Energy Storage Journal -Issue 38, Winter 22/23

ESS

The Performance Solution FOR STATIONARY APPLICATIONS

Gravity GuardTM Delivers Results

Cell phone towers around the world have lead battery back up systems. Here, battery life really matters. Longer battery life is one of the reasons we engineered Gravity Guard.TM Hammond’s patent-pending innovation minimizes acid stratification for advanced battery applications.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

One unlikely challenger to the market dominance of lithium batteries is starting to flex its muscles. In an exclusive interview with ABC's Ed Shaffer, he discusses the role bipolar batteries will play in BESS of all sizes.

WHERE THE REVOLUTION BEGAN

I don't care what the weatherman says ....blind thinking on our EV/grid future

THE MURRAY HILL THREE

Three scientists, three different backgrounds, one accidental discovery. A lightbulb moment for the world as they discovered how to turn light from the sun into electricity and so change our planet's future.

TAPPING FUTURE MARKETS

The drive into renewables and its corollary energy storage is largely unstoppable. But in a continent that is still largely strapped for money, this is how the battery markets across Africa are developing.

Leclanché's Sritastava its well known, popular CEO quits, Blanc and Broad to manage the firm

Australia's Volt Resources forms new unit in bid to tap into US lithium and lead markets

Tales of darkness as we lift the lid on mischievous deeds in conferences around the world

I don’t care what the weatherman says ...

Close your eyes, take your hands off the wheel and let your car drive you home. Or to work. Or to your holiday destination. That’s the dream of fully autonomous driving.

And it’s in our shops already! Didn’t you know it?

According to a survey of the general public in the US almost three-quarters of them believe that, if you have the money, you can buy a self-driving car.

And not just a car that will nudge you if you drift into a nearby lane on the freeway, but a fully and totally autonomous machine.

The question was posed to 2,000 drivers by Thatcham Research in the US this March where 72% believed that such a car could be bought now. A similar number of respondents in the UK gave a figure of 52%.

Given that this is the audience that battery manufacturers of all chemistries are pinning their hopes on, it shows a disappointing level of EV awareness.

Drilling down to the basics of the future reminds one of the joke about the First Law of Economists. It’s a simple one. For every economist’s opinion, there exists an equal and opposite one. (The Second Law then posits that they’re both valid and both wrong.)

The babble of informed and ill-informed opinion is now pointing in two directions.

First, there are the so-called ‘exuberants’. Expert opinion is mostly divided about how exuberant one should be. They say, probably rightly, that the energy transition is ploughing ahead full-steam and is unstoppable. But the timeline is vague.

At the extreme part of this camp are optimists such as the European Commission confidently predicting that European energy self-sufficiency if

Put aside talk of recession and economic doom and gloom — there’s a world of business opening up in developing nations that will keep batteries of all types thriving in the decades to come

not already there, is just around the corner.

Frans Timmermans, European Commission vice-president in charge of the Green Deal — and better known by Energy Storage Journal readers for wanting to get rare earths out of batteries and being technologically agnostic on all battery chemistries [except lead] — said this in October: “The era of cheap fossil fuel is over. For good. It will not come back.

“And while the era of cheap renewable energy is real and coming fast, it’s not coming fast enough to solve the problems this year or perhaps next year.”

Perhaps next year?!

Mr Timmermans may have wanted, like Alice in Wonderland, to believe six impossible things before breakfast but as a candid opinion on how Europe’s energy future is shaping up, he is about 10 years too optimistic.

That said Timmermans has captured the business flavour of what’s going on in Europe in particular and across the planet more generally.

Politicians, in general, have still yet to grasp that there’s a 100% link between renewables and energy storage in any brave new energy world of the future. What they do understand is that solar panels and wind turbines are the basic blocks of renewable energy.

Thankfully, the business world has filled in the gaps and dived into financing energy storage as well. The huge sums of investment here are focused almost exclusively on developments in lithium ion batteries. Despite the bleating at the time and subsequently, the Covid pandemic caused only minor delays in some of the planning for the megaprojects and gigafactories.

Don’t forget the doom and gloom

And in the other corner far from the exuberants are the sackcloth and hair-shirt brigade. They’re predicting that this is not just a recession around the corner but a global crisis too.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are about to get over-shadowed by stockmarket collapses, rampant inflation, an over-strong dollar and uncle

Tom Cobbley and all.

The term ‘permacrisis’ — a newly minted word for 2022 and defined as an extended period of instability and insecurity — has entered the language.

The fact is, however, predictions of the doomsayers are starting to unravel. If just a little bit. Everything from nonfarm payrolls in the US and similar employment levels across the EU are better than expected. Inflation is falling more rapidly than predicted.

Europe, North America and vast swathes of Asia are going to move into overdrive with a flood of new lithium BESS projects. The economic logic behind them is compelling even in a time of an economic slowdown.

On top of this, a new wave of battery chemistries is emerging that look set to outpace even these lithium projects.

Sodium ion, flow batteries using iron (as well as the more traditional vanadium) and mechanical means using compressed air, high pressure water and gravity are going to be contenders, perhaps even leading contenders, for storage projects in the decade to come.

Even the prime incumbent technology, the lead acid battery, will continue to enjoy a future of sorts though its role in stationery markets will clearly be curtailed.

Forgetting the newly emerging markets in grid storage, the automotive sector for the lead battery isn’t going to go away any time soon.

Last year, according to Wood Mackenzie research, some 80 million new vehicles were produced. Each of which had a lead battery inside them. And not forgetting around 8 million of these were EVs which have a back-up lead battery for safety systems and to power in-car entertainment systems.

Lead-acid batteries need replacing every few years. Given an average vehicle life of 13-14 years, last year’s 80 million vehicles will still be requiring replacement batteries in the early part of the next decade.

Lead’s usage profile is one of unexciting but steady growth, driven by the need to meet demand for replacement batteries in an ever-growing global passenger fleet.

Given this ill-informed audience that battery manufacturers of all chemistries are pinning their futures on, their disappointing level of EV awareness is frightening

And away from the exuberants and the hair and sackcloth brigage in yet another corner are the steady-state analysts. These argue that the higher charges for commodities will simply mean that the price of batteries goes up. But not by that much either. They argue, with some reason, that the cost of batteries had reached impossibly cheap levels and that the low cost of so much involved with — which has now been incorporated to some extent in all the traditional carriers — needed to be modified.

So recommendations for the future?

Yes, the economic downturn will inevitably bite. Some projects will be delayed but only for a while. Car sales will struggle again for a while. But our marketing spend should be up, not frozen. There's a whole world of business opening up elsewhere. Our feature in this issue on Africa shows a whole continent waiting to do buiness.

Mike Halls, Editor-in-Chief

Ecobat announces further senior appointments

Ecobat said on October 3 Carole Chichester had been appointed chief accounting officer — one of a series of recent appointments announced by the lead battery recycling group.

Chichester was most recently executive global controller for oil field services with the Baker Hughes company in Texas, where she over saw the financials of the $10 billion revenue business and its nine global product lines.

Chichester reports to new chief financial officer Lloyd McGuire, whose appointment was announced on September 19.

McGuire, who was most recently a corporate finance and restructuring partner at FTI Consulting, interned with The Blackstone Group’s GSO Capital Partners after serving on ac

tive duty in the US Marine Corps as a judge advocate.

In the military, he focused on litigation and was deployed to Afghanistan with an infantry bat talion, acting as legal adviser to the commanding officer on matters including fiscal law, investigations, detainee operations, and the law of war.

Other appointments include that of Erich Esser as MD of Ecobat Re sources Germany/Austria, who has been in the post on an interim basis since June. His official appointment was announced on September 16 and he will continue as MD of the company’s polypropylene division.

Esser joined Ecobat in December 2021 as MD of plastics resources, having spent more than 25 years

Parulian moves from Arbin to Keysight Technologies

Antony Parulian, former VP of sales and marketing at Arbin Instruments, has joined Californiaheadquartered Keysight Technologies as Americas e-mobility and energy storage business development manager and sales specialist.

Parulian announced the move in a LinkedIn post in August and praised

former co-workers at Arbin for their support during his time at the battery testing equipment specialist.

Parulian said his new job at the electronics testing, measurement equipment and software company was “an excellent opportunity for me to broaden my horizons and grow in my profession”.

in the automotive and chemical industries.

Meanwhile, Julie Gillespie has been appointed finance director for North America, the company said on September 14.

Gillespie joined Ecobat in August 2017 as director of group financial accounting and external reporting before being promoted to group controller in 2019.

