure to support additional chargers in a battery changing area.

Charger-Splitters are also a perfect fit for applications where there is a seasonal use of rental batteries. Battery room managers can leave open rack positions next to their current batteries and just add batteries when needed.

“The need for the product has been

around for a while but the refinement to the product to provide the best and most cost-effective solution was a little while in the making. The work was started to help solve some of the pain points our customers fed back to us with regard to the lack of options for increasing capacity, price and electrical infrastructure,” Hill says.

“Increasing or even doubling the charger utilization will have a great environmental impact as there are fewer resources required to service the same or even a bigger battery room by working smarter.”

Hill says the product is now in the feedback stage with customers. “But the product is solid and tested to destruction so there will likely be few further developments to the offering unless there is a specific customer need,” he says.

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: POWER SONIC

Power Sonic has developed a demand response module capable of delivering savings and clean, reliable power to a large range of customers.

Power Sonic’s DRM system

P

ower Sonic’s DRM is an innovative energy storage system suitable for the smart management of medium and high voltage electrical grids, which the company says will pay for itself after four years.

President Brian Crowe says the solution delivers savings and clean, reliable power to a large range of customers. “Our DRM system enables fast response times to variations in demand and supply, helping maintain grid stability and ensuring reliable, high-quality energy supply response through a range of applications,” Crowe says.

“Based on current demand side response markets the DRM would pay for itself after four years. This is down to the speed in which it can respond to demand signals from the grid. With different financial models available including leasing and the ability to generate revenue from day one tied into long-term contracts with the grid, the DRM doesn’t just offer an innovative solution for energy storage but also a great investment as a stand-alone asset.

“Power Sonic is capable of managing the energy to meet all demands according to the requirements set by the utility provider.”

The applications supported by the system include emergency backup in the event of a power interruption; with micro grids, a localized grid that can operate independently; renewable energy, the system facilitating seamless integration with renewable power generation sources; and reserve capacity, the DRM system providing power and energy capacity to the power grid as a standalone asset.

Other challenges it can address include peak shaving, frequency regulation, load levelling, renewables capacity firming and power quality,

resulting in less energy consumption, more of the grid resilience, better power quality, monetary savings and income generation. The company says it can stabilize the grid to manage the consumption and production of renewable energy.

Power Sonic has also developed a web-based integrated battery monitoring and management system, integral to the DRMS system, which monitors the temperature, resistance and voltage of every single battery in the system. The BMS calibrates the charging voltage of all the batteries with the chargers’ target value, keeping all batteries within optimal voltage operating range. This guarantees the availability and capacity of every battery at 100%.

Power Sonic says it also has solutions from kilowatts to megawatts. “For stable transmission and distribution, the power grid operators need a real-time match between electricity supply and consumption,” he says.

In terms of safety, the company says the DRM system is fully compliant with grid systems to import and export power in line with the voltage and frequency regulations of grid suppliers. This includes frequency tolerance, DFFR, FFR and EFR schemes available in most countries and this has been demonstrated in the UK and Turkey.

In the UK, this was demonstrated with UK energy providers Electricity North West, National Grid and Grid Beyond.

It also stresses that all products are manufactured to comply with EU Directives concerning performance, safety, frequency emissions compatibility (EMC Certification), voltage peaks, over voltage and

static charges (EN62040-12008).

The cost of running an independent DRM compared to building a new power station is significantly less, the company stresses. The cost per MW is typically between $800,000 and $1 million, while a typical income per MW is typically between $120,000 and $200,000 net per year excluding a power purchase agreement. On this basis, it claims a typical return on investment is between four and five years. When combined with a 10-year lease plan, this could prove to be cost neutral, the company claims.

A key part of the DRM system is a unique bi-directional power converter that provides a dual function storage capability. This enables energy during the day to be stored in cyclic batteries, then converted and fed back into the network as usable AC current, which is fed back into the grid.

“With different financial models available including leasing and the ability to generate revenue from day one tied into long-term contracts with the grid, the DRM doesn’t just offer an innovative solution for energy storage but also a great investment as a stand-alone asset.” Brian Crowe www.batteriesinternational.com

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 67

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: TERRAPURE

Lithium ion batteries are increasingly becoming mixed up into the recycling process for lead acid batteries, causing safety issues and other risks. Lead acid battery recycling company Terrapure has developed a solution.

Solving Li-ion danger in the recycling process T errapure has developed a product to detect and remove lithium-ion batteries from the lead recycling stream, an innovation that has important implications for the sector given the significant safety risks posed by lithium-ion batteries mistakenly ending up in the lead recycling process.

Called the Li-ion detector, or LI Detector, it uses high-frequency radio waves to detect lithium batteries by scanning for their unique charging and protection circuitry. If detected, they can be easily removed by hand or automatically.

More than 1 million tonnes of lead acid batteries are recycled every year in North America alone. One of the early steps in the process is battery breaking, which involves disintegrating the batteries mechanically so the acid can drain out.

This is normally a reliable and safe process; however, problems can occur when batteries other than LABs accidentally enter the process. The biggest risk is from lithium-ion batteries.

Upon entering the breaking process, they can explode in contact with the acid, causing damage to equipment and exposing plant personnel to potential harm.

Michael Paszti, vice president of innovation, technology and business development, says separating LIBs from LABs is a challenging task as they often look identical or very similar.

“The LAB recycling industry has proposed several ideas to identify LIBs but all require tagging or colour coding of LIBs at their point of manufacture. Getting all LIB makers around the world to agree to modify their designs at additional cost will be difficult if not impossible. In addition, none of these solutions applies to the countless LIBs already in use,” he says.

Work on the LI Detector started in 2017 with the first commercial tests

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Terrapure LI detector

happening in September 2018 and Terrapure has several handheld functioning prototypes.

Paszti is the inventor on the patent filing while Benoit Deschesnes, vice president of manufacturing, was also heavily involved. Deschesnes has spent his career in metallurgy and manufacturing. Today he leads Terrapure’s largest lead smelter operation in Montreal, Quebec.

“This is a huge safety advance for the industry with the capability to protect people as well as equipment from explosions and fires,” Paszti says.

The LI Detector can be a permanently mounted device or handheld and installed or employed at any point right up to the entry of the battery breaker.

It works by detecting a unique feature of LIBs that is not found in LABs.

An alert sounds when a LIB is in close proximity. The alert can trigger automatic actions including isolation of the battery in question, or simply alert an operator to manually intervene.

Paszti says the technology can be used to safeguard waste processing and recycling facilities from the hazards of lithium-ion batteries.

“Fires are a common occurrence in waste and recycling processing facilities, often a result of lithium-ion batteries getting accidentally mixed in.

By detecting and removing these using the LI Detector, catastrophic fires and property loss can be avoided,” he says.

Paszti says Terrapure is working with its lead battery industry peers to understand their preferences and needs so that design elements such as portability and detection range can be prioritized in subsequent versions of the device.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 69

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The P20 reactor has a capacity of 850 kg/hour of high grade battery oxide.

Over 60 installations have been delivered world wide.

These plants are characterized by low maintenance costs, high level of automation and better oxide quality than conventional machines.

B140/180

Two sizes of Heubach Barton reactor are available with 650 kg/hour to 1.400 kg/hour capacity of high grade battery oxide. Over 25 installations world wide are in operation. The robust design of the Heubach system ensures a secure and reliable production.

Additional services and Equipment • Automatic oxide sampling systems • Oxide transport systems both mechanical and pneumatic • Oxide storage plants • Silo truck off-loading systems • Big bag unloading and dosing stations • Mixing silos for oxide blending (up to 50 t) • Plant Layout: Design studies

SA3_ME2_LE2

Red lead and litharge production equipment with capacities ranging from 1.500 ton to 10.000 tones per year dependent on raw oxide quality and desired final Pb3O4%. These tubular furnaces are based on a continuous process, fully automated and with excellent energy efficiency.

Please enquire at either office for further information on our range of products and services.

PENOX Engineering

COPLOSA, S.A. –Dept. Engineering Pol. Ind. Zona Franca, Sector E, Calle L, 10-20 08040 BARCELONA (Spain) Tel. +34 – 93 335 01 49 Fax +34 – 93 335 70 71 engineering@penox.de engineering@penoxgroup.com engineering@coplosa.es coplosa@coplosa.es

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BCI INNOVATION AWARDS 2019: VOLTIFIC

VOLTiFiC Technology has developed universal battery sizing software that can be accessed by anyone with Internet access — which could revolutionize the jobs of battery engineers in terms of time and efficiency.

Universal battery sizing becomes a reality V OLTiFiC Technology, a technology company that solves complex battery problems, has developed a universal battery sizing software that allows for the faster, more efficient and more accurate sizing of batteries. It can also be accessed by anyone with internet access.

The company’s founders, Sepehr Mogharei and Ali Heidary, were engineers by trade, working in the electronics industry. During their careers they had noted a scarcity of information and expertise around batteries.

They formed VOLTiFiC to devise a unified way of determining battery capacity.

Mogharei has held a series of management positions across a range of companies, and taken senior lead positions on engineering and electronics projects.

Heidary earned his MBA in Strategic Management at UBC. Ali co-founded PAQ Engineering, which provides engineering design and training services for the critical backup industry.

The VOLTiFiC cloud platform has been developed as a solution. It is designed to allow anyone to size or service industrial batteries regardless of technology, manufacturer, chemistry or application. Central to this is the new software, Mogharei says.

“We developed a universal battery sizing software than can be accessed by anyone with an internet access,” he says. “A typical battery sizing software from a manufacturer can produce between five and 20 battery system designs within 20% of the requirements. Compare that to hundreds of

solutions that VOLTiFiC can generate within 5% of the requirements.

The software adheres to international battery standards and allows for deep analysis of battery performance.”

Mogharei explains that currently, battery sizing is performed by appli-

“This is a universal battery sizing software than can be accessed by anyone with an internet access... the existing approach of contacting the manufacturers is outdated.” cation engineers and battery system designers to determine what commercially available battery would be needed for the application. But he explains that the process is disjointed and time consuming.

“At the moment, the sizing process requires contacting individual battery manufacturers for guidance or using proprietary software provided by manufacturers, if available,” he says.

“This outdated approach to sizing is time consuming, as specification requirements need to be read/entered for each manufacturer. It also produces limited battery solutions that force designers to choose larger battery capacity size than required. This translates to a larger footprint and higher capital costs for projects.”

In terms of how the innovation might potentially benefit the battery industry, Mogharei explains it will mean better informed users and engineers, and it will simplify the process of designing and sizing a battery system from the feasibility phase to procurement.

It also means application engineers will be able to iterate through designs much more quickly, leading to a more efficient battery selection. In turn, it will mean that project design and delivery timelines will shorten as engineers are able to get to their final designs more quickly.

It will also mean less wastage in battery system design. “Engineers are able to optimally size batteries for their application,” he says.

“Our solutions go beyond the goal of making the lives of battery engineers, technicians and designers less difficult. Optimized battery size and reduction of operational waste not only increases battery usage and energy storage, but it also helps reduce one’s carbon footprint on a global scale,” he says.

In terms of the timeline for the company’s development, he explains that the company is still at an early stage — but it is moving quickly.

“This work started in 2017 and early versions were first released in early 2018 on our website. We are working on expanding the software to include all emerging applications, such as energy storage and electric vehicles. A full support API is also in the works and scheduled to be released in summer of this year,” he says.

“Our solutions go beyond the goal of making the lives of battery engineers, technicians and designers less difficult. Optimized battery size and reduction of operational waste not only increases battery usage and energy storage, but it also helps reduce the carbon footprint on a global scale,” Sepehr Mogharei www.batteriesinternational.com

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 71

THE BIG PICTURE India’s lead battery business is booming. Despite the government’s relatively new focus on lithium cell manufacturing, the lead market will continue to grow.

72 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

www.batteriesinternational.com

COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE

Giant steps have been taken, more advances are on the horizon T

he golden age of the lead battery is far from over in India, despite government moves to bring lithium to the forefront and sideline lead.

Research report after research report is predicting high compound annual growth rates — ResearchAndMarkets.com is looking for over 9% CAGR between 2018-2024, Mordor Intelligence 9.47% CAGR between 2018-2023, 6Wresearch 9.1% CAGR between 2018-2024… and the list of pundits goes on.

The consensus is that the SLI — starter, lighting, ignition — battery segment will continue to take the greatest revenue over the period. Although flooded batteries, being cheaper than sealed batteries, made up the majority of sales, VRLA battery sales continues to increase in market share.

Automobile sales increased by around 14% in 2017 and a roughly similar figure in 2018.

Given that roughly 80% of all motors on the road are relatively cheap two-wheelers or three-wheelers, lead batteries strike the right balance between cost and effectiveness.

Combine that with a booming nation — the government ambition to make India the third largest economy in the world by 2030 looks a realistic goal — and a booming population and the surge in transportation batteries alone looks unstoppable. The rise in mainly lead battery powered eRickshaws (see later article) has been nothing short of phenomenal.

But the economic boom will spill out to all sectors.

The Indian telecommunication sector, for example, continues to grow rapidly and was the world’s secondlargest telecommunications market, with a subscriber base of 1.19 billion as of October 2018. Of this, cell phone users accounted for 1.17 billion, an increase of 725,000 during that month.

At the end of October 2018 there were just 22 million landline subscrib-

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ers — a figure that fell by 89,000 that month.

As is common in the developing world, technology has skipped a generation and the landline infrastructure has become outdated by comparison with the booming mobile phone sector. The telecom sector is one of the most promising sectors for lead acid battery use, with its requirement for remote off-grid telecoms bases.