Rudolph Wynter joins EnerSys as director

gies, including renewable energy, to help meet green house gas emissions targets in territories National Grid serves.

The president of National Grid’s New York business, Rudolph Wynter, has been appointed a class I direc tor of the board of lead and lithium batteries firm EnerSys, the company an nounced on August 1.

Wynter leads National Grid’s regulated energy de livery portfolio, providing electricity and natural gas services across New York State.

In his more than 30-year tenure at National Grid and its legacy companies, Wynt er has worked in senior and operational roles including COO of its wholesale net works and capital delivery business.

His experience includes focusing on grid resilience and clean energy technolo

EnerSys president and CEO David Shaffer said: “The breadth and depth of Rudy’s experience in the utility industry, particularly with clean energy and elec tric grid resilience will pro vide immeasurable value to the EnerSys leadership team.”

Arthur Katsaros, the in dependent non-executive chair of the EnerSys board, said Wynter’s appointment “enhances the strength of the board and furthers our refreshment and succession planning initiatives at the board level”.

Wynter is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Gas Association and the Edison Electric In stitute, and also works on the boards of GridWise Alliance, the Partnership for New York City and the American Gas Associa tion.

Rudolph Wynter

Antony Parulian

Carole Chichester Lloyd McGuire

Leclanché CEO Srivastava quits, Blanc and Broad to manage firm

Swiss energy storage group Leclanché said on October 31 that Anil Srivastava had stepped down as CEO.

Srivastava decided to leave following the ap pointment of a new board on 30 September and a subsequent management restructure, with which he had been involved, the company said.

Leclanché is now man aged by Pierre Blanc as group CEO and chief tech nology and industrial offi cer of Leclanché e-Mobili ty, with Phil Broad as CEO of Leclanché E-Mobility and chief sales and devel opment officer of Leclan ché.

Srivastava said: “It's time for a change. When I de cided to accept this posi tion eight years ago, it was because of the reputation and the exceptional poten tial of Leclanché.

“I am proud of the work I have done together with all employees. I wish the com pany all the success as it at tains profitable growth.”

Board chairman Alexan der Rhea said Srivastava, together with other senior executives, had “greatly expanded” the firm’s cus tomer base.

Rhea said: “Now it is time for Leclanché to un leash all its stored value. We are certain that this new management struc ture will impulse a new dynamic to the company.”

Blanc and Broad are now members of the group’s executive committee, along with CFO Pasquale Foglia.

Blanc joined Leclanché in March 2000 as a chemi cal engineer in its alkaline battery division, where he was responsible for the development and manu

facturing of battery cells for major brands includ ing Varta, Energizer and Panasonic.

Blanc was appointed CTO in 2006, where he oversaw R&D and indus trialization of the compa ny’s lithium-ion business. Leclanché said he led the introduction of novel and unique production pro cesses, particularly for wa ter-based manufacturing for lithium-ion batteries.

Broad joined Leclanché in 2018 and was appoint ed executive vice president of e-Mobility Solutions in March 2019. His previ ous position at Leclanché was vice president of the commercial vehicles unit, leading application engi neering, programme man agement and sales.

Leclanché announced on August 9 that it had ap pointed Pasquale Foglia as

acting CFO — the firm’s third interim CFO in re cent months.

That announcement came after the company revealed on June 6 that it had negotiated conditions with “different stakehold ers” to secure Sfr15 mil lion ($15.5 million) fund ing for near-term liquidity requirements and could remain a going concern until June 2023.

Leclanché had warned on February 24 that li quidity remained tight ahead of a merger of its e-mobility business with a US-listed special pur pose acquisition company (SPAC).

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

American Manganese announced the death on September 21 of its founder, president and CEO Larry Reaugh.

Reaugh was an accomplished and well-known figure in the mining industry, having successfully devel oped several mineral properties.

He was also instrumental in turning the company’s proprietary hydrometallurgical process from a manganese recovery technique to an innovative battery recyclingupcycling solution, known as the RecycLiCo patented process.

CTO Zarko Meseldzija was appointed as interim CEO by the American Manganese board as of September 21, with Paul Hilde brand becoming interim chairman and CFO Shaheem Ali appointed as a director.

Meseldzija said Reaugh had been “a great leader and mentor to many of us.

“Under his direction, we have grown as a pioneer in the lithium ion battery recycling industry and our team stands ready to ensure that his vision is carried out, and that the interests of the company’s shareholders are looked after.

“Larry will be sincerely missed, and we extend our deepest con dolences to the entire Reaugh family.”

On October 3, Meseldzija said the company had formally changed its name to RecycLiCo Battery Materials, following ap proval by Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange.

Meseldzija said: “In light of the immense global applications for our patented technology, it was evident that these applications were much broader than mining manganese, as our previous name suggested.

“As a battery materials compa ny, we focus on recycling lithium-

ion battery waste and upcycling it into battery-ready materials … our mission is to provide a circular solution that bridges the gaps in today’s segmented battery supply chain.”

RecycLiCo and R&D partner Kemetco Research had already announced that the leach sec tion of its technology defining demonstration plant project had achieved over 99% extraction of lithium, nickel, cobalt, and man ganese from lithium ion battery production scrap.

A detailed cost analysis of the economics of such processes is still needed. The crucial issue is still whether the cost of the recycling provides profits from the sale of the raw materials — as in lead battery recycling — or that the process is inherently uneco nomical and processing requires tolls and charges to be levied.

American Manganese founder Larry Reaugh dies, Meseldzija appointed as interim CEO

Jansen named as interim Solid Power CEO as Campbell retires

All-solid-state batter ies developer Solid Power said on November 29 that CEO, board member and co-founder, Douglas Camp bell, had decided to retire effective immediately.

David Jansen (pictured), the company’s chair and president, has been ap pointed as interim CEO while the firm looks for a permanent replacement.

Solid Power independent director John Stephens said: “Since co-founding

Solid Power in 2011, Doug has served as a passionate entrepreneur, beginning with the company’s earliest stages as a spin-off from the University of Colorado.”

Stephens said Campbell and the board had decided new leadership was needed “as we enter the next phase in our evolution and build on our momentum as a newly public company”.

Campbell said he planned to spend more time with his family and pursuing other interests while “continuing as a significant shareholder of the company for years to come and watching the growth and progress that I know the talented team at

Sial succeeds Fehr as CFO of Fluence

Fluence Energy, the en ergy storage products and services firm, revealed in early September that

Manavendra Sial — bet ter known as Manu — would succeed Dennis Fehr as CFO, effective by the middle of the month. Fehr will work in the in terim as a non-executive employee until he left Flu ence on October 15.

Over the past four years, Sial has been EVP and chief financial officer for SunPower Corporation where he headed up Sun Power’s treasury, project finance, investor relations,

financial planning, and ac counting organizations.

From 2015 to 2018, Sial worked as EVP and CFO of Vectra, a portfolio company of funds man aged by affiliates of Apol lo Global Management.

Before this Sial held var ious global finance and operations senior posi tions with SunEdison from 2011 to 2015. Be fore that, Sial spent 11 years with General Elec tric.

Solid Power will continue to make”.

Solid Power announced the delivery of its first solidstate lithium metal cells in October 2020.

The pouch cells, which had a solid sulfide electro lyte, were manufactured using the company’s rollto-roll pilot line and were destined for the EV sector.

Solid Power has partner ships with both BMW and Ford to jointly develop allsolid-state batteries.

Highview Power has appointed Sandra Redding as general counsel, the company announced on November 23.

CEO Rupert Pearce said Redding’s experience would be a huge asset in expanding and transforming the company “from a category disruptor to global market leader”.

Redding has more than 20 years of international experience across a number of corporates in the energy sector, and in a wide range of cultural and

political environments. She most recently served as general counsel for Seadrill and prior to that as general counsel of the Dubai government-owned Dragon Oil.

She has also held several in-house legal roles within the RWE, Gaz de France and National Grid groups.

In May 2021, Highview announced it was developing up to 2GWh of long duration, liquid air energy storage projects across Spain for an estimated investment of around $1 billion.

10.

The company said Dennis succeeded Matthew Taylor, who has retired.

Dennis, whose career to date spans the industrial sector including manufac turing, engineering and waste management, is a non-executive director at Recyclus.

He was most recently MD at Pyrenergy — a UK-based energy-from-waste and re cycling business that recov ers energy and materials from hydrocarbon waste that would otherwise be destined for landfill, incin eration or export.

The company is also embarking on an extensive programme to build renewable energy power stations on 19 sites across the UK by 2035.