The rise in mobile-phone penetration rates and decline in data costs, associated with the intense competition among India’s telecoms players, could add nearly 500 million new internet consumers in India over the next five years. The back-up requirements for the servers that will feed these consumers is going to be enormous.

As of October 31 last year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said the top five wireless broadband service providers were Reliance Jio (263 million), Vodafone Idea (101 million), Bharti Airtel (99 million), BSNL (11 million) and Tata Teleservices (2 million).

Government initiatives, such as auctioning the 5G spectrum, renewables integration and the directive of the TRAI directive of relocating 75% and 33% of their cell towers in rural and urban areas respectively to hybrid power by December 2020, are likely to further supplement the demand for telecommunication infrastructure.

But that’s not to say there won’t be some pressure on lead batteries from the government.

One of the clearest signs of this came last July, when the Goods and Services Tax Council cut the GST rate on lithium batteries from 28% to 18%, along with a cut to 12% for fuel cell vehicles. However lead acid batteries, and other battery chemistries, were not mentioned. The bias was clear.

Lead battery manufacturers immediately protested against the cut in rates, claiming it to be discriminatory against non-lithium products.

Rahul Walawalkar, executive director of IESA, said at the time to Batteries International: “A further reduction of GST is essential to boost energy

Rahul Walawalkar, executive director of IESA

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 73

COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE storage adoption in India, which can help accelerate investment in manufacturing as well.

“We urge the finance ministry to extend the rate reduction to other forms of energy storage technologies including advanced lead acid, sodium-based batteries, flow batteries, metal air bat-

teries, ultracapacitors, fuel cells and thermal storage technologies.”

There were also inconsistencies in the application of the tax. A spokesperson for Customized Energy Solutions India, a member of IESA, said: “There is no change in the GST for lead acid batteries, which remains at

28%, but if the lead acid battery is integrated with solar components, then the effective GST is 5%.”

Others point out that while electric vehicles sold with batteries are charged 12% GST, batteries sold without vehicles are taxed 28%. (GST is applied in five bands — 28%, 18%,

THE VIEW FROM THE ILZDA L Pugazhenthy — better known to the world as ‘Pug’ — is executive director for the India Lead Zinc Development Association, and he’s more than bullish on the future of lead.

“The lead battery industry used to be only auto batteries but now every application in the country is using lead batteries — for inverters, in houses, offices and schools, energy back-up is very common, and in telecoms, every telecom tower will have a large number of batteries,” he says. “There’s also UPS, renewable energy, EVs, e-rickshaws and two-wheelers — these sectors are getting bigger and bigger.

“I’ve seen lead batteries grow from being an industrial product to a common household commodity that’s used on a daily basis.

“Whereas lead is the most affordable energy source in any country — in southeast Asia, China, India it’s the cheapest source and it’s been a proven source for all these decades.”

He admits that lithium battery makers are trying to bring down the cost of their products but that won’t be easy, and cost will be the biggest obstacle in India.

“For expensive cars you will need lithium batteries, if you want to go on the expressway and drive a long way, that’s where lithium will come in. If you need a higher performance, those who can afford it will get lithium.

“But the common man in Bangladesh, in India, in China, in Myanmar, in Sri Lanka — they look for cheaper, durable and proven products.”

L Pugazhenthy, executive director for ILZDA

The Indian government has set a target to increase the ratio of EVs to 30% of new car sales by 2030, which could give a boost to the lithium ion battery industry, but Pug says the infrastructure is not yet there for charging this number of vehicles.

“India is the size of a continent, not a country,” he says. “Who is going to do the charging? Where is the investment going to come from?

Nobody knows anything about that.

However one thing we do know is that India is the biggest market for two-wheelers and will remain the biggest market for some time.

“We produce and consume 19 million two-wheelers every year — even more than China, where there

are 17 million. And in all of these two-wheelers it will be lead batteries, because these vehicles don’t need a long driving range, they just do local runs, go to school, the shops, on the farm — no more than 50-70 kilometres a day. And they can be plugged in at home or anywhere.”

Another growing market, says Pug, is the e-Rickshaw market. “This is shared mobility. For a small amount you can share a ride from the station to your home, and e-Rickshaws are also run on lead batteries because the operator makes more profit on lead batteries, maintenance is easier and lead is rougher and tougher.

There are no safety issues, like there are with lithium, and everybody’s using them.”

All India installed capacity of power stations as on March 31, 2018 — in MW Ownership/Sector

Thermal (coal, gas, diesel)

Nuclear

Hydro

Renewables

Grand total

State

72,113.38

0

Private

86,600.3

0

3,394

65,516.72

Central

64,192.91

6,780

12,041.42

1,502.3

84,516.63

222,906.59

6,780

45,293.42

69,022.39

344,002.39

Total

74 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

29,858 2,003.37 103,974.75 155,511.02

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COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE 12%, 5% and zero tax.)

This March the government moved to tighten the rules with its so-called FAME initiatives.

A major move to encourage EV transport started in April 2015 with the so-called FAME-1 initiative.

FAME-1 — Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India — ended this March.

This was specifically a subsidy for all battery powered vehicles. Until last September about 90% of the subsidy went to lead powered electric scooters. This was removed, dealing a blow to the e-scooter market.

The second iteration of the incentive, known as FAME-II, came into force at the end of March. The announcement by the Ministry of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprise largely hit OEMs off-guard as it introduced new restrictions on the eligibility criteria for electric buses, passenger vehicles, three and two-wheelers.

“FAME-II continues to exclude lead acid battery-powered two-wheelers,” research house CRISIL said this April. “Additionally, as per the latest eligibility criteria, e-scooters ought to have a minimum range of 80km per charge and a minimum top speed of 40 kmph, along with clauses on energy consumption efficiency, minimum acceleration and higher number of charging cycles.

“This precludes more than 90% of the remaining lithium ion batterydriven models from the subsidy.”

The outlay of Rs895 crore ($130 million) for FAME-I has been increased 11-fold to Rs10,000 crore ($1.4 billion) in FAME-II, which will be implemented over three years starting this April 1 and will be applicable to vehicles with ‘advanced batteries’ (excluding lead acid ones).

About 85% of the outlay would be as a demand incentive applicable to buses, passenger vehicles and threewheelers registered for commercial usage and public transport, along with privately owned two-wheelers.

One result of the change of incentives will be to push battery manufacturers and OEMs further along the technological road in terms of developing better products.

That said in the near term it will hit both the uptake of new vehicles and the related battery market.

In a further move to advance the technology of the small automotive market. FAME-II has also mandated that all buses and passenger vehicles (except e-Rickshaws and e-carts)

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should have regenerative braking capability to be eligible for the incentive. Since regenerative braking puts greater stress on the battery and rapidly shortens cycle life better batteries will be needed.

This will do three things: improve the standard of EV manufacture, boost the uptake of advanced enhanced flooded batteries and absorbent glass matt products to go with stop-start cars and provide a fillip to the introduction of lithium batteries.

Doing business in India

According to the latest World Bank annual ratings, India is ranked 77 among 190 world economies in terms of the ease of doing business. It may not seem impressive but what is impressive is that it jumped an astonish-

ing 23 places last year as the government eased up on the regulations to let the economy leap forward. And all the more so that in 2014 it was ranked 142nd (later revised to 140th).

Much of the credit for this goes to the opening up by the 2014-2019 government under prime minister Narendra Modi, who made extensive moves to make foreign investment in India simpler as well as transacting imports and exports.

The government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative continues to lead to large-scale investment into the country. Firms such as mobile phone manufacturer Samsung Electronics, for example, has opened the world’s largest mobile phone factory in India. This will double Samsung’s Noida unit capacity for mobile phones to 120 million units a

According to the latest World Bank annual ratings, India is ranked 77 among 190 world economies in terms of the ease of doing business. It may not seem impressive but what is impressive is that it jumped an astonishing 23 places last year as the government eased up on the regulations to let the economy leap forward.

Much of the credit for this goes to the opening up by the 2014-2019 government under prime minister Narendra Modi, who made extensive moves to make foreign investment in India simpler as well as transacting imports and exports.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 77

COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE year from 68 million.

But that’s not to say there isn’t a wide variety of opinions on how foreign companies should do business in India and the issues that they face. In principle there are two basic models over where to base your operations.

Do you want to have a permanent manufacturing base in the country and expose yourself to an economic and political climate very different and sometimes disadvantageous from your own? Or do you want to leverage all the positive aspects of a manufacturing location at the heart of your sales market?

Each side of the argument has its proponents. International firms such as Digatron, Daramic or Wirtz Manufacturing have moved their manufacturing operations into the country with success. Other firms — equally

respected by Indian buyers — continue to prefer to be an international supplier rather than a domestic manufacturer/supplier.

“Most international firms don’t find any real difficulty with doing business in India,” says Craig Brunk, a vice president of international battery testing manufacturer Bitrode. “I certainly haven’t and in my years of selling testing equipment into India, I can’t remember ever having had any real difficulties.

“In fact it’s rather the opposite in that we have an in-built advantage. Indian firms recognize a greater value or quality in our product being manufactured overseas rather than domestically. Certainly there’s a price premium that is understood by the local market in our products made in the US. “That’s not to say that Indian manu-

facturing is of a lower quality — rather that the domestic market perceives it to be.”

Sunil Bhambhani, managing director of Ador Digatron — a joint venture between Germany’s Digatron and India’s Ador — disagrees. The perception that Indian manufacturing is of poorer quality “was perhaps true some years ago. But today Mercedes Benz vehicles made here in India are sold in right-hand drive countries globally including Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

“Buyers don’t have a problem with that as the quality levels are the same as those of cars manufactured in Germany. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) holds the world record for the largest number of satellites put in space through one launch.

“If these two extreme cases of qual-

THE RISE AND RISE OF E-RICKSHAW

About 10 years ago, a new vehicle started to appear on India’s roads — it was similar to the traditional tuk-tuk, the three wheeled petrol/ diesel driven mini-car, open at the sides, that have been traditional across the country. But it was different. It was powered by lead acid batteries.

The thinking behind it was simple.

Why not replace the two-stroke diesel engine in the auto-rickshaw with a battery? Aside from the fact that auto-rickshaws are heavily polluting, weren’t the economics of it better with a battery?

In 1999, Mahindra and Mahindra launched its first electric three wheeler, but commercialization proved difficult and its first company flopped. In 2006 Mahindra tried again and is now a leading player in electric vehicle

78 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

and e-Rickshaw products.

Within a decade the number of e-Rickshaws in Delhi had grown to 100,000. In mid-2018 it was reckoned that 1.5 million e-Rickshaws were to be found on India’s roads.

But the 48V lead battery that powers this fleet of vehicles could be profitably improved to the advantage of both manufacturer and user.

Today’s battery manufacturers are trying their best to create a battery life of 18 to 24 months for e-Rickshaws. Exide Industries produces two batteries — a flat plate battery E-Ride Plus with a six month warranty for Rs7,000 ($100), and a tubular version for around Rs11,000 ($160) with a 12 month warranty. The six-month warranty is common.

“Some tubular design batteries last for a period of 12 to 15 months, but most flat plate batteries only work for seven to eight months,” says CS Ramanathan, a well-known battery consultant. “We need to get a place where the battery warranty should be 18 months so that e-Rickshaw drivers can make a better profit.”

Ramanathan points out that a flat plate battery gives a greater capacity than a tubular plate battery but the life span is shorter and, as a consequence, tubular batteries are more popular.

Lead 48V batteries continue to be the standard e-Rickshaw battery but there are related problems around them — as well as a shorter battery life, there is also their weight, which is around 120kg, and the long charging time required. This can be as much as 10 hours.

This is an economic disadvantage in that auto-rickshaws using internal combustion engines simply require refuelling. Given some auto-rickshaws and taxis are driven around the clock — two drivers will alternate their shifts to maximize profits from the vehicle — e-Rickshaws have a disadvantage.

Cab aggregator (a ride hailing service) Ola has said it plans to add 10,000 electric vehicles —

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COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE ity made in India are so casually possible, then it must be so for all other elements as well. It’s the same for many other products including Ador Digatron products. What we manufacture is indistinguishable in quality from that from Germany.”

Other international firms are still puzzling over the issue of location.

TBS Engineering, headquartered in the UK but with operations around the world, is considering setting up operations in India. An announcement on the decision will probably be made later this year. Industry speculation suggests that it will locate in Pune, close to Digatron’s operations. Digatron and TBS have a long history of collaboration.

Irrespective of location, most international vendors say one of the key things to have in place is a good han-

dling agent on the ground that can deal with customs, the paperwork and the bureaucracy that still characterizes much of modern India.

Payment terms via letters of credit or documentary collection are rarely a problem. The alternative is payment or partial payment in advance. Open account is not allowed in India.

That said the contract should be clearly defined and always state the terms for delivery and payment of goods and services. Indian law does

e-Rickshaws and electric auto rickshaws (hybrids that power the battery which then power the car) — to its fleet over the next year under its “Mission: Electric”. It also plans to put solar panels on the roofs of its vehicles.

Ola says it will also bring one million electric vehicles on the road by 2021. It is in discussion with several state governments to create an appropriate policy environment to deploy electric three-wheelers.

That said, other factors coming into play are that e-Rickshaws are cheaper to maintain than the traditional auto-rickshaw; and perhaps most importantly, given that air quality in India’s cities is some of the worst in the world, they make no carbon dioxide or NOx emissions. (Though of course much of the smog generated from coal-fired power stations is distributed elsewhere.)