UK-listed Technology Min erals has appointed Jo Den nis (pictured) as group MD of its 49% owned battery recycling business Recyclus Group as of October

Highview Power appoints Redding as general counsel

Sandra Redding

Jo Dennis appointed as MD of Recyclus group

Manavendra Sial

ENTEK secures slice of US funds for separator project

Plans by ENTEK to ramp up its production of electric vehicle battery separators have been given a boost af ter the company revealed it had secured a tranche of un disclosed US federal fund ing to support the country’s domestic battery materials supply chain.

An ENTEK spokesperson told Energy Storage Journal that the group was among the first to be selected for project funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure

Law.

The funding, announced by the Department of En ergy on October 19, is the first phase of more than $7 billion in total provided by the infrastructure law, EN TEK said.

It will support the compa ny’s investment in projects including plans unveiled on April 26 to build two “gigascale” EV battery separator plants in the US.

Kimberly Medford, presi dent of ENTEK Manufac

turing, said: “This support for our domestic supply chain and investment in our US manufacturing in frastructure ensures that we are prepared to supply criti cal US produced compo nents to US lithium battery manufactures.”

Medford took part in a White House event on No vember 2 in support of the Talent Pipeline Challenge — a US government-backed initiative encouraging in vestment in domestic infra

Exide Industries starts work on greenfield cells project

India’s Exide Industries for mally launched construc tion of its lithium ion cell gigafactory in Bengaluru on September 27 — but has pledged to maintain its pro duction and development of lead batteries.

The greenfield project was announced by Exide in March, when it said it had agreed a long-term techni cal collaboration deal with China’s SVOLT Energy Technology.

Managing director and CEO Subir Chakraborty told dignitaries at a cer emony marking the start of work on the new plant:

“While we continue to maintain our leading posi tion in the lead acid battery market of the past 75 years, we have simultaneously taken significant steps to strengthen our position in the emerging li-ion mar ket.”

The first phase of the fa cility is to be operational by the end of 2024.

Chakraborty said the project would not have been possible without the strong support of the Kar nataka state government.

Karnataka’s chief minis ter Basavaraj Bommai and skills development minis

ter Ashwath Narayan were among those attending the ceremony.

The new plant will span more than 80 acres of land and manufacturing batter ies for electric vehicles and other industrial uses.

SVOLT, in addition to providing the technology for the plant, is provid ing unspecified support for construction on a turnkey basis.

Exide is also setting up a research and development laboratory and pilot manu facturing line to support new product development for the Indian market.

Amara Raja completes $5m investment in Log 9

Indian lead major Amara Raja Batteries announced on August 30 the comple tion of its $5 million invest ment in the Bangalore-based start-up known as Log 9 Materials.

Amara Raja had said in August 2021 that its deci sion to invest in Log 9 — in which it now has a stake of just over 15% — would be “pivotal” for the develop ment of EV two-wheelers and EV three-wheelers.

Log 9 CEO Akshay Sing

hal told Energy Storage Journal in October 2017 that the firm had made a technological breakthrough using graphene to improve the capacity of lead batter ies.

The company is also de veloping advanced battery and fuel technologies for electric vehicles and rapid charging battery packs.

Amara Raja has made a series of announcements in recent months to reaffirm the firm’s intention to grow

beyond its lead-acid roots to other areas of India’s EV and energy storage sectors.

On May 20, the company pledged to fast track its de velopment of a customer qualification plant for lithi um cells.

Chairman and MD Jay adev Galla said last July that the company was also look ing into the possibility of expanding its lead batteries business through greenfield investments or acquisitions in the Indian-Ocean rim.

structure jobs.

ENTEK said the event was an opportunity for the US-headquartered battery separators group to show case the firm’s commitment to supporting federal plans to expand its electric vehicle and energy storage battery supply chain.

Medford joined employ ers, training providers and state and local government leaders for the event.

Clarios ‘continues to assess market’ for IPO

Clarios International, which pulled out of a planned initial public of fering last July, is “con tinuing to assess” market conditions for the move, Energy Storage Journal was told.

A spokesperson for the world’s largest manufac turer of automotive bat teries said on September 27: “Our focus remains on advancing our strategic priorities and delivering on our financial commitments to continue to improve our market leading business.

“We have the luxury of being a high-quality com pany with strong support from our sponsors and a great long-term future ahead. This affords us flex ibility for when the market conditions are right.”

Clarios and its Brook field/CDPQ owners is committed to keeping the market informed, the spokesperson said.

The lead battery giant’s long-awaited IPO, which had been predicted in the market to raise some $1.7 billion, was pulled on July 29, 2021 in a move the company said was prompted by market volatility.

The cancellation coincided with a fall in momentum of the year’s record spree to that date of IPOs in the US.

New Volt Resources unit eyes US lead and lithium markets

Australia-based Volt Re sources has formed a new business unit through which it is supplying graphite prod ucts for lead acid and lithium battery markets in the US, the company announced on October 4.

The new unit, Volt En ergy Materials, will provide products including coated spheronised purified graph ite (CSPG) for lithium ion batteries and graphite ex pander additives for negative electrodes for lead batteries, the company said in an Aus tralian Securities Exchange announcement.

Volt Resources MD Trevor Matthews said the move

Lead

would boost the company’s partnerships with key in dustry players in the US in cluding batteries developer Apollo Energy Systems and Energy Supply Developers (ESD) — which was estab lished in March 2021 to help secure a battery materials supply chain for Li-ion bat teries.

In February, Volt was se lected as the CSPG supplier for ESD’s planned 50GWh lithium battery production facility, which is to start op erations in the US Midwest by 2025.

Tests by Apollo Energy have shown that lead bat tery cells containing Volt’s

in

graphite have “consistently delivered higher capacity” than those whose expander formulation was based on traditional carbon materials, Volt claimed.

The company said its ultrahigh purity graphite product used for lead acid battery expanders is a by-product of a larger downstream process for manufacturing spherical graphite or BAM for lithium ion battery anodes.

Meanwhile, Volt said the development of non-spheri cal graphite products for the alkaline and lead acid bat tery markets will improve the economics of its planned CSPG manufacturing fa

cilities in the US and Europe — using flake graphite pro duction capability from the Zavalievsky graphite mine in Ukraine, together with future production from the Bunyu Graphite Project in Tanzania.

Volt said in June it had re ceived commitments to raise $2 million in a share place ment to help restart graphite production in Ukraine.

On September 6, Volt said graphite produced at Zava lievsky during 14 days of Au gust was at an average daily production rate of 60.5 tonnes. Despite disruptions during recommissioning, production at Zavalievsky, 280km south of Kyiv, is on track to meet its fiscal 2023 forecast of 8,000-9,000 tonnes, the company said.

driving seat for Indian EVs, but lithium closing gap

Lead batteries continue to dominate India’s electric ve hicles sector, but lithium is gradually increasing its mar ket share, the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) said on August 23.

Lead acid batteries account ed for 81% of the market in 2021, according to the IESA’s India Electric Vehicle and Component Market Over view Report 2021-2030.

The IESA said the lead bat teries share was the result of continuing high demand for electric rickshaws.

However, lithium is eating into market and in 2021, for the first time, demand for these batteries exceeded the 1GWh threshold, the report said.

Among lithium ion chemis tries, lithium iron phosphate is the preferred option for electric three- and four-wheel ers, while nickel manganese cobalt is the preferred option for electric two-wheeled ve hicles and e-buses.

The national EV market is set to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 49% between 2021 and 2030, according to the report’s business as usual scenario — reaching annual sales of

17 million units by that time, with nearly 15 million of those projected to be electric two-wheelers.

Meanwhile, annual de mand for batteries up to 2030 is anticipated to in crease at a CAGR of 41%, reaching 142GWh.

In April, ENTEK said it was investing to expand its

manufacturing of AGM bat tery separators to India and the US, in response to ex panding demand for energy storage solutions for invert ers, industrial applications and EVs.

In July, the boss of Indiabased Amara Raja Batteries said his company was look ing into the possibility of ex

pansion through greenfield investments or acquisitions for its lead battery business in the Indian-Ocean rim.

Chairman and MD Jay adev Galla said there would always be a place for lead battery technology — and warned that the rising cost of lithium batteries for EVs pre sented new challenges.

Germany's Schuler acquires Sovema Group

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

A Schuler spokesper son told Energy Storage Journal the deal was not subject to any relevant regulatory decisions and was closed at the end of September.

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

“We consider it a great strategic fit as both companies’ technological

capabilities are fully com plimentary and gigafacto ries are about to come into play soon.”

The acquisition covered all Sovema entities includ ing Solith, which provides equipment for lithium ion cell and module produc tion, Sovel — high-perfor mance formation systems for lead and lithium storage technologies — and USbased battery testing equip ment company Bitrode.