One solution could well be the use of lithium ion batteries, which provide vastly improved cycle life, quicker charging and are lightweight.

The disadvantage of course is price. The average cost of a lithium ion battery is around Rs55,000 to Rs60,000 ($800 to $850) more than a lead battery, according to Kinetic Energy, an early pioneer of lithium powered e-Rickshaws.

One related problem is that e-Rickshaws run on batteries which put extra strain on the overtaxed electricity grid.

An average electric rickshaw takes up to 7-7.5 units of electricity, which is charged domestically (or commonly by pilfered electricity through unregistered sources).

In its drive to improve India’s charging infrastructure the finance ministry is finalizing a plan to spend about Rs40 billion ($600 million) over the next five years. The greater part of this money will be for e-Rickshaws.

India is planning to deploy electric vehicle charging stations every 25 kilometres along its highways and roads. This is in line with the government’s ambitious 2030 deadline of having 25% of vehicles in the country all-electric by 2030.

EVI Technologies, which is receiving state funding, said this February it is looking to install up to 20,000 EV charging stations at key locations across India within

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“Most international firms don’t find any real difficulty with doing business in India. I certainly haven’t and in my years of selling testing equipment into India, I can’t remember having ever had any real difficulties.

Craig Brunk, vice president, Bitrode

the next 18 months. At the end of 2017 India had just 425 public charging stations.

Many aspects of the e-Rickshaw business are still unregulated.

One recent survey suggested that just 150 of the 3,000 e-Rickshaw drivers in one city had a driving licence.

Additionally, as both surveys and anecdotal evidence suggest, e-Rickshaw drivers routinely carry far more passengers and goods than is legal or safe.

But the e-Rickshaw boom looks unstoppable.

As many as 11,000 new e-Rickshaws hit the streets every month, and annual sales are expected to increase by about 9% by 2021, according to Rahul Mishra, a principal at consulting firm AT Kearney.

Major players in this market are Mahindra & Mahindra and Kinetic Engineering, along with smaller outfits that assemble parts imported from China.

The government rules that the e-Rickshaw must: • • • • • •

run on battery power, four 12V batteries run a 650W motor not have a maximum speed more than 25kmph can carry 4-5 passengers require neither registration nor licence plate carry a maximum of four passengers and 40kg of luggage e-carts can transport goods of up to 310kg.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 79

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WIRTZ PASTERS DELIVER WORLD CLASS RESULTS, MORE PRODUCTIVITY AND MORE PROFIT Take a good look at these expanded metal plates which were pasted on a Wirtz SBP steel belt paster.

They are perfectly flat and as you can see the stacks of 50 plates are all completely even. The thickness and weight control is incredible — each stack of 50 plates is within plus or minus 2 grams. That’s plus or minus 2 grams per 50 plates! There is no paste on the top or bottom frames or the lugs.

Punched, Expanded or Continuous Cast plates can be produced at up to 200 feet per minute, or 60 meters per minute

The Wirtz steel belt paster is a precision machine which guarantees exact plate thickness control.

It can be supplied as a stand-alone paster or as our new SBP Combo paster cutter in a single space saving frame. The plate cutter can be either electronic or mechanical. It is designed to run at up to 200 feet per minute and can run at that speed with the Wirtz high speed robotic plate stacker. Our patented feature “On the Fly” thickness control allows thickness changes to be made while the machine is running.

To learn more on how Wirtz can improve your plate quality and your production output, call a Wirtz sales representative at +1-810-987-7600 or email sales@wirtzusa.com.

INNOVATION. PERFORMANCE. RELIABILITY.

COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE not regulate late payments, and settlement action through the courts can be expensive and take a long time. India has an extensive bank system that despite the ever-present bureaucracy is business supportive.

But that’s not to say everything is easy, whether machinery is made in India or outside it. Many international suppliers say that shipping the goods to India is not the end of the story; rather, there are difficulties in moving products from state to state.

The biggest challenge companies face is the unique architecture of how Indian governance works, which is badly intertwined between the central government and state governments.

The reason for this problem is simple. State laws and incentives are structured to attract investments, which the local political bodies see as critical to driving economic growth. But they are also dependent on the electoral constituencies of ruling parties.

It’s not uncommon for neighbour-

ing state governments to have vastly differing legislations on labour, land acquisition, commercial taxes, priority sector categorization for incentives and intrastate movement of goods.

Put simply, the attractiveness of the fact that India is one land mass doesn’t offer any easy benefits of scale for the logistics of delivery. These come into play in a substantial way when planning investments in India. A good location for distribution may turn out to be a poor one for doing business.

THE SEPARATOR MARKET Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing region for battery separators. China leads the way in demand for battery separators — mostly because the country has emerged as a hub for automobile production — but India is the next largest market.

Most international separator manufacturers have made moves into the Indian market but Daramic, owned by Japanese chemical giant Asahi Kasei, has taken the largest market share. Daramic in particular has taken the Make in India message to heart and continues to invest in manufacturing plants across the country.

Other firms such as Entek, another world class separator firm, have formed a joint venture in Indonesia with local firm Separindo — the aim is to export separators across the

region and enter the Indian market that way.

A large proportion of separators at the cheaper end of the Indian battery market are shipped from China.

Perhaps the best known Indian brand is MICROTEX. The company was set up as Mysore Thermo Electric Industries in 1969 by Ambraith Govindan, an entrepreneur and inventor. At the time wooden/rubber separators were the norm in Indian batteries and Govindan championed the cause of PVC as the separator material of choice.

Later he was awarded a patent for the invention of Pluri Tubular Gauntlets, which were sold under the brand GLASPOL. The natural route for Govindan, who died in 2015, was to diversify his company structure into manufacturing lead acid industrial batteries, which he did during the mid-1970s. The landmark moment for the firm was the steady export of some 4,000 traction batteries annually to the USSR. The Celtek brand for the batteries eventually became the name of one part of the A G Group firm in 1989.

The factory where the separators are made is in Peenya, Bengaluru in the southern state of Karnataka.

Its covered area is some 26,600 square feet and it is set in five acres of land. The whole complex employs around 300 people.

With the arrival of the first moves in India to manufacture lithium battery cells — as opposed to their assembly — there will be a growing demand for lithium battery separators, which have a more complex and difficult manufacturing process.

Meanwhile, huge advances in separator technology continue to emerge. Daramic, for example, has produced a special separator known as RickLife for India’s burgeoning e-Rickshaw market.

E-Rickshaw batteries are exposed to a challenging deep cycle environment, where premature battery failures are common.

RickLife combines an improved glass mat, special material formulation and profile rib design, which reduces positive active material shedding, water loss, grid corrosion, and acid stratification.

Daramic says its results show that the product delivers improved cycle life of e-Rickshaw batteries by as much as 50%.

Another product Daramic has designed, called HiCharge, is for tubular batteries — commonly used in India when paired with inverters as they are best suited for deeper cycle products and much used as back-up for power outages in the home. Tubular batteries are more expensive but last longer.

The benefits to the life cycle of the battery are similar to those for RickLife.

Perhaps the best known Indian brand is MICROTEX. The company was set up as Mysore Thermo Electric Industries in 1969 by Ambraith Govindan (pictured), an entrepreneur and inventor

82 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

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COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE ILZDA and Pure Earth have been piloting projects to encourage illegal backyard battery recycling to enter the mainstream — with benefits for all the players involved. Debbie Mason reports.

Getting to grips with lead in the environment This October a shocking report about lead poisoning and Indian children hit the headlines. A meta-analysis of 22 studies, by the Macquarie University in Australia, measuring the lead concentrations in the blood of Indian children showed that the number of children affected by lead poisoning was far higher than had been thought.

Higher blood levels leads to shorter lives, impaired brain function — one µg/dL of lead contamination in the blood causes more than half a point loss of IQ — and physical disabilities.

For children living in India, whose blood lead level contamination is at almost 7 µg/dL, the impact on IQ is huge, says lead author of the report Bret Ericson.

In India, recycling lead batteries is commercially attractive. But troublingly so, in that it can be profitably done in environmentally responsible plants and also profitably achieved in unregulated back yards, causing death and illness to those around it.

“Lead battery recycling is a big activity and growing by volume every year,” says India Lead Zinc Development Association executive director L Pugazhenthy.

“But there is a big problem with backyard recycling, which, together with small-scale battery assemblers, almost makes up a second-tier lead battery industry. So apart from the need to tighten up the illegal recycling plants, the lead battery industry in India is in a good state of health,” says Pugazhenthy, who is better known in the industry as Pug. Small battery recyclers will recycle perhaps just half a tonne of batteries in a day, but they don’t sell the lead to the big battery manufacturers — their market is what Pug describes as small, street-corner ‘fly-by-night’ battery assemblers, who in turn sell their re-conditioned batteries for cash.

They are constantly shut down with the threat of large fines and even prison, but simply start up again elsewhere.

“They are very small, in villages and

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small towns, and it’s an informal sector that is very hard to track down because they’re not registered, they don’t appear anywhere in the system,” says Pug. “They create pollution in the environment of the neighbourhood where they’re operating — there is no air pollution control system, no chimney, no cyclone back filter — just simple smelting apparatus.

“I don’t know of any actual lead poisoning cases but lead particles will be disappearing into the atmosphere and into the soil and sometimes even the water at ground level.”

It’s something that ILZDA is working on with the International Lead Association and the Pure Earth Blacksmith Institute, an international organization that aims to solve pollution problems in lower income countries.

“Regulatory bodies should be much stricter, they need to go for more penal action and see that these guys either disappear or improve their technologies,” says Pug. After 20 years of ignoring the issue, the Indian government finally woke up to the problems in the industry and allowed ILZDA to draft regulations that were implemented in 2001 governing battery makers, recyclers and retailers, Pug says.

The regulations included dealers re-

turning stock to manufacturers, computerized tracking of batteries and recycled lead, and a national inventory of stock.

“The regulations were mainly for the collection of used batteries and once collected, storage and safe transportation. They also made sure the batteries were given to the green recyclers and not the informal sector,” says Pug. “We held seminars and meetings, everyone was on board with this, the battery makers, retailers, the recyclers — even school children knew about this — the awareness was really increased.”

But the problem has only been partially solved — ILZDA’s push has meant change in one direction — and other initiatives are running alongside this.

Pure Earth, ILZDA and the International Lead Association, which is based in the UK, are working together to change this. The three aim to encourage the many thousands of backstreet lead battery recyclers to join a programme that aims to ultimately merge this socalled “informal sector” into the official Indian organizations that would eventually enable them to join the mainstream lead battery industry.

The scale of India’s lead recycling problem and related health needs is breathtaking in its scope.

Pure Earth, which changed its name

A meta-analysis of 22 studies, by the Macquarie University in Australia, measuring the lead concentrations in the blood of Indian children showed that the number of children affected by lead poisoning was far higher than had been thought.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 83

COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE in 2014, ranks the used lead battery industry as the worst polluting industry in lower income countries in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALY).

DALY is a World Health Organization measure of ‘disease burden’, or the number of years lost because of ill health, disability or early death.

Pure Earth estimates the number of DALYs lost due to used lead batteries is between two million and 4.8 million worldwide.

In India, the figure is difficult to confirm because of the nature of lead battery making and recycling in the country — much of which takes place in the illegal and unregulated back yard sector.

Recyclers sell their products to street corner battery makers and assemblers, who in turn sell their products for cash.

Thuppil Venkatesh, widely known as the ‘Lead Man of India’, is the national chairman of INSLAR — the Indian Society for Lead Awareness and Research.

“The situation is bad in most of the cities in India,” he told Batteries International. “Back yard recycling can’t be evaluated as no formal systematic study has been carried out. The only way to find out how many used batteries are recycled informally is to take into account the annual production of lead acid batteries in the organized sector and the batteries collected.

“In my view less than 50% of batteries are getting back to licensed vendors.

“A big proportion of lead batteries are made by back yard manufacturers and sold as unbranded, mostly in rural areas, and partly in an urban set-up with a much lower price tag attached as they don’t comply with any regulatory or statutory norms.”

Using the carrot, not the stick

In the Pure Earth, ILA and ILZDA project, these small organizations are not being threatened with prison or hefty fines. They are being encouraged to upgrade their equipment and get themselves qualified so they can merge with each other and form larger, official companies.

Promila Sharma is the South Asia coordinator for Pure Earth.

To assess what was going on in India, the organization went on a reconnaissance mission to India’s poorest state of Bihar, where much of this informal recycling and battery assembling takes place.

“We are not an advocacy group — we do not believe in naming and shaming.

Our focus is on public health,” Sharma said.

“In Bihar we have one of the worst

84 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

case scenarios, where almost 90% of the battery recycling is happening in the informal system, because there are hardly any formal recyclers in the state.

“They are receiving industrial battery scrap from Nepal, from Bangladesh — all corroborated by the ILA, which has been in Nepal and seen it. We went to Bihar to look at public health and how we could mitigate it.

“We found many sites just across the road from schools, or above small shops, and when we tested children under 10 years old we found that on average, their blood lead level measured

30mcg/dl. The safe level is just 5mcg.

But they’re not aware of these health issues, and with our partners in industry and government we are trying to figure out how to solve it.

“One solution is to encourage and persuade them to get into the mainstream, to do it the right way. So we are going to do an experiment in Bihar. We are going to collectivize a group of up to 25 informal recyclers and try to help them build the capacity and qualifications to do it properly, maybe joining forces to become bigger organizations but with universally accepted standards.

IDENTIFICATION OF PROJECTS Sharma says the project was brought about under the organization’s global Toxic Site Identification Programme, which identifies and assesses the implications on public health of various pollution-causing industries around the world.