Sovema general manager Massimiliano Ianniello said the deal would ensure the group could “play a major role in the gigafactory chal lenge”.

“So far, our size allowed us to serve our custom

ers with high quality and customization. Now, as part of Schuler, we will finally be able to reach the volumes required by the massive demand for battery manufacturing equipment in Europe and beyond.”

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

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

(TM)

(TM)

Florida state chief warns of ‘ticking timebomb’ of EV battery fires

Floods that swept through Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian created a “ticking timebomb” of fire-prone lithium EV bat teries, a top state official warned on October 10.

Florida has been reeling from devastation wrought by the category four hur ricane, which first made landfall on September 28.

State chief financial offi cer and fire marshal, Jim my Patronis urged federal transport safety chiefs to urgently assess fire risks associated with saltwater on EVs, saying firefighters need more support to deal with an inevitable increase in fires associated with

electric-powered vehicles.

Patronis said in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administra tion (NHTSA): “I joined North Collier Fire Rescue to assess response activi ties related to Hurricane Ian and saw with my own eyes an EV continuously ignite, and reignite, as fire teams doused the vehicle with tens of thousands of gallons of water.

“Subsequently, I was in formed by the fire depart ment that the vehicle once again reignited when it was loaded onto the tow truck. Based on my conversations with area firefighters, this is not an isolated incident.

I am concerned that we may have a ticking time bomb on our hands.”

Patronis said much of the existing federal guid ance on disaster response involving submerged ve hicles does not account for the risks associated with the exposure of lithium car batteries to saltwater.

He wants the NHTSA to require EV manufactur ers of the dangers related to vehicles impacted by storm surge, and said his office would distribute that information in Florida as soon as it became avail able.

The phenomenon of EVs catching fire after expo

sure to tropical storms was first noticed in Novem ber 2012 when 16 Fisker Karma vehicles caught fire and burned to the ground after being submerged by saltwater from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge. Each parked car in Port New ark, New Jersey was worth around $100,000 each and provoked one of the earli est debates on the electrical safety of EVs.

Patronis has also asked for guidance on whether personal protective equip ment used by emergency rescue teams effectively protects first responders from poisonous gases asso ciated with EV fires.

A rulebook that aims to shed light on the true levels of greenhouse gas emissions involved in the battery materials supply chain for electric vehicles — and improve confidence in the environmental credentials of transport systems — has been made public by the Global Bat tery Alliance.

The move comes as governments scramble to tackle shortages in sup plies of key EV battery materials — amid warn ings by analysts that more carbon-intensive mining is needed to supply lithium ion battery manufacturers because recycling alone cannot meet demand.

The GBA acknowledges that the battery value

chain is “still relatively opaque and associated with issues such as high CO2 emissions and envi ronmental degradation”.

However, the GBA says the release of the first public version of its Greenhouse Gas Rule book, compiled with risk management consultancy Sphera, aims to improve the calculation and track ing of the greenhouse gas footprint of lithiumion batteries in electric vehicles.

GBA co-chair and CEO of Germany-based chemi cals group BASF, Martin Brudermüller, said the rulebook was needed to foster greater transparency and give industry players the means to “decisively

drive down the environ mental impact of their processes” globally.

GBA board member Julia Poliscanova, who is also senior director for vehicles and e-mobility at the EU’s clean transport campaign organization, Transport & Environment, said: “Sus tainably produced batter ies are essential to wean the world off fossil fuels. But regulators and society at large expect to know where the materials come from, how the batteries were made and how many carbon emissions they have released.

“The rulebook will en sure that data is gathered consistently so we can have confidence in the claims made by global manufac

turers.”

The GBA, which has its roots as an initiative launched in 2017 by the World Economic Forum, comprises 110 internation al organizations represent ing industry, academia and governments dedicated to the sustainable devel opment of battery tech nologies through respon sible trade and supporting global anti-corruption practices.

East Penn Manufacturing president and CEO Chris Pruitt laid bare many of the myths that surround the debate over lead and lithium batteries at the European Lead Battery Conference in France last month (see elsewhere in this issue).

New rulebook to tackle misnomers in opaque EV supply chain emissions

Jimmy Patronis

CATL breaks ground for $1.9bn China plant

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology has held a ground-breaking ceremony for a RMB14 billion ($1.9 billion) battery manufacturing complex in the country’s Henan province, the company announced on September 28.

CATL did not disclose the expected manufactur ing capacity of the plant, to be built in the indus trial city of Luoyang, but said it would enhance its market coverage in China’s central and west ern regions.

The project has the support of Luoyang’s municipal authorities, with which CATL is working to promote “the ecological construction of the new energy indus try”, including battery production, the company said.

The announcement was the latest move by CATL to ramp up its domi nance of battery manu facturing for the EV and energy storage systems

markets.

On August 12, the company confirmed plans to invest more than €7bn ($7.1 billion) in building a 100GWh lithium ion battery production plant on a greenfield site in Hun gary — its second such facility in Europe.

CATL said that, subject to shareholder approval, initial construction of the Debrecen plant would start later this year.

Last month, CATL an nounced that cobalt and lithium used in a battery cells supply deal with Germany’s BMW would be sourced from “certi fied mines”.

The move to head-off potential criticism over sustainability and human rights issues came on the same day the companies announced a multi-year agreement on the supply of next-generation cylindrical battery cells to power BMW’s ‘Neue Klasse’ electric vehicles starting from 2025.

Electrovaya picks New York for first US gigafactory

Electrovaya is to build its first US lithium ion bat tery gigafactory at an esti mated cost of $75 million in the state of New York, the company announced on October 3.

The 137,000 ft2 facility near Jamestown will add to the firm’s existing Cana dian facilities and produce batteries for a range of products including electric trucks and buses.

The Empire State Devel opment agency is provid ing up to $4 million of tax credits to support the proj ect at the site of a former electronics manufacturing plant. Electrovaya said the facility is also set to benefit

from additional federal and state funding.

CEO Raj Das Gupta said the gigafactory would open in phases, starting late 2023 and eventually produce more than 1GWh of batter ies annually using “100% renewable energy”.

The plant will help Elec trovaya to increase manu facturing capacity, improve supply chain security and overall gross margins, Das Gupta said.

State governor Kathy Ho chul said the project would create up to 250 jobs and support New York’s plans to establish a national hub for battery innovation and manufacturing.

EV batteries face Indonesia nickel export tax blow

Indonesia is considering imposing an export tax on nickel — a move that could further ratchet up costs of a key material for electric ve hicle batteries, the country’s president confirmed on Au gust 18.

Joko Widodo told Bloom berg News the levy was under consideration by the government.

Widodo had said in a speech on August 16 that Indonesia should capital ize on its position as a “key producer in the global lithi um battery supply chain” to boost domestic investments in battery production and clean energy technologies.

According to the Inter national Energy Agency’s (IEA) Southeast Asia En ergy Outlook 2022, pub lished in May, Indonesia and the Philippines are the two largest nickel produc ers in the world.

“Nickel supply chains are likely to be significantly af fected by policy develop

ments and other events in Indonesia,” the IEA said.

Meanwhile, Indonesia and the Philippines’ share of global production has risen considerably since 2010, from 25% to around 50% in 2021. The IEA said this share is set to expand further in the coming years, as they are expected to be responsible for around 70% of global production growth over the period to 2025.

Energy Storage Journal reported in February that Taiwan-based Foxconn, also known as the Hon Hai Technology Group, was in vesting in producing elec tric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems in Indonesia, under a memo randum of understanding signed with Indonesia’s Ministry of Investment, state investment agency BKPM, energy firm Indika Energy and battery-swap ping technology company, Gogoro.

Japan unveils ESS targets

Japan’s government un veiled targets on August 31 to expand the annual domestic production of electric vehicle and en ergy storage batteries to 150GWh by 2030.

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

The government said it need new educational pro grams introduced at tech nical institutions to help attract a new generation of workers to the batteries sector.

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

competition from bat tery manufacturing rivals across Asia.

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

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

The ministry said the gov ernment would step up sup port for Japanese companies that can secure battery ma terials supply chains such as forging alliances and part nerships with mineral-rich countries worldwide.

But Meti said it would be up to private Japanese com panies to also raise capital on the markets to take part in large-scale investments in battery projects overseas.

Planning permission go-ahead for 200MW Irish BESS

Strategic Power Projects said on October 3 it had received planning permission for a 200MW battery storage sys tem in Ireland, amid fears of looming electricity black outs.

The application for the €140 million ($136 million) Dunnstown project, ap proved by national planning authority An Bord Pleanála, is the country’s single largest battery planning application to date, Strategic Power said.

Managing director Paul Carson said: “Security of supply and electricity black outs have sadly become pre dictable headlines in Irish news titles, north and south.

“Battery-based energy storage is part of the solu tion. It can be quickly de veloped, is very cost effec tive and is the backbone of modern, resilient, and decar

bonised energy systems.”

Carson said the new fa cility “won’t solve Ireland’s storage problems on its own, but if the positive decision is a sign of things to come, then that is very positive news for the people of Ireland”.

Energy Storage Ireland head Bobby Smith, whose organization represents Ire land and Northern Ireland’s energy storage industry, said: “The invasion of Ukraine and our dependency on im ported fossil-fuels means electricity consumers have seen dizzying increases in their bills and the worst may yet be to come. Energy stor age allows us to fully har ness our renewable energy resources and replace expen sive, polluting, fossil fuels.”

Last October, UK battery storage operator Gresham House announced a partner

ship with Strategic Power to develop a solar and battery storage pipeline across Ire land with a combined capac

News in brief

Liberty Energy invests in Natron’s sodium ion tech

Liberty Energy said on September 6 it had made an undisclosed investment in sodium ion battery tech developer Natron Energy.

Natron plans to use the funds to speed up production of its Prussian blue sodium ion electrodes chemistry, towards launching what it described as mass production of sodium ion batteries.

ity of more than 1GW.

Strategic Power said its BESS projects all utilize lithi um ion battery technology.

On May 4, Natron said it was teaming up with lead batteries giant Clarios to manufacture what they said would be the world’s first mass-produced sodium ion batteries.

Freyr-Nidec in $3bn cells deal

Freyr Battery said on August 30 it had signed a binding agreement to supply 38GWh of LFP battery cells to Japan’s Nidec Corporation between 2025 and 2030.

Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre has laid the cornerstone of Morrow Battery’s battery cells gi gafactory on the country’s south coast in a ceremony on September 26.

Støre said Battery Fac tory 1, under construction in Arendal, was essential to government efforts to make Norway an “attractive host country for sustainable and profitable activity along the entire battery value chain”.

Morrow has teamed up with Siva — the Industrial Development Corporation of Norway — in establish ing a joint company to build the 30,000m² plant in four phases with construction company Veidekke, at a cost of NOK400 million ($38 million).

The factory will have an annual production capac ity of 1GWh of battery cells when it starts up, with total capacity planned to reach 43GWh on completion of all four construction phases. The complete gigafactory

is expected to be ready by 2028.

Morrow’s batteries will use LNMO cathode mate rial, which it said eliminates the need for cobalt, reduces the use of nickel and lithium and maximizes use of “read ily available and manga nese”.

Morrow said on Septem ber 15 that Swiss tech group ABB had been chosen as a non-exclusive preferred supplier of technology for its gigafactory.

The firms signed two memorandum of under standing agreements, paving the way for ABB’s Energy Industries unit to use Mor row’s lithium batteries in energy systems for a range of applications and indus tries, including e-mobility, hydrogen, offshore wind, oil and gas and utilities.

ABB’s scope of supply may include electrical equip ment, automation, robotics, cyber security, security sys tems, and digitalization, Morrow said.

The two companies will also collaborate on projects to deploy sodium ion batteries in energy storage systems to provide backup power for Liberty’s electric pumping systems used by companies working in the oil and natural gas exploration and production sectors.

Liberty president Ron Gusek said: “The careful evaluation of sources of energy storage for our power-dense operations led our team to determine that Natron’s sodium ion batteries are a safe, costeffective solution that is already being utilized in industrial applications.”

Natron co-founder and CEO Colin Wessells said: “Our partnership with Liberty dramatically accelerates Natron’s expansion into oil and gas markets with the introduction of battery storage in the completion services industry.”

Natron claims its battery technology is ideally suited to support pressure pumping applications with highly variable power load requirements.

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

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

The agreement builds on an earlier, conditional offtake agreement between the companies, for 31GWh of cells.

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

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

Nidec is a leading manufacturer of highefficiency electric motors that is expanding its reach into the ESS market.

PM lays gigafactory cornerstone for Norway’s ‘battery future’

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Tesla, PG&E probe into Moss Landing BESS fire

An investigation has been launched into the cause of a Tesla Megapack bat tery fire at PG&E’s Moss Landing battery storage facility in California, the utility told Energy Storage Journal on September 28.

Tesla and PG&E is joint ly conducting the probe into the Elkhorn lithium ion battery plant fire, of which the utility said it became aware at the BESS at 1.30 am local time on September 20.

A spokesperson said safety systems worked as

designed when the fire was detected and automati cally disconnected the bat tery storage facility from the electrical grid.

A preliminary report filed with the California Public Utilities Commis sion said there were no in juries to onsite personnel and property damage to the battery was “expected to exceed $50,000”.

Elkhorn has multiple safety systems and proto cols in place for fire pre vention and mitigation including an incident com

China ‘to tighten’ laws on lithium battery recycling

China is preparing to un veil a raft of new measures to tighten regulations for electric vehicle battery recycling in the country, state media reported on September 16.

The government wants to “strengthen national and industrial standards” and promote “technologi cal breakthroughs in the dismantling and efficient recycling” of used batter ies, according to Ministry

of Industry and Informa tion Technology official, Huang Libin, as report ed by the Xinhua News Agency.

Huang said environmen tal protection and greater efficiency in the use of bat tery materials was key to “ensuring the sustainable development” of what China terms the new en ergy vehicles industry.

According to Huang, more than 190 businesses

mand centre at a “safe dis tance from the batteries”, the spokesperson said.

Tesla and PG&E broke ground for the 182.5MW/730MWh BESS plant on July 29, 2020. At that time, the partners said the Moss Landing facility would be the larg est utility-owned storage system of its kind in the world.

The development agree ment allowed Tesla to in crease the size even fur ther, to a total of 1GWh in total.

Cayman Islands utility orders first BESS

Finnish technology group Wärtsilä said on Septem ber 26 it had been select ed to supply two lithium iron phosphate BESS units for the Cayman Islands by the Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC) — the utility’s first energy storage facilities.

have established in excess of 10,000 EV battery re cycling collection points nationwide as of the end of last month.

Data released by the ministry on August 3 said China’s production of new energy vehicles increased by 120% in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.

The data estimated that the country’s combined production of lithium ion batteries for the first half of the year exceeded 280GWh — a year-onyear increase of 150%.

CEMA Baterías looks to solar-storage with 'large stake' in Spain's Alge-Bat

Spain’s CEMA Baterías an nounced on September 19 that it had acquired an un disclosed “large stake” in solar-storage specialist AlgeBat.

A CEMA spokesperson told Energy Storage Jour nal the deal would expand the lead and lithium battery distribution firm’s market presence, in particular with opportunities to support projects combining solar power generation with bat tery storage.

Cádiz-based Alge-Bat spe cializes in the distribution and assembly of industrial solar installations through out western Andalusia.

CEMA founder and CEO Rafa Fernández said: “Our teams share the same vision and values and we can con tinue to learn a lot from each other, exchange knowledge and expand our frontiers.”

CEMA imports, exports and distributes battery brands from firms such as Monbat, Varta, Trojan and

US Battery.

In March, CEMA an nounced it had invested more than €1.5 million ($1.7 million) to build one of the biggest battery distribution centers in the Iberian region in Seville.

On completion, the center will cover an area of more than 6,000m2, with the capacity to house a total of between 225,000-500,000 lithium ion and lead batter ies arriving from Asia, Eu rope and the US.

Wärtsilä will deliver the 10MW/10MWh GridSolv Quantum systems under an engineering, procure ment, and construction contract, which it said would help CUC almost double its renewable energy capacity on Grand Cayman, the largest of the three Cayman Islands.

The energy storage systems should become operational in mid-2023.

Until now, the network connected electricity gen eration sources on Grand Cayman comprised 161MW of imported, diesel-fuelled genera tion and about 14MW of solar photovoltaic generation.

The island’s first com mercial solar project was commissioned in 2017.

CUC is a privatelyowned electricity gen eration, transmission and distribution utility that owns an installed generat ing capacity of 161MW. It is the only electric utility on Grand Cayman, which has a population of around 65,000.

CUC’s customer ser vices and technology VP Sacha Tibbetts said the BESS installation would be “a crucial step for CUC to integrate more renewable energy into the grid.

“Once this project is completed, we anticipate savings on fuel costs and improved reliability of services for our custom ers on Grand Cayman.”