In 2009, Pure Earth India hired people to — quite literally — walk the streets to seek out informal lead battery sellers and recyclers.

“We trained people in how to find sites, how to interview people, how to sample contaminated land,” she says. “All of these data were added to an online database and we now have a protocol that is similar to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Hazards Ranking System.”

(The HRS is the principal mechanism used by the EPA to add waste sites to its National Priorities List, based on limited investigations that assess the potential of sites to pose a threat to human health or the environment.)

“We try to look at pollution sources — these people we hire go out in the field, meet the locals, contact the local agencies and record all that information,” says Sharma.

“Between 2009 and 2011, our database had more than 350 sites on it that were all heavy metal pollutants. We handed this information over to the Indian government, and out of those sites, we identified more than 100 where we said the government needed to intervene to save lives.

“The government took cognizance and from 2012 onwards they worked to get those sites cleaned up.

“That was when we noticed that lead was one of those pollutants.

It was there in the soil, and that’s when on further investigation we found that the informal sector was everywhere. It’s difficult to count them, there are pockets everywhere and the network is too far spread out.”

After securing some funding from USAID, the international aid arm of the US federal government, Pure Earth organized teams to look for lead-contaminated sites, and after 2015, more than 200 were found — potentially affecting the lives of some 40 million people.

“And this is not the entire country,” says Sharma. She says the Indian government has set out actionable points including reviewing current legislation and rules on battery management and handling and to increase awareness of lead pollution so that the issue becomes as well known as air pollution.

The last official government rules to be implemented on battery handling and management were published in 2001. The disparate nature of the informal battery sector makes the rules largely unenforceable.

In the 2015 study Managing Used Lead Acid Batteries in India: Evaluation of EPR-DRS Approaches, by the department of Business Economics at the University of Delhi, researchers recommend a ‘Scenario II’, where informal recycling would be integrated with the mainstream recycling system through separate collection agencies at municipal/ town/regional levels to collect batteries from retailers, consumers and scrap dealers.

“It takes care of the interests of both the formal and informal stakeholders,” the report says.

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COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE India is being swept up in the race to adopt lithium batteries. The next step is to move away from its tentative moves in assembling lithium battery packs to manufacturing them domestically.

The race is on!

As governments across the world set their own dates — many of them fanciful — to ban sales of new internal combustion engine vehicles, the race is heating up to supply all the lithium batteries the new electric vehicles are going to need.

Nowhere else is more caught up in the frenzy to make batteries than India, which has set its own date of 2030 to sell only electric vehicles — by which date, according to the United Nations, its population will have exceeded China’s and easily number more than 1.4 billion people.

You don’t need to have a maths degree to work out that if a fraction of that number owns an EV, a lot of batteries will be required.

The Indian government is promoting electric vehicles and lithium batteries, and under the FAME-II scheme cuts the Goods and Service Tax on lithium batteries from 28% to 18%. The tax cut did not apply to lead batteries.

Companies — also following the government’s Make in India initia-

tive — have been quick to lay down plans to capitalize on this by building plants rather than relying on imports.

According to the Economic Times of India, Exide Industries, Exicom, Amaron, Greenfuel Energy Solutions, Trontek, Coslight India, Napino Auto & Electronics, Amara Raja, Trinity Energy Systems and Versatile Auto Components have all revealed plans to make their own lithium batteries.

India’s largest battery maker, Exide Industries, signed a joint venture with Swiss lithium battery maker Leclanché in June last year to add the chemistry to its portfolio. A plant is scheduled to begin operating next year.

CEO and managing director Gautam Chatterjee told Batteries International at the time that the firm was responding to Indian government policies.

“Since the government is focusing on the electric vehicle industry we thought to stay relevant we should go into this,” he said.

“We were looking for a company to

Nowhere else is more caught up in the frenzy to make batteries than India, which has set its own date of 2030 to sell only electric vehicles — by which date, according to the United Nations, its population will have exceeded China’s and easily number more than 1.4 billion people

86 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

help develop this and chose Leclanché to work with. Initially it will be limited to buses and two and three wheelers, but gradually this will expand and include all kinds of cars.

“The JV will focus on e-transport, stationary energy storage systems and speciality storage markets. In etransport, the target segment is fleet vehicles including e-buses, e-wheelers and e-Rickshaws.”

The JV will also provide energy storage systems for India’s EV market and grid-based applications.

When it comes to the race to build India’s first so-called gigafactory — a term coined by Tesla’s Elon Musk, whose own plant in Nevada is just 30% completed yet is nevertheless the highest volume battery plant in the world — a number of firms are in talks.

Final discussions have begun on the first to come into the spotlight, a collaboration between the Indian government majority-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals and a consortium called Libcoin, which includes Sydney-based Magnis Energy, the Duggal Family Trust and lithium-ion battery specialist Charge CCCV. The initial plant will have a capacity of 1GWh but this will be scaled up to 30GWh, rivalling the Tesla plant.

Press reports quoted Libcoin chairman Rajan Duggal stating his intention: “Our plan is to be the largest lithium-ion battery manufacturer in India, and we aim to be the first mover in one of the world’s largest markets. The interest this project is generating, especially in the Indian automobile sector, is very exciting.”

“We see India as one of the largest markets in the world for lithium-ion batteries and to potentially build one of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery gigafactories with a partner who possesses the skill and expertise of BHEL is exciting for the company,” said Magnis chairman Frank Poullas.

Another firm in the gigafactory race is Munoth Industries, which is to spend Rs799 crore ($115 million)

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COVER STORY, INDIA: THE BIG PICTURE on a plant in Andhra Pradesh, investing Rs165 crore ($24m) in an initial phase but ultimately producing 1 million Ah of lithium batteries every day. The plant will reach full operation by 2022, the company said.

Japanese motorbike maker Suzuki has formed an alliance with Toshiba and Denso to set up the firm’s first lithium battery manufacturing plant in Gujarat for a spend of Rs1,150 crore ($165m). Maruti Suzuki aims to launch an affordable electric vehicle by 2020, and is evaluating the technology in Wagon EVs in parts of the country.

Automaker Mahindra & Mahindra announced in February 2018 that it had forged an alliance with South Korea’s LG Chem to make lithium batteries in India specifically for domestic EVs. Hemant Sikka, president and chief purchase officer at Mahindra, said the move would give Mahindra access to advanced battery technology.

“The electric vehicle revolution is taking the country by storm and at Mahindra we are happy to be at the forefront of this change,” he said. “At Mahindra we are preparing to scale up in accordance with our expansion plans to meet demand expected in the near future.”

Government thinking is clear — the move into manufacturing lithium cells rather than assembling battery packs is the next step forward.

According to the National Energy Storage Mission report in late 2017, while India does not have the capacity to begin mass producing lithiumion cells in the short term, it could take advantage of its strengths in manufacturing and assembly to capture significant value in the battery supply chain.

Lithium-ion cells could be imported from competing vendors, all subject to strict quality requirements to ensure durability and safety, while battery pack assembly and programming would take place domestically.

Historically, cell value has decreased faster with volume than battery pack value, offering India a longterm, valuable industrial opportunity.

Early electric vehicle contracts for India, like Tata’s electric buses, imported fully assembled battery packs from foreign countries. Yet Indian companies from around 2017 began to recognize that importing a fully assembled battery pack is simply adding a middle man into the EV value chain.

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India has a very strong industrial labour market for technical assembly and programming — the two essential components of battery pack assembly.

According to a government report, importing a fully assembled battery pack (assumed at $200/kWh during initial stages) is forfeiting $50/kWh$80/kWh that could have otherwise been kept in India.

“Importing the lithium cells, in which India does not yet have market advantage, and assembling packs domestically is the best way to maximize revenue and minimize costs during initial stages,” says the report.

“The estimated 120 GWh of cumulative demand during 2017–2020 would cost $24 billion in imported packs if a domestic industry were not developed, whereas assembling the packs in-country would require $15 billion-$18 billion in imported cells, while developing a $6 billion-$9 billion pack assembly industry in India.”

The National Energy Storage Mis-

sion was debated throughout 2018, and in mid-March this year a cabinet meeting approved a variation on this, the National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage.

While the initial National Energy Storage Mission thinking was almost entirely focused on EVs, this later changed to include stationary power.

But the initial deliberations followed the ‘Make in India’ concept, trying to free the country from its dependence on foreign oil imports.

“Batteries are a one-time upfront investment for EVs, serving as an asset (with potential for additional revenue streams through secondary use in stationary applications in India) and contrasting with on-going operating expenses for fuel needed for petrol or diesel vehicles.

“Every battery purchased will reduce oil imports for many years to come, improving future years’ trade balance and reducing India’s exposure to oil price shocks,” said the report.

THE HUNT FOR GIGA-RESOURCES In April India and Bolivia announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding for the development and industrial use of lithium for the production of lithium-ion batteries.

The reasoning is simple: lithium is not mined in India, giving another twist to the Make in India initiative. But if lithium cells are to be made in the country, as opposed to being shipped in and assembled into battery packs (which has started to happen), a supply chain needs to be put in place.

India, as the second largest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world, and with the goal of reaching 30% electric vehicle penetration by 2030, imports almost all its lithium ion batteries.

India is heavily dependent on China, Taiwan and Japan for imports, especially of batteries required for portable electronics.

China is the biggest global consumer of lithium, and a Chinese consortium has recently signed a JV with Bolivia.

Bolivia will support supplies of lithium and lithium carbonate to India. There will also be joint ventures between the two countries for lithium battery production plants in India.

Bolivia holds more than 60% of the world’s reserves of lithium.

Bolivia holds more than 60% of the world’s reserves of lithium.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 87

INDIAN BATTERY FIRMS: EXIDE INDUSTRIES Exide Industries is the dominant player in the duopoly of India’s battery market. Like its rival Amara Raja, it continues to show an inventive aggressiveness in expansion.

Seemingly unstoppable Exide in one shape or form has been active in India’s battery market for over a century. In a series of name changes it has changed from its old Chloride name to Exide Industries. En route it has hardly looked back at all.

The company, headquartered in Kolkata, manufactures the widest range of storage batteries in the world, from 2.5Ah to 20,400Ah capacity, covering the broadest spectrum of applications.

Exide has various factories dotted across the country including two plants that make home UPS systems.

In India the company markets its products under the Exide, SF, Sonic and Standard Furukawa brands and supplies to all car and two-wheeler manufacturers. In the international market it sells products under the Dynex, Index and Sonic brands.

Exide has a distribution network of 4,000 outlets, supported by four regional offices and 28 branch offices.

It also exports batteries to the Middle East and CIS countries.

It manufactures industrial batteries, which it sells under Exide, Index, SF, CEIL and Power Safe brands and in international markets under the CEIL, Chloride and Index brands.

Industrial batteries cater mostly to the infrastructure sector, such as railways, telecom, power plants, solar cells and other industrial segments including uninterrupted power supply, inverters and traction batteries.

Exide also manufactures high-end submarine batteries.

International positioning

In the early 2000s the company positioned itself to be a regional Asian player with a global reach.

It acquired a 100% stake in Chloride Batteries S E Asia Pte, in 2001, a 61.5% stake in Associated Battery Manufacturers Ceylon in 2004, 100% stake in Caldyne Automatics in July 2007 and Tandon Metals in October that year. In 2008 it acquired a 51% stake in Leadage Alloys India, and in 2012 an inverter manufacturing facility in Uttarakhand.

Moves outside the region include the acquisition of a 51% stake in UK–

88 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

new manufacturing processes for automotive batteries. The objective was to make better quality automotive batteries at a lower price.

Product capabilities

“The new punched grid technology, as opposed to the older expanded metal technology, will catapult the industry to a new height in terms of product reliability and customer satisfaction” Gautam Chatterjee, Exide CEO based ESPEX Batteries in 2003 and a wide range of technical collaborations that are increasingly active.

One of the first of these was a technical collaboration with China’s Changxing Noble Power Sourcing China in 2008 for the manufacture of deep cycling batteries for electric bicycles and scooters. The firm was also involved in developing batteries for a variety of stop-start micro-hybrids.

In January 2012 Exide entered into technical collaboration and assistance agreements with East Penn Manufacturing in the US. The relationship has been long and deep.

Initially East Penn provided technical assistance and support for the manufacture of automotive motive power standby telecom UPS solar and traction batteries for Exide’s various plants in India.

In February 2013 Exide entered into a new technical licence and assistance agreement with Shin Kobe Electric Machinery from Japan, to implement

Exide continues to push out its products, tailoring them specifically to advanced products.

In June 2016 Exide Industries launched the Solarblitz range of batteries in Lucknow, targeting them at the solar markets of rural India, where power cuts are frequent and prolonged. The Solarblitz range of batteries are specially designed for solar applications.

That same year, and with bulk energy storage a major priority in the country, Exide signed two technical collaboration agreements during the year with East Penn for UltraBattery technology for stationary industrial applications.

The UltraBattery — a lead acid battery with an ultra capacitor as an electrode — offers extended cycle life at a partial state of charge. This collaboration with East Penn, and an associated investment of Rs700 crore, helped result in a new state-of-the-art battery making plant at the Haldia West Bengal factory. It was inaugurated in January 2017.

Part of the aim of the upgrade was to automate production and Exide

EXIDE VERSUS EXIDE In June 2018 Exide Industries signed an agreement to buy a closed-down factory belonging to lead acid battery manufacturer Tudor India, the Indian arm of the US company Exide Technologies.

In May 2017, the Indian firm settled an argument with Exide Technologies over the use of the Exide trademark in India. After 19 years of legal tussles, the US firm finally gave up its claim to the trademark. The sale of the factory marks the end of the US firm’s production in India.

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INDIAN BATTERY FIRMS: EXIDE INDUSTRIES India has announced it intends to produce and sell only electric vehicles by 2030 in its push to reduce the country’s dependence on oil. introduced punched grid technology from East Penn in the assembly process.

“The new punched grid technology, as opposed to the older expanded metal technology, will catapult the industry to a new height in terms of product reliability and customer satisfaction,” Gautam Chatterjee, Exide’s CEO said at the time.

Exide was the first battery manufacturer in India to use East Penn’s technology, which is carried out by robots to eliminate inconsistencies between different units of batteries. The technology also increases battery life by 20%. These batteries will be sold at a premium under a new sub-brand.

The expansion will increase Exide’s annual production of around 34 million automobile batteries by 15 million batteries, the firm said.

In early 2018 Advanced Battery Concepts, the lead bipolar company, announced that it had agreed a fourth licensing agreement, this time with Exide.

ABC says the technology simplifies lead battery manufacturing and improves performance by increasing cycle life, reducing weight and reducing charge time because of the 46% lower lead metal content in the battery. It is also recyclable.

In August 2018 Exide partnered Japan’s Furukuwa Battery, another pioneer of the UltraBattery, that allows it

to make and sell the product for Indian car makers.

The sub-licence agreement includes a contract for Furukawa to provide technical assistance to Exide, with which it has had a technological alliance since the mid-2000s, the company said.

“Furukawa Battery is providing Exide with technologies to produce highquality, long-life lead-acid batteries.

By doing so, Furukawa Battery will support the upgrading of Exide’s batteries and the expansion of its product line-up,” a company statement said.

Exide plans to move into the production of high-end nickel batteries in technical collaboration with Furukuwa. The batteries are used in applications for bullet trains, metro rail and other critical installations.

Technical assistance contracts were made between the two companies in 2005 for automotive batteries, in 2007 for valve-regulated lead batteries for motorcycles, and in 2012 for stop-start batteries.

As a result of these investments and collaboration, in January 2018 Exide launched its Epiq brand. The battery comes with a six-year warranty — the highest in the Indian market.

Later in the year the company entered into technical collaboration with Moura, the Brazilian battery maker.

In recent years Exide has explored the possibility of making lithium ion

FINANCIAL OUTLOOK: STRONG Exide is the largest lead acid battery manufacturer in India with leadership in the auto OEM and replacement segment. But, between financial years 20132017, Exide clocked a net sales/ profit after tax of 5.9% and CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 7.3%.

This was lower than its competitor Amara Raja’s profit after tax of 15.9% and CAGR of 13.1%.

Exide’s growth in the last few years has remained subdued compared with Amara Raja’s due to the latter’s technological innovations (first to introduce maintenancefree, factory charged, extended

90 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

warranty batteries), and unique distribution model (franchiseebased), supported by operational efficiency-led competitive pricing.

However, since May 2016, when Gautam Chatterjee took over as MD & CEO of Exide, the company has adopted several initiatives at market and product quality level.

These initiatives are now reflected in market share recovery, product quality improvement and recovery in margins.

Exide is on track to reduce the performance gap vis-à-vis its peers such as Amara Raja.

Source: Motilal Oswal research note

batteries. This started with a technology cooperation agreement with China’s Chaowei Group, which started in the 2016/2017 financial year.

At the end of August last year, it signed a joint venture with Swiss firm Leclanché to create a production facility in Gujarat. Initially the plant, which should come on line before this summer, will assemble cells from Leclanché’s facility in Willstätt, Germany before domestic cell production starts in mid-2020. Exide is the majority shareholder in the JV. India has announced it intends to produce and sell only electric vehicles by 2030 in its push to reduce the country’s dependence on oil.

In November 2018 Exide launched a new range of UPS batteries especially for the home and small office market.

The Power NXT lead acid batteries work across a wide range of applications for SOHO (small office/ home office) users and other small businesses such as diagnostic centres.

According to the 2017 report WorkIndia by Regus, a global provider of workspace products, around 62% of business people in India work 2-1/2 or more days a week remotely.

Exide continues to address all aspects of the lead battery manufacturing chain. Last August it announced a variety of plans to invest more than Rs5.5 billion ($78 million) in creating new facilities at its existing plant in West Bengal. This will make it one of the biggest battery-making centres in south-east Asia. The work should be near completion by the start of 2020.

Some 20 acres of the new development will be devoted to a new battery recycling plant. Media reports say this will be the country’s largest battery recycling plant, with a monthly capacity of 15,000 tonnes. It will involve a technical tie-up with Italy’s Engitec Technologies.

The company already has two scrap battery recycling units, at Pune and Bengaluru. The Haldia unit would take around 12-15 months for the unit to be operational.

The company’s lead recycling operations are carried out by its subsidiary Chloride Metals. Chloride Metals was created in March 2016 through a merger of two of Exide’s wholly owned subsidiaries Chloride Metals and Chloride Alloys.

Separately, in January 2013, Exide Industries acquired 100% of the equity capital of ING Vysya Life Insurance, which was later changed to Exide Life Insurance Company.

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INDIAN BATTERY FIRMS: AMARA RAJA Amara Raja is the second largest battery manufacturer in India but in little more than a generation it has grown from a start-up to a giant.

The rise and rise of Amara Raja Even the biggest battery firms have to start somewhere. And for industrial battery giant Amara Raja, its story begins with its founder, Ramachandra Galla.

After completing his first masters degree in India, he took a second masters in engineering in the US. After which he worked for legendary power design company Sargent and Lundy.

But aged just 36 he returned home to India in 1984. His return to India couldn’t have happened at a more opportune time.

Economic growth, inspired in part by premier Indira Ghandi’s attempts to free up markets and ease controls, pushed GDP growth for the 1980s decade above 5% a year.

In February 1985 Galla set up two firms in his home district of Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh — Amara Raja Power Systems and Amara Raja Batteries. The choice of the name was a sentimental one — Galla’s grandparents were Amaravati and Rajagopal Naidu.

The firms were small at first, initially with just 12 employees, but grew rapidly. In 1989 the firm set up its industrial battery division, a mainstay of its business, but perhaps the most critical year in the firm’s development was in 1997, when it received ISO9001 certification.

This paved the way for a joint venture with Johnson Controls in December that year. Johnson is the world’s largest manufacturer of automotive batteries, and in 2001 the first batteries rolled off the manufacturing line.

It was the first time that Amara Raja had challenged Exide Industries, the number one leader in the automotive sector, with all guns blazing.

Amara Raja, which is a publicly quoted company and listed on the SEX, is 26% owned by the Galla family and 26% by Johnson Controls. JCI took up its present stake in 1997.

The 2000s onwards were record

92 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

Ramachandra Galla: the battery firm he set up named after his grandparents Amaravati and Rajagopal Naidu has become an international giant

years for the group.

Between 2000 to 2004 the company launched: Amaron automotive batteries, Quanta UPS Amkaron Hiway and Harvest batteries, Amaron PRO GO and FRESH automotive batteries.

In the 2007-2008 financial year, the company increased the capacity of its automotive battery plant from 3.6 million units to 4.9 million units, which includes additional capacity created in monobloc (VRLA) batteries.

In May 2008 the company entered the two-wheeler battery market with the launch of Amaron Pro Bike Rider two-wheeler batteries powered by VRLA technology.

In February 2009, a deal was signed with car maker Maruti Suzuki India for retailing Amaron MGB (Maruti Genuine Battery) through Maruti Authorized service centres. Meanwhile the firm’s international reach was expanding and a month later the firm signed a deal with Tata International for export of automotive

batteries under the Amaron brand in African markets.

In December 2010 the company unveiled Amaron Volt Hi-Life batteries for critical industrial applications and the Amaron Sleek batteries for industrial applications.

In June 2013 Amara Raja Batteries’ automotive batteries division began supplies of two-wheeler batteries to Honda Motors India for its plant in Karnataka.

The following January the company commissioned the modern and fully integrated MVRLA battery plant in a new location at Chittoor Andhra Pradesh.

In November 2014 an investment of Rs 500 crore to set up a tubular batteries manufacturing plant with an annual capacity of 1.44 million units.

The following April its four-wheeler automotive battery plant at Nunegundlapalle village Bangarupalyam Mandal Chittoor District (Unit II) opened with an annual capacity of 2.25 million units. Meanwhile its two-wheeler battery capacity increased from 11 million units a year to 25 million.

In March 2016 further growth continued with the expansion of fourwheeler battery capacity from 8.25 million units annually to 11 million.

That June the company started selling tubular batteries.

In September 2017 the company introduced Amaron Brute Hi-Life batteries for motive power application to address a growing market segment.

But the big event that year was in December when Amara Raja Batteries commissioned its two-wheeler battery plant at the Amara Raja Growth Corridor in Chittoor Andhra Pradesh with an eventual annual 29 million battery capacity.

Today the Amara Raja group — the first two firms had various spin-offs into other companies — employs a workforce of more than 14,000 people, working for six companies and 14 business sectors. From its roots in a remote village called Karakambadi in Chittoor it is now headquartered in Hyderabad, reckoned to be the pharmaceutical and biotech centre of India.

Amara Raja is best known as the manufacturer of automotive batteries and home UPS/inverter batteries under the brands Amaron and PowerZone, which are distributed through

www.batteriesinternational.com

INDIAN BATTERY FIRMS: AMARA RAJA a pan-India sales and service retail network.

Amara Raja Batteries supplies automotive batteries under OE relationships to Ford India, Honda, Hyundai, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Ashok Leyland, and Tata Motors, Honda Motorcycles & Scooters India Private, Royal Enfield and Bajaj Auto, among others. Amara Raja Batteries is also the leading private label supplier for prominent brands.

In India, Amara Raja Batteries is the preferred supplier to major telecom service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers, the UPS sector, Indian Railways and to a variety of other industry segments.

Amara Raja’s Industrial Battery Division produces brands such as PowerStack, Amaron Volt, Amaron Sleek, Amaron Volt Amaron Brute and Amaron Quanta.

In 2019 the firm said it had set up a bipolar battery division.

Competitive position

There are two key lead acid players in the Indian battery market — ­Exide Industries and Amara Raja. This duopoly leaves the historically longer established Exide the larger player of the two, but not in all sectors. Amara now beats Exide in the telecom sector — with around a 55% share — and around 34% in the UPS market.

According to market analysis from Motilal Oswal, between the financial years of 2004 to 2016 Amara Raja enjoyed a compound annual growth of 34% and after-tax profits of 68% in net sales. This contrasts with Exide’s 20% for each.

“This has been driven through a combination of technological innovations (first to introduce maintenancefree, factory charged, extended warranty batteries), witty advertising and unique distribution model (franchisee based) supported with operational efficiency-led competitive pricing,” says Motilal Oswal analyst Janish Ghandi in a research note.

Ghandi says the firm is gearing up to be a leader through consolidating in existing areas, entering new business opportunities within the battery space — mainly home UPS, solar and motive power and aided by capacity and network expansion. In the telecom segment, he expects the firm to maintain its market share at current levels for the 2019 financial year.

Recent moves

Amara Raja continues to brace itself

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for a boom in lead batteries. Two initiatives last October suggested new directions that the firm was going in.

The firm confirmed its expansion plans were continuing and it is in the process of setting up another car battery plant in the Andhra Pradesh Corridor, the same district as its existing plants.

A budget of Rs700 crore ($95 million) has been earmarked for the plant, which has a projected capacity of 6.5 million units in a first phase.

Eventually the capacity will reach 10.8 million units, making it one of the largest facilities of its kind in India, the company says.

The existing car battery plants already make batteries for four and two-wheelers, as well as LVRLAs — large valve-regulated lead acid batteries.

Although in its 2017-2018 annual report Amara Raja mentioned the importance of lithium-ion batteries and their advantages over lead acid, the company also forecast a compound annual growth rate of 8.36% up to 2022 for its core lead acid technology.

“Two-wheelers are among the largest user of SLI batteries and the automotive segment contributes in excess of 60% of the total turnover of the Indian lead acid battery market,” the report says.

“The automotive sector, smart cities, digital India program, shift towards data-driven telecom services, solar power projects etc will lead to a surge in demand for lead-acid batteries in India.”

Earlier in October, Johnson Controls and Amara Raja signed an agreement aiming to bring new battery technologies to India.

While the two firms have already worked closely together for more than two decades, the new pact will share product design and manufacturing technologies for SLI, EFB and AGM batteries, a statement said.

Amara Raja has licensed Johnson Controls’ PowerFrame grid technology, which JCI claims is critical for meeting requirements dictated by the ‘Bharat VI norms’, which will go into effect in 2020.

(These are emission control standards on fuel introduced in 2000 in India, based on European standards that limit the amount of sulfur in petrol and diesel to 10 parts per million.)

Manufacturing the PowerFrame grid, which JCI says is 66% more corrosion resistant than other battery grids, uses 20% less energy and releas-

es 20% fewer greenhouse gases than other manufacturing methods, and is thus more environmentally friendly.

Marc Andraca, who is vice president of strategy and business development with JCI, and the Johnson Controls lead upon the Amara Raja board of directors, said: “This provides both our organizations with a powerful platform to introduce leading advanced lead-acid battery technologies and accelerate Amara Raja’s drive to achieve undisputed leadership across the dynamic Indian automotive battery market.”

The firm announced on its website that this February it was expanding its production lines to include bipolar batteries.