LiNa Energy unveils sodium battery tech plans for India

LiNa Energy announced plans on September 28 to expand development of its solid-state sodium battery tech in India, including establishing a presence in the country in partnership with innovation support agency Social Alpha.

UK-based LiNa said it will work through Social Alpha’s ‘Clean Energy In ternational Incubation Center’, which is a joint

initiative of India’s govern ment and Tata Trusts and supported by organiza tions, companies and agen cies including India’s De partment of Biotechnology.

The battery tech devel oper plans to oversee bat tery cell testing and future pilot projects from India.

As part of the collabora tion, LiNa will establish a presence in India to opti mize its product develop

Italy’s Energy Dome joins Ørsted in ‘CO2 Battery’ feasibility study

Italian energy tech compa ny Energy Dome is to con duct a feasibility study into the use of its ‘CO2 Battery’ at one or more renewable power project sites oper ated by Ørsted, the compa nies said on September 27.

The partners signed a memorandum of under standing that included an option to develop multiple 20MW/200MWh of Ener gy Dome’s energy storage units — potentially start ing construction of the first project at an undisclosed location in continental Eu rope in the second half of 2024.

The partnership follows Energy Dome’s June 8 an nouncement that it had completed its first commer cial demonstration facility at Sardinia, Italy, and was working on a new com mercial utility-scale facility in Sardinia, under a part nership with Italian energy company A2A.

Energy Dome says its technology “can be de ployed just about any where at less than half the cost of similar-sized lithium ion battery storage facilities and have superior round-trip efficiency, with no performance degrada tion over a 25-year life cycle”.

The company says its technology “does not in volve scarce and environ

mentally challenging raw materials like lithium.

Instead, it uses carbon di oxide and off-the-shelf components to charge and discharge power from four to 24 hours, enabling re newables to serve as fullydispatchable daily energy resources”.

CO2 is used in a closedloop charge/discharge cy cle as a storage agent, the firm says. Before charging, gaseous CO2 is kept in a large dome structure.

During charging, electric ity from the grid is used to compress the CO2 into liq uid form, creating stored heat in the process. Dur ing discharge, the liquid CO2 is evaporated using the stored heat, expanded back into its gaseous form, and used to drive a turbine to generate electricity.

Ørsted, majority owned by the Danish state, devel ops, builds and operates facilities including offshore and onshore wind farms, solar farms and energy storage plants.

Ørsted VP Europe On shore Kieran White said: “We consider the CO2 Battery solution to be a promising alternative for long-duration energy stor age. This technology could potentially help us decar bonize electrical grids by making renewable energy dispatchable.”

ment for the India market and oversee battery cell testing and future pilot projects.

LiNa started work on its battery technology in 2017 as a spin off from Lancaster University. The company says its batteries are ideally suited for the Indian market as they do not require liquid cooling or refrigeration systems that are typically needed for lithium ion systems in high temperatures.

The firm says the batter ies contain no “conven tional critical materials used for battery manufac

turing”, such as lithium, cobalt, manganese, or graphite.

Last December, UK sodi um-ion battery tech devel oper, Faradion, announced it was being acquired by a subsidiary of India’s Reli ance Industries, Reliance New Energy Solar, for £100 million ($135 mil lion).

Reliance said it would use Faradion’s tech at its proposed energy storage gigafactory in India — one of four such facilities in Jamnagar — for which the company announced plans in June 2021.

Umicore launches Nysa materials plant

Materials technology and recycling group

Umicore announced the inauguration on Sep tember 21 of its cathode materials production plant in Poland.

Nysa will provide ad vanced cathode materi als for advanced lithium battery cell manufactur ers, with annual produc tion capacity set to reach 20GWh by the end of 2023 and 40GWh in 2024, with the poten tial to rise to more than 200GWh in the second half of the decade.

Meanwhile, Umicore reaffirmed plans to build a precursor and cathode active materials facility in Canada and to expand its existing ca pacity in Asia, to achieve a global production capacity of more than 400GWh by 2030.

Nysa is “fully pow ered” by renewable electricity generated by a nearby onshore wind farm, the company said.

Construction of the cathode materials plant began in 2019 and pro

duction started in July.

CEO Mathias Mie dreich said: “With this gigafactory, Umicore is leading the way in bat tery materials in Europe offering key ingredients for a responsible and sustainable value chain for electric transport.

“Its state-of-the-art product and process technologies comple ment our metals refining and cathode precursor production facility in Finland as well as our world-class R&D and pioneering battery recycling activities in Belgium.”

Umicore announced in June 2020 that a €125 million ($142 million) loan from the European Investment Bank would partly pay for its invest ment in the project.

On May 10 this year, Umicore formally opened a global R&D centre for cathode materials in South Korea — next to the company’s existing R&D and cathode materials production plants in Ch’onan.

Bid to tighten UK laws for ‘hazardous’ lithium BESS sites

UK legislators have been urged to back draft legis lative proposals that could see lithium ion battery storage sites designated as “hazardous” — and sub ject to tough new fire safe ty and planning controls.

If enacted, the propos als could influence future regulatory development in other areas of the world as investment in battery stor age projects gather pace, industry insiders have told Energy Storage Journal.

Former government minister Maria Miller told the House of Commons on September 7 that ex isting regulations did not require battery storage planning applications to be referred to the Environ ment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive or the fire service but, un der her proposals, these agencies would become statutory consultees in the planning process.

“We need lithium ion battery storage facilities,

but they must be seen cor rectly for what they are: highly complex, with the potential to create danger ous events and hazardous substances.”

Meanwhile, Miller urged the government to an nounce “an immediate review” of battery storage projects already grant ed planning permission, along with existing bat tery storage plants, “to en sure that they do not pose a threat to residents or the local environment”.

“We cannot allow lithi um ion battery storage fa cilities to continue as they are and become another legacy fire issue, with all the risks that that entails to the lives of the people we represent and the envi ronment we want to pro tect,” she said.

“Lithium ion batteries are “innocuous when they function normally, but if they fail and thermal run away occurs, there is a complex chemical reaction.

“The only way to stop a battery fire is to cool it down with a constant stream of water and wait for the fire to go out, which might take days, creating huge quantities of water containing high ly corrosive hydrofluoric acid and copper oxide — by-products of battery fires,” Miller said.

“These toxic chemicals cannot be allowed to seep into watercourses, because they would cause immense environmental damage.”

Miller said that while only a handful of battery storage facilities were al ready operating in the UK, more are scheduled to come on stream and 366 projects are under construction or awaiting planning permission.

She said the National Fire Chiefs Council was also calling for battery storage developers to en gage at the earliest oppor tunity with local fire and rescue services.

ESS agrees US 200MW Sacramento storage deal

Iron-based flow battery company ESS is to deploy up to 200MW/2GWh of long duration energy storage in the US under a multi-year agreement announced on September 20 with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).

ESS said it will deliver a mix of its Energy Ware house and Energy Center systems to be integrated with SMUD’s grid, start ing in 2023.

ESS plans to set up fa cilities for battery system assembly, operations and maintenance support and project delivery in Sacramento, while also establishing a “center of

excellence” to train and expand the workforce for long duration energy storage technology in partnership with higher education institutions.

The facility will create “a state-wide skilled tal ent pool to help build and maintain California’s fastgrowing LDES resources”, ESS said.

An ESS spokesperson told Energy Storage Journal that exact details about the number of systems that will eventu ally be deployed will be announced later. However, the 2GWh figure takes into account the storage duration of the systems, which is four to 12 hours.

The addition of 2GWh of storage, when coupled with renewable energy sources, is equivalent to removing 284,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year and will provide enough energy to power 60,000 homes for 10 hours, ESS said.

SMUD’s CEO and general manager Paul Lau said: “Long-duration battery technologies move SMUD’s 2030 zero carbon plan forward by expand ing our dispatchable renewable energy resourc es and opening doors to innovation, job training and development oppor tunities in the green energy sectors.”

Miller also told MPs of international incidents involving lithium battery storage facilities, includ ing the April 2019 fire at Arizona Public Service’s 2MW/2MWh McMicken energy storage facility in Surprise, Arizona, where she said fire officers “suf fered life-changing injuries when the unit exploded”. That incident prompted concerns among regulators about the use of lithium batteries at utility scale.

In 2020, the state of New York amended building fire safety standards to in clude specific regulations relating to the design and installation of energy stor age systems. However, ac cording to the New York Solar Energy Industries As sociation, stringent fire de partment regulations still “prohibit the use of most energy storage systems”.

Miller said: “Thermal runaway events occur in almost every country in which battery storage is used. Even South Korea, a pioneer in the development of large-scale battery stor age, experienced 23 major battery fires between 2017 and 2019.”