It also continues to consolidate its lead supply and last May signed a deal with Gravita India, the lead recycling firm, for Gravita to collect and buy lead acid battery scrap from designated Amara Raja sites, process the materials into lead and lead alloys and then supply them back to Amara Raja. Gravita aims to supply 8,000 tonnes of lead a year.

International expansion too

In July 2018 the firm set up Amara Raja Batteries Middle East, a wholly owned subsidiary, at Sharjah Airport International Free Zone in the United Arab Emirates. In its regulatory filing said it had an authorised share capital of AED150,000 ($41,000).

The expansion at home and internationally reflects a growing optimism about the state of the Indian economy.

The IMF predicted in that India will be the fastest growing major economy in 2018, with a growth rate of 7.4%.

Next year it is forecasting 7.8%.

The Indian business press says Amara Raja Group is consolidating the group holdings across the various companies under a newly formed holding entity, RN Galla Family Pvt Ltd. A corporate structure for the holding entity, which so far was a partnership firm, is being created by the demerger of Amara Raja Electronics, to which group’s shareholding of listed entity Amara Raja Batteries has been transferred.

Amara Raja Electronics Pvt Ltd, a promoter-held company that manufactures products like digital inverters, battery chargers and converters is being demerged to carve out two resulting companies, RN Galla Family Pvt Ltd, the group holding company, and Amara Raja Power Systems.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 93

for a

Formation Systems with

Acid Recirculation Technology

better formation www.inbatec.de

INDIAN BATTERY FIRMS Exide Industries and Amara Raja may take some 90% of India’s battery business but other battery manufacturers are doing very well indeed.

The great and the also good Luminous

Although eclipsed by Exide Industries and Amara Raja, India’s third largest battery firm has made giant strides in recent years. Luminous itself is similar to Amara Raja — its origins were created in the same year — in that its history reads more like a rags-to-riches fable than of its very real dynamic entrepreneurship.

Its founder Rakesh Malhotra had a difficult couple of years, first it was with the creation of Oak Power Systems, the first offline UPS firm in India, which went enormously well but later struggled. The following year Malhotra tried again with a new firm, SAR Silicon Systems, and by 1991, after several years of design and testing, SAR introduced an inverter under the Luminous brand name. Four years later SAR introduced an offline UPS under the Luminous brand name.

In many ways an offline UPS system is a perfect product for a country where power shortages and black outs are frequent. Malhotra offered not just a better priced product but also managed to add a design element to it: normally inverters were ugly products and hidden away.

In 1994, SAR started diversifying and took interest in other businesses, such as telecommunication infrastructure, knowledge process outsourcing and renewable energy.

By 1997 SAR was an established nationwide firm, with TV advertising and even a 24/7 customer support call desk.

But it was in 2004 that SAR took its great leap forward. Until then the firm had used private-label Exide batteries with its inverter. Malhotra, with characteristic energy, took the unusual decision to manufacture his own batteries and in an inspired move bought a second-hand battery plant in Cyprus, which he then shipped to India.

He then bought some of the latest battery technology from US company Eagle Picher, which he refurbished as a new battery factory in Himachal Pradesh, in the very north of India.

But it was in 2007 that the Luminous name properly appeared at a company level. Although he had borrowed $9 million to set up the battery factory, pledging the Luminous brand name as collateral, it now seemed the right moment to change the firm’s name to Luminous Power Technologies. He tapped the capital markets for $21

AND LIVGUARD TOO …

Entrepreneurship seemed to be in his genes as Malhotra in 2014 set up another battery firm, Livguard Energy Technologies, which is said to be India’s fastest growing energy storage company, Around that time Malhotra bought back Luminous’ automotive battery business, where revenues were trebled in just a couple of years, Malhotra says there is a huge interest in the energy storage space but it is hard for venture capital firms to justify investing in start-ups.

Last October, SAR Group reentered the inverter and inverter batteries segment of the market,

96 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

saying it aimed to corner 15% of the market in the next couple of years. SAR has already invested in two plants in a greenfield investment in Himachal Pradesh.

Livguard says it has an annual production capacity of 1.8 million tubular inverter batteries, 1.2 million inverters, 2.8 million automotive and e-rickshaw batteries and two million motorcycle batteries.

LivGuard recently announced it plans to expand its product portfolio and will invest Rs60 crore ($8.6 million) in marketing expenditure for the 2019-2020 financial year.

million to expand.

That year he did this in two ways.

The first was to set up its own manufacturing facility in China. The second was to set up Lectrix Motors, which he describes as making “India’s only indigenously developed and integrated electric two wheeler technology”.

In 2011 he cashed in his chips and with co-founders Navneet Kapoor and Sunil Bhalla sold a 74% stake to France’s Schneider Electric for $307 million. Malhotra was just 49 at the time of the sale. The three cashed in the remaining 26% three years later.

Nowadays Luminous says it operates seven manufacturing units with more than 28 sales offices in India and a presence in more than 36 countries.

It says it has 6,000 employees serving more than 60,000 channel partners and millions of customers.

And Malhotra? Some of the money was already earmarked for his next venture. In 2012 the creation of Luminous Water Technologies, later to change its name to Livpure, started off selling water purifiers and later diversified into air purifiers.

That summer he joined Indian Angels Network, a consortium of investors looking to promote start-up businesses.

As part of this he set up Ncubate Capital Partners. Ncubate’s aim was to back entrepreneurs who are determined to build business of lasting significance and impact.

HBL Power Systems

HBL NIFE Power Systems — formerly known as Sab Nife Power Systems — is a battery and power systems company based in Hyderabad. The company is a result of the merger in 1999 of Hyderabad Batteries (HBL) incorporated in 1977, and SAB Nife Power Systems, incorporated in 1986.

The company says it has become the leading supplier of specialized batteries and power electronics in India and has a strong presence in several other countries.

Sab Nife Power Systems was incorporated in 1988 by A J Prasad in a joint venture with Nife and began commercial production that year. In 1992, the company diversified into manufacturing UPS systems. In 1993, it also started manufacturing storage batteries including sealed lead acid batteries.

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INDIAN BATTERY FIRMS In 1998-99, HBL and Pinaki Technologies was merged to make switch mode rectifiers in the Mahabubnagar district of Telangana. In 1999-2000, the company name was changed to HBL Nife Power Systems.

Okaya Power

Okaya Power, founded in 1987, produces batteries for inverters, automotive, e-rickshaws, UPS and solar applications, as well as power backup, water purification, IT infrastructure and housing applications in India and internationally.

It is best known for its power tubular batteries and has set an ambitious target to become the world’s largest power tubular battery manufacturer from India by 2020.

Okaya says it is among the fastest growing battery brands in India with an annual installed capacity of 6 million batteries and a nationwide network of more than 24,000 dealers and 1,350 distributors across India.

Okaya Power is a division of the Okaya Power Group of companies.

This includes Okaya Power, Okaya Infocom, Okaya Energy Systems, Microtek International, Joos (a mobile phone battery firm), Nasaka (a water purifier) and others.

Southern Batteries

Southern Batteries manufactures lead acid tubular batteries, valve regulated lead acid batteries, flat plate batteries, traction batteries and automotive batteries under the brand name Hi-Power.

The company manufactures a

98 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

wide range of batteries from 20Ah2000Ah in 2V cells, 20Ah-240Ah in 12V Monoblock PP/HR, 10V, 8V and 6V ranges. The company has another manufacturing facility in Jigani, Bangalore. It says it has a prominent share in the solar, railways, telecommunication, UPS and inverter markets. It was established in 1980 by S R Pillai.

Celtek Batteries/Microtex

AMCO Batteries

Aegan Batteries

AMCO Batteries is an automobile and commercial battery manufacturing company headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It is a part of Amalgamations Group, one of India’s biggest light engineering groups in India.The product profile of AMCO includes automotive, inverter, genset and UPS batteries.

Base Corporation

Base Corporation says it is one of India’s top five battery manufacturers, specializing in power solutions for automotive, industrial and at-home power solutions. It was established in 1987. With its headquarters in Bangalore, Karnataka, it has international offices in China and Dubai, and is a TS16949, ISO-9001 and ISO-14001 certified company.

Its products range from 2.5Ah to 200Ah for two-wheelers, automotive batteries, solar batteries, inverters, generators and UPS for both home and industrial usage. With more than 1,600 employees and a network of 15,000 retailers, the firm says it reaches 204,000 new customers every month.

Founded in 1969 under the name AG Group, Mysore Thermo Electric Private Limited was a separator manufacturer which in the 1970s became involved in battery making. One of its branded batteries is Microtex.

In 1989 the group traded under the name Celtek Batteries to manufacture lead acid batteries.

Aegan Batteries was founded in October 2010 at Bengaluru in the state of Karnataka. The firm says it is engaged in manufacturing and supplying a quality range of industrial batteries from a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant at Malur, 50km from Bengaluru.

Alf Batteries

Alf Technologies (India) — better known through its brand name AKIYO — is a closely held limited company headquartered in Ahmedabad but with offices in New Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Indore, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi.

The company, which was incorporated in 2010, is into contract manufacturing and markets a wide range of lead-acid batteries from Hitachi on a pan-India level.

In July 2016, Alf partnered Hitachi Chemical, part of the Japanese Hitachi group, to try and take a larger stake of the Indian automotive battery market. The two said at the time that they aimed to take a 10% market share in the sector within three to five years and a projected turnover of Rs250 crore in the same time frame.

The batteries sold in the Indian market were manufactured at Hitachi’s Thailand plant, which at the time had an installed capacity of 1.4 million units per year. Hitachi said it planned to expand the plant’s capacity to 1.9 million units per year by 2018.

The firm said at the time there were no plans for a dedicated plant in India, due to a free trade agreement with Thailand.

Its product range includes lead acid batteries for motorcycles, cars/four wheelers, tractors and agro-equipment, trucks and HVCs, inverters, UPS, solar and other stand-by power applications.

Alf is a member of Battery Council International in the US and a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Society of Automobile Engineers. Alf is also ISO 9001 Certified from TUV South Asia.

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EVENT REVIEW: BATTERY INDIA 2019 BATTERY INDIA 2019 Marriott Hotel, Panjim, Goa, India • January 5-7

Location, location, location What’s not to like? That’s always been the case with the regular series of Indian conferences held more or less annually at Goa for the past decade.

The location is ideal. If palm trees waving in the sunlight looking out over the blue of the Arabian Sea is not for you, then stay away and miss the fun of an intelligent, informative conference set in something close to paradise.

But it’s not just a venue for the lotus eaters among the energy storage community, there was also solid presentations given by senior

figures within the industry.

The opening day’s talks were dominated by discussions over the role of lithium batteries — in particular in electric vehicles — in the future Indian economy.

The Indian government is effectively in a dilemma.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s campaign in the 2014 elections was “Make in India” a manifesto that he is repeating in this year’s spring elections. His government has also said it is committed to stop selling ICE vehicles by 2030 meaning that

Conference organizer Ajoy Raychaudhuri with exclusive showing of Toyota’s latest EV — the eQ

TBS’s Cross: positive on India

ACS Lead Tech’s finest: hard at work

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Luminous Power Technologies’ Amlan Kanti Das entertaining a rapt audience on the opening night

all new vehicles on India’s roads will be electric.

So how can the two be reconciled when the country has no lithium or cobalt resources, the price of lithium batteries is unaffordable when compared to lead ones and there are problems in recycling spent EV batteries?

The answer would appear to be with some difficulty. Perhaps the most interesting solution came from Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai.

His arguments were that India was already in a difficult situation — it has to import most of its oil, it has 14 out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, the question of providing a country-wide charging network was impractical and there is no question of the government providing subsidies for the introduction of EVs. But he argued that India’s vehicle fleet is different from the rest of the world — 79% are two-wheelers. The need for cars such as a Tesla with a 540km range and where the battery is the most expensive item is unsuitable for India’s driving condition.

Jhunjhunwala proposed that small low cost lithium batteries would be used offering a limited range and limited speed noting that this already was the way that driving in cities progressed at a snail’s pace.

In short he came up with a very Indian solution to the problems of electrification of the country’s vehicle fleet. It was both temptingly practical and suggested another way forward for driving in India’s exhaust polluted cities. The sad fact is that 2.2 million children in the capital, Delhi, have irreversible lung damage due to the poor quality of the air.

Overall there was a fine selection of strong speakers and presentations at Batteries India 2019. If a criticism is to be made it would be that the conference program had perhaps too many presentations and finished late in the afternoon denying some of the delegates the pleasures of one of the most attractive conference locations on the world.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 99

EVENT REVIEW: AABC AABC Strasbourg, France • January 28-31

Technology says go but affordability still a concern People often say that conferences, like businesses, have their own life cycles. They struggle at the beginning, eventually start to flourish, then they hit the right spot for the industry, do well, grow complacent and then tend to atrophy.

But that’s not been the case with AABC, which started with a bang in 2001 when Menahem Anderman initiated the first set of conferences.

These continued annually until 2010 when two conferences a year were planned — the first in Europe and the second in North America.

Although there was a lull in the mid-2010s, Cambridge EnerTech bought the conference series and added new life into what was already a permanent event on most automotive manufacturers’ calendars.

Attendances for the last few years are back above the 1,000 levels.

One part of Cambridge EnerTech’s rejuvenation was to add a separate stream to the R&D symposia on the first two days looking at lead focused topics.

Some of the presentations here should have been must-attends for those seeking to be informed though they unfortunately they didn’t get the wider audience they deserved.

Although lithium batteries look set to be the energy medium of the next iteration of automobiles, huge advances in lead batteries have happened in the past few years.