Miller, the MP for Basing stoke, presented her pro posals under the 10-minute rule bill — which allows backbench MPs to make their case for new legisla tion.

She secured enough sup port among fellow MPs for the proposals to move ahead and to be given a sec ond reading in March 2023.

However, a spokesperson for Miller’s office told En ergy Storage Journal on September 22 that Miller was continuing to discuss draft legislation with col leagues, which could see the proposals raised in par liament again before the end of this year.

Pilot plant bid to end US reliance on imports of battery materials

US Strategic Metals (USSM) said on Septem ber 15 it would break ground during the month on a pilot materials plant in Missouri as part of a bid to end US reliance on imports of critical supplies for electric vehicle batter ies.

USSM said the precursor cathode active material (PCAM) plant, combined with its existing hydro metallurgical processing (hydromet) facility at the site, would “close the loop on the production of criti cal minerals wholly within the US”.

When production starts at the site, US electric ve hicle manufacturers and battery companies “may no longer need to go out side the country — to

China or other countries — to get the critical mate rial needed to power their vehicles”, USSM said.

Jamil Jaffer, former se nior adviser to the Senate’s foreign relations commit tee and USSM advisory board member, said: “This new plant and its ability to provide cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other critical minerals.

"It has the potential to help break China’s stran glehold on the processing of these critical materials once and for all.”

The hydromet pilot plant has been in operation for more than two years, us ing what USSM said was proprietary American technology “to process a wide range of raw mate rials cleanly — including

material from used EV batteries, existing mine waste, and raw ore — to obtain new battery-grade metals and other strategic metals”.

A commercial-scale hy dromet plant is being built and should start up by the end of this year. USSM estimates that it could supply half of the total demand in the US for co balt and nickel sulfate by 2025, and “potentially the full US demand for cobalt sulfate” soon after.

Energy Storage Journal reported last March that the US Geological Survey had warned the country was still heavily depen dent on imports for key battery materials includ ing cobalt, lithium, man ganese and nickel.

BMZ invests to shore up battery supply chain

Lithium battery systems manufacturer BMZ Group said on September 15 it in tended to acquire a stake in German plastics supplier Schütz Kunststofftechnik, in part to shore up its ma terials supply chain.

BMZ said it would act as a strategic investor in sup porting its supplier of bat tery cell holders.

The planned deal would give Schütz access to BMZ’s

network of clients, includ ing those in the energy stor age and e-mobility sectors.

Schütz is a longstanding supplier of cell holders and spacers installed in BMZ battery systems.

BMZ founder and CEO Sven Bauer said: “Procure ment bottlenecks, price de velopments and a shortage of skilled workers means we are in very challeng ing economic times. At the

same time, our market is a future-proof growth indus try.”

Strategic partnerships that enable BMZ to secure and expand its market pres ence “are only logical”, he said.

Schütz managing partner Michael Schütz said the in vestment deal was “a door opener for new sales mar kets, across industries and worldwide”

NGK secures grid storage batteries order

Japan-based NGK Insula tors said on September 12 it had received an order from Toho Gas for its so dium sulfur battery to pro vide grid electricity storage services.

The batteries have an out put of 11.4MW and a com bined capacity of 70MWh, which the ceramics group said is equivalent to one day of electrical power con sumption by about 6,000

average homes.

The batteries will be in stalled at Toho’s Tsu former liquefied natural gas plant. Construction is to start this October.

NGK did not disclose fi nancial details of the order, but said the batteries would be directly connected to an electrical power grid and intended to stabilize supply and demand.

The project aims to sup

port continued use of re newable power including solar and wind generation in the region, NGK said.

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

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

Chinese battery giant CATL said on Septem ber 9 that cobalt and lithium used in a battery cells supply deal with Germany’s BMW will be sourced from “certified mines”.

The move to head-off potential criticism over sustainability and human rights issues came on the same day the companies announced a multi-year agreement on the sup ply of next-generation cylindrical battery cells to power BMW’s ‘Neue Klasse’ electric vehicles starting from 2025.

The partners said the agreement was based on their “shared com mitment to building a sustainable and in future circular battery value chain”.

CATL said it would “primarily use renewable energies and secondary materials for the produc tion of the high-perfor mance battery cells”.

According to the agreement, CATL will deliver the new cylindri cal battery cells, which come with a standard diameter of 46 millime tres and will be produced at two of CATL’s future battery plants in China and Europe, each with an annual capacity of up to 20GWh dedicated to BMW.

Joachim Post, BMW’s board of management member for purchasing and supplier network, said: “CATL is a strong, dedicated partner that values sustainable action just as much as we do. Our two companies will continue to lead the way in the future and are committed to sustainable, environmentally-respon sible practices.”

CATL, BMW gives ‘certified mines’ pledge

Monbat plans entry into BESS market with lead and lithium product range

European lead battery ma jor Monbat is preparing to unveil a range of lead and lithium energy storage sys tems for the industrial and residential markets, the com pany said on November 24.

The commercial director of Monbat’s industrial batteries division, Bozhidar Nekeziev, said the company intended to promote a range of BESS systems for the residential and small business sectors, deploying “traditional, wellestablished lead-acid VRLA batteries” as well as lithium ion-based technologies.

Bulgaria-based Monbat says the move aims to sup

port “energy independence” and could encourage cus tomers to form their own power supply microgrids as Europe looks to ramp up renewable electricity genera tion.

Monbat said enabling homes and business to play an active role in the deploy ment of future energy sys tems would “change the philosophy” of electricity generation, distribution and consumption from a linear, ‘producer-distributor-con sumer’ relationship, “to an open system with complex and synergistic complemen tary roles and functions”.

Focus on UK’s Teesside as new lithium processing hub

Green Lithium, the chemi cal subsidiary of mining giant Trafigura, is to build the UK’s first large-scale lithium refinery at Teesside, in northern England.

At the same time Altilium Metals, a lithium recycling start-up, has also chosen Teesside for, it claims, the largest planned recycling facility for end-of-life EV batteries.

Green Lithium expects construction of its plant to take three years, create more than 1,000 jobs and to commission the plant in 2025. The refinery will provide 50,000 tonnes of low-carbon, battery-grade lithium chemicals annually.

Altilium has secured £3 million ($4.45 million) in government innovation awards and says the recy cling plant will process bat tery waste from 150,000 EVs a year — providing a sustainable supply of criti cal metals to support grow ing production of EVs.

Europe has an increasing appetite for ready sources of lithium. Some 89% of hard-rock lithium, for ex

ample, is processed in East Asia.

Green Lithium CEO Sean Sargent said: “Without a lo calized supply, Europe’s battery energy storage and automotive sectors will fail.

Green Lithium is seizing the opportunity presented by Europe’s future high de mand and potential future uncertainty in the Chinese market.”

Securing a “critical mass” of installed BESS capacity would support homes and businesses that use integrat ed systems in generating and consuming “more than half or almost all of their electric ity demand”, Monbat said.

The company did not say when it expected to launch its BESS products, but said it would offer options for out door or indoor modular sys

The BMW group said on November 25 it will build a high-voltage battery as sembly plant at its car manufacturing facility in Debrecen, Hungary, where it is investing more than €2 billion ($2 billion) by 2025.

Markus Fallböhmer, BMW’s senior VP of bat tery production said the ‘BMW iFactory’ would strengthen the “close link between battery assembly and vehicle production”.

In Debrecen, the nextgeneration round battery cells will be assembled into a battery housing, which is later integrated into the underbodies of vehicles,

tems, configured with lead acid or lithium batteries.

Last June, the senior man agement team of Monbat pledged to further develop operations after securing a 20.78% stake in the lead batteries group.

Also in June, Monbat and Advanced Battery Concepts announced plans to develop a commercial bipolar bat tery.

Fallböhmer said.

BMW said the official start of production for the sixth generation batteries will be in 2025 — in paral lel with the start of vehicle production.

All batteries for vehicles produced at Debrecen will be assembled on the plant site, which will span more than 140,000 m² in total.

In August Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the Chinese lithium battery giant — and histori cally a key supplier to BMW — announced that it was planning to invest €7.34 bil lion ($7.5 billion) to build a 100 GWh EV battery plant in Debrecen.

CellCube said on Novem ber 23 it had agreed a deal with North Harbour Clean Energy to build a manufacturing and assem bly line for its vanadium redox flow batteries in Australia.

The first project under the manufacturing coop eration agreement will be to develop Australia’s biggest VRFB to date — a 4MW/16MWh based on the proprietary technol ogy of CellCube brand owner Enerox.