One of the most interesting of these was the use of Argonne research laboratory facilities to have a peek at the atomic level for real time charge and discharge cycling. The resulting improvements to battery life and power are only just being discovered.

RSR Technologies has already started to commercialize this through a specially engineered suite of microalloying additions which enhance the charge acceptance of the lead battery — and make a substantial leap into closing the performance gap with lithium ion batteries.

Interestingly enough as Matt Raiford,

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Top: Strasbourg conference centre Below: Matt Raiford, RSR exponent of Argonne research into lead

a senior researcher at RSR, pointed out in his presentation (pictured above), the same tools that lead battery scientists were using for their advances — Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source synchrotron — had previously been used to push lithium battery development a few years earlier.

But the main theme of AABC inevitably continues to be the development of the batteries that will power future automobiles. The issue of price, quite reasonably enough, continued to be a dominant theme of the discussions — mass adoption of EVs will be triggered by affordability.

There were differing views on the direction of prices. The average

cost in China of an NCM battery fell to $174/kWh last year, and an average LFP battery fell to $145/ kWh, said Mark Lu, certified senior analyst at the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan in an extraordinarily well researched and detailed presentation. The Chinese government is targeting battery costs of $150/kWh as it defines policies to encourage large-scale uptake of EVs. That said the total cost of a battery pack is likely to remain around $150/ kWh, according to Christophe Pillot, director at France’s Avicenne Energy.

He reckons raw material costs alone are not expected to fall much below $75/kWh-$80/kWh. Pillot, whose predictions are much admired in the market for their historical general accuracy, reckoned that future price falls are likely to come from technical innovation.

Prices for lithium, nickel and cobalt are subject to supply volatility, and taking the lowest and highest levels for the past 10 years indicates costs of $10kWh-$67/kWh, said Kurt Vandeputte, senior vice-president of the rechargeable battery materials business unit at Belgium’s Umicore.

A wide variety of battery technologists from OEMs attended this year: Audi, BMW, Blue Solutions, CEVT AB, Daimler, Ferrari, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Huawei, Magna Steyr, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan, Opel, Porsche, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Renault, Rolls Royce, Scania, Stihl, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen, Williams, and Volvo.

Battery developers included A123, AVL, Banner, BrightVolt, BYD, Continental, East Penn, Exide, FEV Europe, FIAMM, Furukawa, Huawei, Johnson Controls, Northvolt, Panasonic, Robert Bosch, SAFT, Samsung SDI, SK Innovation, Toshiba, XNRGI and ZSW. The next European AABC will be held at the RheinMain CongressCenter in Wiesbaden, Germany from January 12-16, 2020.

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 101

EVENT REVIEW: 28TH INDEPENDABLE POWER SOURCES 28th Independable Power Sources Novi Arbat, Moscow • March 19-21

Warm business in a cold climate

The 28th Independable Power Sources exhibition may not be the longest serving in the world but it’s pretty close to it. Every year it attracts a faithful core of international and domestic players and certainly is one of the annual fixtures of the lead battery conference circuit.

Better known as ‘INTERBAT’ — actually this is the name of the trade body that organizes the event — this year’s conference and exhibition was full. The main exhibition hall spilled out and many booths had to be accommodated in the passageway leading to it.

Russia is certainly one of the most interesting battery markets in the world, for many of the right reasons as well as the wrong ones.

Perhaps the most disconcerting fact about doing business there is the international political dimension that pervades the business environment.

Western hostility to the annexation of Crimea — where up to 85% of the Crimean population wanted to belong to Russia and not Ukraine — is met with puzzlement. Sanctions have had a limited impact and are more a sense of resentment against the west than anything else.

The success of the conference has in many ways been tied to the success of the Russian economy.

With the explosion of car sales that began in the early 2000s there has

102 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

been a corresponding surge in the need for automotive and quality car batteries.

The sale of passenger cars has risen from around and below one million a year in the late 1990s and early 2000s to double in the early 2010s.

Russia’s economic revival has been reflected in a boom of car sales — Moscow itself was reckoned in 2018 to be the second worst city in the world for traffic jams. The first that year was Los Angeles.

INTERBAT continues to attract a faithful following of international battery players. “I always appreciate coming to INTERBAT,” says Morten Christoffersen, head of Accurate Products. “I think I’ve only missed coming here twice in its history. Russia is a great place to do business and INTERBAT is a doorway into this market.

“Moreover the conference organizers are extremely helpful and supportive, from dealing with difficulties at a practical level in organizing the booth to helping with translation.”

Overall the exhibitors continue to be a mix of international — mostly European but with a good scattering of Chinese players — and domestic players. The 50 or so exhibitors’ booths were attended by representatives from at least 15 countries, but as ever this is not an accurate representation of

Pictures: Top: Street view of Moscow outside the hall. Left: Opening of the exhibition and conference. Right: A copy of Batteries International proved better than a slide in Exide Russia’s presentation

the international presence, with European subsidiaries of larger players also being represented.

One interesting grouping at the show was an almost umbrella setup organized by Sorfin Yoshimura, now better known as SY Group — a combination of Germany’s Inbatec, Spain’s Terranova Papers, Mac Engineering from the US and Sorfin, which has offices around the world.

The aim of the informal grouping was to be able to offer a one-stop solution to potential customers by providing a range of expertise.

This year there was a two-day conference running alongside the exhibition. This was held in Russian.

“This is a great conference to go to,” one international delegate told Batteries International. “Russia is a huge country and this show brings everyone into one place at roughly the same time. Whether it’s for sales or just catching up with customers it’s a must-attend for anyone serious about doing business in the country.”

The next ‘INTERBAT’ meetings will be again in March next year.

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS CMT’s E-mobility Conference Asia

Thermal Materials Summit

EV Battery Tech 2019

Los Angeles, US May 2

Frankfurt, Germany May 2-3

As demand for electric vehicles are expected to increase in Singapore, the country’s electricity and gas company SP Group plans a network of 1,000 electric vehicle chargers in Singapore by 2020.

The EV chargers are expected to be 250 high-powered direct current with power ratings up to 350kW. The chargers will be able to support EV models with large battery capacity and longer driving range.

This event is an excellent platform to promote your organization to influential players and investors in the industry.

The Thermal Materials Summit will educate attendees on the latest advancements in thermal interface materials for professionals working in markets such as: Aerospace, Electronics Packaging, Automotive, Semiconductor/ICs, LED Cooling, Motor Controls, Power Supplies, Discrete Electronic Devices, Telecom and Batteries.

The conference is designed for design engineers, academia, system engineers, material scientists, CTOs and R&D managers whose products, operations and services depend upon sophisticated and precise control of thermal properties and states.

Contact Centre for Management Technology Tel: +65 6346 9138 Email: fiona@cmtsp.com.sg www.cmtevents.com/aboutevent. aspx?ev=190413

Contact TWST Events Nick Depperschmidt Tel: +1 720 799 1462 Email: nickd@twst.com www.thermalsummit.com

This is the premier forum for battery technologies for EV manufacturers.

Where electric vehicle battery technology innovators will meet with leading automotive manufacturers in Frankfurt to explore new battery technologies and battery management systems for use in next generation electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles.

This year’s event is set to become the world’s leading exhibition and conference exclusively for battery technology innovators and manufacturers, to meet and collaborate with a large array of automotive manufacturers, and to examine new methods and technical know-how to address the specific challenges associated with extending battery life for next generation electric vehicles.

Bangkok, Thailand April 25-26

BCI Convention and Power Mart Expo 2019 New Orleans, Louisiana, US • April 28-30

Contact IQ-Hub Ben Carlos Email: ben.carlos@iQ-Hub.com www.battery-technology-conference.com

The Battery Show Europe 2019 Stuttgart, Germany May 7-9 The Battery Show Europe, co-located with Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo Europe, is the industry’s largest and fastest-growing trade fair for advanced battery and H/ EV technology.

Some 400+ suppliers from across the battery supply chain, such as A123 Systems, CATL, Leclanché, Voltabox and Bosch Rexroth will display thousands of design, production and manufacturing solutions, including battery management systems, battery pack assemblers/integrators, materials, components, research, testing and recycling.

This free trade fair is an opportunity to source the latest energy storage solutions to reduce costs and improve the performance of battery applications.

Battery Council International’s convention and power mart expo is North America’s premier lead battery event attracting a huge national and international audience of around 600 delegates and some 50 exhibitors displaying their wares at the Power Mart Expo.

The recent introduction of the Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz innovation award has proved to be a huge success for the entire lead battery industry as candidates for the award display a huge range

104 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

of new products that have the capability of changing the business entirely.

With applications already being submitted for the award, 2019’s event situated in the heart of New Orleans should prove an exciting and worthwhile event to attend.

Contact Smarter Shows Tel: +44 1273 916 300 Email: info@thebatteryshow.eu www.thebatteryshow.eu

Contact Battery Council International Tel: +1 312 245 1074 Email: info@batterycouncil.org www.batterycouncil.org/page/2019Home

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The Leading Exhibition Series for Batteries and Energy Storage Systems

MAY 15–17, 2019, MUNICH, GERMANY EUROPE’S LARGEST EXHIBITION FOR BATTERIES AND ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS www.ees-europe.com

JULY 9–11, 2019, SAN FRANCISCO, USA NORTH AMERICA‘S ULTIMATE HOT SPOT FOR ENERGY STORAGE SOLUTIONS www.ees-northamerica.com

AUGUST 27–29, 2019, SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL SOUTH AMERICA’S NEW HOT SPOT FOR BATTERIES & ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS www.ees-southamerica.com

NOVEMBER 27–29, 2019, BANGALORE, INDIA INDIA‘S LEADING ELECTRICAL ENERGY STORAGE EXHIBITION www.ees-india.in

MARCH 3–5, 2020, DUBAI, UAE EES@MIDDLE EAST ELECTRICITY: MENA‘S MOST COMPREHENSIVE ENERGY STORAGE EVENT www.ees-mena.com

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Energy Storage International Conference and Expo (ESIE) Beijing, China May 14-16 Since its inception in 2012, ESIE has become the leading annual event for energy storage in China, bringing together nearly 6,000 attendees including government representatives,

academic experts, and private industry leaders both domestic and international.

The three-day event includes over 100 speakers covering the latest topics and trends in the energy storage industry, as well as over 60 exhibitors showcasing innovative energy storage technologies, applications, and services.

ESIE 2019 will also feature the Third Annual Energy Storage Innovations Competition, honouring the year’s best energy storage technologies and applications.

Other exciting events include industry leader salons, site tours, networking opportunities, new product releases, and more. For those eager to learn first hand about energy storage in one of the industry’s fastest growing markets, ESIE is the can’tmiss event of the year.

All Energy

Contact China Energy Storage Alliance-CNESA George Dudley Tel: (+86) 010-65667066-805 Email: george.dudley@cnesa.org www.esexpo.org/?lang=en

May 20-23 Japan

ees Europe Munich, Germany • May 15-17

May 15-16 Glasgow, Scotland All-Energy is the UK’s leading renewable energy and low carbon innovation event, showcasing the latest technologies and services for the energy supply chain and both private and public sector energy end users. All-Energy generates invaluable connections between the buyers and sellers of low carbon solutions across the UK marketplace.

Contact Reed Exhibitions Tel: +44 208 271 2179 www.all-energy.co.uk

International Conference on DC Microgrids

The conference aims to bring together practitioners and researchers in the field of dc microgrids and related technologies to advance our understanding and capability for endpoint use of dc power.

Technical sessions will be arranged around two foci-use of dc at the commercial and industrial scale, MW, and use at the residential scale, kW. Contact ICDCM Hiroaki Kakigano Email: kakigano@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp www.power.aitech.ac.jp/ICDCM2019/index. html

Europe Solar + Energy Storage Congress May 23-24 Rome, Italy

Discover future-ready solutions for renewable energy storage and advanced battery technology at ees Europe!

Europe’s largest and most visited exhibition for batteries and energy storage systems is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and users of stationary electrical energy storage solutions as well as battery systems.

In 2019, more than 450 suppliers of products for energy storage technology and systems will be present at ees Europe and the parallel exhibitions of The Smarter E Europe taking place in Munich.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a two-day energy storage conference where leading experts will delve into current questions of this industry.

Contact Solar Promotion Alice Brade Tel: +49 7231 58598-208 Email: brade@solarpromotion.com https://www.ees-europe.com/en/home

106 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

Europe Solar + Energy Storage Congress 2019 is the only event in Europe that discusses “Solar + Storage” concepts & business models specifically.

Estimated to draw over 400 industrial thought leaders representing regulatory offices, utilities, network operators, developers, investors, financiers, as well as third-party consultants, and solar storage equipment and system experts.

The event is also the largest business networking platform that connects key stakeholders who’re interested in digging the European solar storage market and who are currently seeking creditable partners.

Contact Leader Associates Molly Huang Tel: +86 21 6143 2100 Email: molly@leader-associates.com www.events.leader-associates.com/ europe2019/

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS International Energy Storage and Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Conference & Exhibition

Pb2019-21st International Lead Conference

Shanghai, China • June 3-6

June 18-21 • Madrid, Spain

International Energy Storage and Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Conference & Exhibition (IESH) covers the entire industry chain, focusing on PV-plus-storage, mobile energy and storage, hydrogen energy and fuel cells.

The aim of the exhibition is to promote international cooperation and exchange in the industry of energy storage, mobile energy, hydrogen energy and fuel cells.

Focusing on engineering technologies and products of PV-plus-storage, mobile energy and storage, hydrogen energy and fuel cells, covering the entire industrial chain.

The conference will gather policy makers, industry experts, scholars, leading enterprises, financial institutions, consultancies and media, in the field of PV-plus-storage, mobile energy and storage, hydrogen energy and fuel cell, to discuss the policies, cutting-edge technology, market trends, business model, and the financing channels.

Contact SNEC Tel: +86 21 33685117-888 / 806 Email: info@iesh.org.cn www.iesh.us/HomePage.aspx?lang=en#

EUROBAT General Assembly/Forum Berlin, Germany June 13-14 EUROBAT is the association for the European manufacturers of automotive, industrial and energy storage batteries.

EUROBAT has 52 members from across the continent comprising more than 90% of the automotive and industrial battery industry in Europe.

The members and staff work with all stakeholders, such as battery users, governmental organizations and media, to develop new battery solutions in areas of hybrid and electro-mobility as well as grid flexibility and renewable energy storage.

Berlin hosts EUROBAT General Assembly/Forum in June

108 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

Contact EUROBAT Tel: +32 2761 1653 Email: eurobat@eurobat.org www.eurobat.org

Pb2019 is the premier event for analysis and debate on all matters relating to lead, including mining, production, batteries, recycling and the environmental management of the metal and its compounds.

This year our programme includes the latest market trends and forecasts from worldrenowned industry experts and analysts together with updates on breakthroughs in advanced lead battery technology from the newly formed Consortium for battery Innovation.

Contact Maura McDermott Tel: +44 207 833 8090 Email: McDermott@ila-lead.org www.ila-lead.org/home

Advanced Automotive Battery Conference 2019 (AABC) June 24-27 San Diego, CA. US AABC was founded to review the status of automotive battery technology and provide informed glimpses into the future. The AABC 2019 program will uncover the underlying technical and business issues that will impact the pace and path of vehicle electrification worldwide.

Lithium-ion batteries are the chief candidate for most xEV applications. Yet, for each of them, some fundamental questions remain: What are their specific anode, cathode, and electrolyte chemistries? Which cell design? Which pack design? Which suppliers? At what cost?

And in what volume for each category?

These questions will be addressed at AABC 2019, where chief battery technologists will present their development trends and projected battery needs, and key suppliers will present their latest offerings and roadmaps for the future.

Contact Cambridge Enertech Dave Mello Tel: + 781 972 5400 Email: davem@advancedautobat.com www.advancedautobat.com/us/

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS

International Flow Battery Forum July 9-11 Lyon, France The meeting is aimed at all those interested in the deployment, commercialisation, demonstration, manufacturing, financing, component and material supply, and the sector of academic and industrial research of flow batteries.

The IFBF has a unique combination of keynote addresses, oral and poster presentations, seminars, and panel discussions to inform and educate delegates of the benefits of flow battery systems and for all to learn and share in the development of this exciting technology.

The programme will cover recent progress, scientific, engineering and manufacturing issues, study of financial, marketing and commercial issues and will be relevant to renewable generation developers, smart grid operators, and all companies and businesses active in electricity supply. .

SEPA Grid Evolution Summit July 29-August 1 Washington DC, US There is only one place where all of the top electricity stakeholders, from regulators, ISOs, and utilities to technology providers, academics, and government agencies, put their heads together to determine how we will modernize the electric sector: the Grid Evolution Summit.

You’ll have the opportunity to create solutions that will leave a lasting impact on our energy future. Don’t miss it!

Contact Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) Tel: +1 202 900 9030 www.sepapower.org/event-complex/2019-gridevolution-summit-a-national-town-meeting/

The 4th Asia (Guangzhou) Battery Sourcing Fair 2019 August 16-18 Guangzhou, China Asia GBF is one of the professional demonstration and trade platforms of battery & energy storage industry.

Hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of professional visitors will gather there.

Contact Guangdong Grandeur International Exhibition Group Aileen Chen Tel: +86 20298 06525 Email: grand.fi@grahw.com www.battery-expo.com/index.php?lang=en

ees South America São Paulo, Brazil • August 27-29

Contact Swanbarton Ltd Aud Heyden Tel: +44 1666 840 948 Email: aud@swanbarton.com www.flowbatteryforum.com

PlugVolt Battery Seminar July 16-18 Plymouth, Michigan US This event will feature an entire day of in-depth training by Exponent on battery design considerations, manufacturing best practices, thermal runaway events, failure analyses, battery management systems etc.

The next two days will include complimentary industry updates provided by subject matter experts from automotive and grid storage OEMs, major battery manufacturers and global Tier 1 system developers.

Attendees will also have an exclusive opportunity to tour Intertek’s 100,000+ square-foot battery testing centre of excellence, along with cocktails reception for industry networking.

Contact PlugVolt JC Soman Email: juratesoman@plugvolt.com www.plugvolt.com/seminars/

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The special exhibition — ees South America — is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary and mobile electrical energy storage solutions.

It will be hosted for the second time at Intersolar South America, taking place at the Expo Center Norte in São Paulo.

Contact Solar Promotion International Gioia Müller-Russo Tel: +49 7231 58598-218 Email: Mueller-Russo@solarpromotion.com www.intersolar.net.br/en/home/for-visitors/about-intersolar/focus-ees-south-america.html

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 109

INTE RNATIONAL SECONDARY LEAD CONFE RE NC E BA L I, I N D O N ES I A 2 – 3 SEP T E M B ER 2019

G L O B A L LY R E C O G N I S E D A S T H E O N LY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE DEDIC ATED TO THE WORLD OF SECONDARY LEAD HEAR FROM 2 5 + L E A D I N G E X P E R T S O N T H E M A N Y ASPEC T S OF S E C O NDA RY L E A D S M E LT I N G A N D R EF I N I N G

H EA R K EY SP EA K ER S F RO M:

Markets: updates of the lead market including insights into market situations

Montanuniversitaet Leoben

Plant Design: latest plant designs and operations

UN Environment Protection

Emerging Technologies; Latest from new process routes

Indian Lead Zinc Development Association

Refractories and burners: correct operating parameters

Consortium for Battery Innovation

Metallurgy of lead smelting and refining: Outline of the technology behind a smelter

The Ministry of Environment & Forestry, Indonesia

Slag’s and waste streams: Understanding the complex slag systems

Imperial College London

Environmental: legislation and pollution control

International Lead Association

Hedging: understanding the complex world of hedging and how it works.

...and more to come.

R E GI S T ER N OW Early bird prices are avaialable now, register early to save.

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS 18th Asian Battery Conference September 3-6 • Bali, Indonesia

6th International Secondary Lead Conference Designed for battery industry executives, customers, marketers, academia, researchers, sales teams, reseller networks and suppliers.

The Asian Battery Conference has a long and proud history of bringing together the world’s leading battery industry C-Level executives, marketers, technical staff and sales teams biennially to remain updated on new and emerging technologies, understand future directions, meet new suppliers, conduct business and network with industry peers.

An integral feature of the Asian Battery Conference is the exhibition. A true international opportunity, the exhibition sees the world’s major battery companies come together to showcase their capabilities and leverage off the considerable business development and direct sales opportunities the conference provides.

The Asian Battery Conference has seen tremendous growth since its inception in 1986, not only in terms of the size of the event but more importantly its ability to act as an educator and business development tool for all of the worlds key battery industry executives.

Contact Conference Works Tel: +61 3 9870 2611 Email: events@conferenceworks.com.au www.asianbatteryconference.com

112 • Batteries International • Spring 2019

September 2-3 • Bali, Indonesia The aim of this Conference is to share and increase knowledge over all segments of this vital industry, which produces the vast majority of the world’s lead supply. No other metal industry comes close to our mark on recycling of its own product.

The 6ISLC will bring together all aspects of secondary lead smelting; discussing plant design, smelting regimes, refractories, burner design, slag formation and structures, and pollution and environmental control among other presentations.

It is a further aim of the conference to open up for discussion all aspects of plant operations and control as to give not only operators, but people interested in secondary smelting a better understanding of the processes involved in the industry.

Contact Conference Works Tel: +61 3 9870 2611 Email: events@conferenceworks.com.au www.secondaryleadconference.com

www.batteriesinternational.com

FORTHCOMING EVENTS The Battery Show North America

INTELEC 2019

September 10-12 • Novi, Detroit, Michigan, US

October 13-17 • Singapore

The Battery Show connects you with more than 8,000 engineers and executives, and more than 600 leading suppliers, across the advanced battery supply chain.

A powerful, end-to-end showcase, this leading global industry event covers today’s emerging advanced battery technology for the automotive, portable electronics, medical technology, military and telecommunications, and utility and renewable energy support sectors.

Explore the full spectrum of cutting-edge solutions you need to make faster, smarter, and more cost-effective products at the most comprehensive industry event in North America.

Contact UBM Tel: +1 833 202 3467 Email: batteryregistration@ubm.com www.thebatteryshow.com

INTELEC is an international annual technical conference which, for the past thirty-nine years, has been the premier forum for the science and engineering of energy systems for Information and Communications Technologies.

Research and technical papers explore the needs and trends in the subject areas of power conversion, energy storage, and high-reliability and mission-critical powering infrastructure.

Topics include DC power plants, powering architectures, converters, inverters, batteries, fuel cells, grounding, physical and thermal designs, building and equipment cooling systems.

Contact www.intelec.org

The Business Booster

Interbattery

October 3-4 Paris, France

Seoul, Korea October 16-18

The Business Booster is an annual two-day international networking event that showcases 150+ sustainable energy technologies under one roof.

TBB rotates among our European capitals-in 2018 the event took place from October 17-18 at the Bella Center, Copenhagen-Scandinavia’s largest exhibition centre, with over 800 attendees consisting of startups, energy industry representatives, financial communities, policy makers and regulators.

InterBattery first launched in 2013 in Seoul, Korea, is Korea’s leading battery exhibition showcasing various new products and technologies related to battery industry. Running concurrently as a part of ‘Energy Plus’, it attracts over 900 domestic and overseas exhibitors and 1,500 booths!

InterBattery2019 has served itself as an exclusive business platform showing battery industry’s forthcoming prospects since its first launch.

Contact InnoEnergy Email: tbb@innoenergy.com www.tbb.innoenergy.com

www.batteriesinternational.com

Paris hosts The Business Booster

Contact COEX Irene Kim Tel: +82 26000 1393 Email: irenekim@coex.co.kr www.interbattery.or.kr/en/

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 113

MADRID JUNE 19 - 21

K O BO THE 21ST INTERNATIONAL LEAD CONFERENCE Melia Princesa Hotel Madrid, Spain, 19 - 21 June

W O N

Join us at Pb2019 for Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier lead conference in Madrid For the latest insight and analysis plus networking with global lead and lead battery businesses, including: Market updates

The outlook for lead and lead batteries from senior analysts and experts.

New research

Hear about the latest research and innovation in lead battery technology.

Materials Stewardship

Expert views on driving sustainability in the lead and battery value chain.

Legislative news Up-to-date regulatory intelligence and advice.

Pre-conference Workshop on managing lead occupational exposure.

For booking and more information Pb2019 is organised by the International Lead Association â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the only global organisation dedicated to supporting the interests of lead and its users.

Call Maura McDermott on 0044 20 7833 8090 Visit ila-lead.org/pb2019 Early bird rate available until 26 April 2019.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS The Battery Technology Show October 22-23 Coventry, UK Showcasing the incredible developments happening across the battery and energy storage markets. If you are looking to keep up with the latest news in breakthrough technologies, gain invaluable insight from key players in the market, and discover the emerging technologies, which are at the frontier of the energy revolution, this is the event for you. This show will feature a select line-up of world-leading manufacturers in the battery and energy storage space on our Expo floor, alongside a firstclass conference programme featuring three thought-leading symposiums: The Future of Battery Technology, The Future of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles, and The Global Battery Market.

Contact Evolve media group Tel: +44 117 932 2586 www.batterytechnologyshow.com

Batteries 2019

Energy Storage North America

October 22-24 Nice, France The market for batteries and their components has experienced a strong double-digit growth for 21 years and several positive factors should ensure that the rally continues.

For 20 years, the batteries event still remains one of the world’s most attractive event and the meeting place of technologies (lead acid, NiMH, Li-ion, post Li-ion), applications (from micro batteries to large format batteries) and of the value chain (chemists OEMs and end users)...

Batteries 2019 will focus on battery market issues, latest trends and will allow you to meet new partners and customers!

Contact Hopscotch Congrès Véronique Saint-Ayes Tel: +33 170 946535 Email: congress@hopscotchcongres.com www.batteriesevent.com

November 5-7 Pasadena, California, US

Once a year, a marketplace for the Energy Storage sector is established for the entire value chain to meet, network and learn in one location over three days. Thousands of developers, energy users, utilities and policymakers will gather in Pasadena to advance the understanding and deployment of energy storage.

Contact Messe Düsseldorf North America Matt Spikehout Tel: +1 312 621 5804 Email: mspikehout@mdna.com www.esnaexpo.com

ees India November 27-29 • Bangalore, India

The market potential for electrical energy storage in India is expected to be tremendous in the futureespecially driven by incoming policies for the e-mobility industry.

With the great success and support of ees Europe, Europe’s largest exhibition for batteries and energy storage, ees India becomes the most powerful energy storage exhibition in India.

The exhibition is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary electrical energy storage solutions. Covering the entire

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value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies-from components and production to specific user applications.

Contact Solar Promotion International Ludmilla Feth Tel: +49 7231 58598 215 Email: feth@solarparomotion.com www.intersolar.in/en/for-visitors/about-intersolar-india/focusenergy-storage.html

Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 115

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Batteries International • Spring 2019 • 116

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