CellCube and North

Harbour will also con duct a feasibility study and work towards a final investment decision on a 50-50 joint venture to manufacture VRFBs in Australia.

The partners said North Harbour, which is backed by Australia superannua tion fund Aware Super, has already secured “a large project pipeline to include deployments of VRFBs”.

“We are excited to bring manufacturing of this Australian-invented and

critical energy storage technology to Australia with our strategic partner

CellCube”, said North Harbour MD and founder Tony Schultz.

Schultz said the partners will also “collectively review and select the best site to deliver initial annual production capacity of at least 40MW/160MWh, with a target of 1,000MW/8,000MWh per year and creating more than 200 new jobs in the short term.”

BMW to invest €2bn in Hungary lithium plant

CellCube unveils Australia VRFB manufacturing deal

US DoE allocates $74m in funds for EV battery recycling and reuse

The US Department of En ergy said on November 16 it was allocating nearly $74 million in funding for 10 projects that are developing electric vehicle battery recy cling and reuse technologies.

The DoE said the allo cation would come from funds announced under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and would support projects leading to seconduse scale-up demonstrations that integrate end-of-life EV

batteries into secondary ap plications.

According to the US gov ernment, more than 1.2 mil lion EVs have been sold in the US since Joe Biden be came president in January 2021— more than tripling the number on the road be fore he took office.

With demand for criti cal battery minerals, such as lithium and graphite, projected to increase by as much as 4,000% in the

coming decades, this latest round of funding supports the recycling and reuse seg ment of the domestic bat tery supply chain, the DoE said.

In October ENTEK, lead and lithium battery separa tor manufacturer an nounced it planned to ramp up its production of EV bat tery separators were among the first to be selected for project funding under the infrastructure law.

BlackRock adds to BESS portfolio with Jupiter deal

US energy storage operator and developer Jupiter Pow er said on November 15 it had been acquired by a business unit of global fund manager BlackRock for an undisclosed sum.

Jupiter’s owners, private equity firm EnCap Invest ments, said the sale through the EnCap Energy Transi tion Fund I (EETF I) with co-investment partners Yor ktown Partners and Mercu ria Energy, should close be fore the end of 2022.

Jupiter, founded in 2017, owns a 655MWh BESS fleet in Texas, has another 340MWh of new projects in or “near” construction — including its first project in California — and a pipeline of more than 11,000MW of other projects it says are in active development.

Earlier this year, Jupiter closed a stand-alone stor age portfolio debt financing of its operating units and announced a collaboration to secure 2,400MWh of battery storage systems for projects slated for 20242025.

EnCap was an early in vestor in Jupiter. The sale to BlackRock’s Diversified In frastructure business, part of BlackRock Alternatives, is the second exit transac tion by EnCap’s $1.2 bil lion EETF I.

In addition to Jupiter,

EETF I has backed a range of renewable power and battery storage companies.

BlackRock’s acquisition follows its announcement on August 16 that it was in jecting A$1 billion ($700

million) in capital to sup port the roll-out of 1GW of battery storage projects across Australia, as part of its purchase of Melbournebased renewables developer Akaysha Energy.

Freyr picks Georgia for Giga America plant

Freyr Battery has bought a site in the US state of Georgia to build its planned ‘Giga America’ battery cells manufactur ing plant, the company said on November 11.

Norway-based Freyr said the initial projected capital cost of the first phase of the Bridgeport Industrial Park plant was $1.7 billion.

The first phase of the project will have an an nual production capacity of around 34GWh.

The lithium battery cells developer said it was also evaluating plans for addi tional production lines at the site that would take total capex investments to more than $2.6 billion into 2029.

Canada has ordered Chi nese companies to divest their holdings in three Ca nadian-listed junior mining companies planning to de velop lithium deposits, in a bid to safeguard critical battery material supplies for the domestic market.

Industry innovation and science minister FrançoisPhilippe Champagne said on November 2: “While Canada continues to wel come foreign direct invest ment, we will act decisively when investments threaten our national security and our critical minerals sup ply chains, both at home and abroad.”

Champagne said the decision had been taken under the Investment Canada Act following a review, supported by the nation’s intelligence ser vices, into Canadian firms engaged in the critical minerals sector, including lithium.

As a result of that

process, the government has ordered Sinomine (Hong Kong) Rare Metals Resources to divest itself of its investment in Power Metals Corp, which is exploring and developing caesium, lithium and tan talum assets in Canada.

Chengze Lithium International must divest itself of its investment in Lithium Chile, which is developing projects in Argentina and Chile.

Zangge Mining Invest ment (Chengdu) is also required to divest itself of investment in Ultra Lith ium — a publicly-traded Canadian mineral explo ration company focused on advanced lithium and gold projects in Argentina, Canada and the US.

Champagne said the de cision coincided with the finalization of the govern ment’s critical minerals strategy.

“Canada’s critical min erals are key to the future

prosperity of our coun try,” he said.

“Increasing demand for these all-important miner als are presenting Can ada with a generational economic opportunity. The federal government is determined to work with Canadian businesses to attract foreign direct investments from partners that share our interests and values.

Power Metals chair man and CEO Johnathan More said on November 3: “While we are sur prised by Canada’s stance towards Chinese invest ment into Canada’s criti cal minerals industry, it clearly shows that they see the opportunity and assets of Power Metals as too valuable for such foreign investment.”

More said Sinomine will respond to the Canadian government shortly as they look at the appeal process.

Canada clamps down on China investment ‘threat’ to critical minerals

Thinking outside the box

“We’re still maintaining and sup porting that business and supplying GreenSeal to the lead battery indus try, but today, the majority of our focus is on using our EverGreenSeal technology as we expand into the en ergy storage space,” Shaffer says.

BOX-BE enables ABC to expand its position as an energy storage suppli er, with the units referred to as ‘bays’ — fully-contained, sealed and secure enclosures comprising the batteries, safety systems, the electrical systems and the BMS.

The bays can be connected in paral lel and this is where the focus of the company’s marketing lies at present.

In the US, the system meets the ini tial requirements for installers and developers to apply for tax credits under the US Clean Energy Inflation Reduction Act and ABC was focused exclusively on the US market for BOX-BE. But not for long.

“We’re not big enough to go glob al but we are talking to potential partners to take it not just to India, but Asia and Europe,” Shaffer says. “We’re already doing the outreach but it’s still early in the process. We’re building the business against supply agreements.”

The good news for Advanced Battery Concepts came just as this magazine went to press. ABC and Indian battery giant Exide Industries had agreed to work together in a potential landmark deal for the industry and the region.

The firms plan to commercialize — manufacture and sell — ABC’s BOXBE battery energy storage systems in the Indian marketplace.

Although the agreement is a nonbinding letter of intent, it is yet anoth er validation of the potential bipolar batteries have in disrupting the exist ing market landscape.

It’s also a vindication of the per sistence and determination of ABC’s founder Ed Shaffer who set up the company in 2008. The firm first came to prominence in 2017 with the first

allocation of licences for the then new bipolar GreenSeal battery technology. But more about that later.

Less than a year after launching the company’s HEES Home Energy Stor age System — powered by its patented GreenSeal bi-polar battery technology and winner of BCI’s 2022 Innovation Award — the focus of Shaffer and his team is now on a new product.

‘BOX-BE’ (Box of Bipolar Energy), says Shaffer, is invented to meet the need for responsible energy storage and with proven lead battery technol ogy under the hood.

The updated battery chemistry has its foundations in GreenSeal, which was the brand that was the flagbear er of ABC’s bipolar battery licensing program launched in 2017.

The new product is still being tested internally. Shaffer says: “In 2023 we are going to be installing these sys tems in the field to demonstrate what we say and know they can do.”

Shaffer says he already has advance orders that will soon be readied for dispatch to customers across the US. ABC expects to deploy about 10 of its new progeny in the new year.

“We already have projects lined up for those,” he says.

The first supply agreement is tar geting a commercialization date of 2025, allowing time to secure inter connector agreement approvals.

“By getting BOX-BE into the field next year we can then start to get the performance data that we need to build a plant and then our projec tions are looking toward gigawatthours of BOX-BE sales in 2025,

says.”

he

Just a year after winning BCI’s Innovation Award for a new ESS product, Advanced Battery Concepts is ushering another into the market. Ed Shaffer talks to John Shepherd about his firm’s latest invention, ABC’s overall mission and the importance of…

“In 2023 we are going to be installing these BOX-BE systems in the field to demonstrate what we say and know they can do”

Shaffer says that the ‘bays’ are for a variety of applications and not all are to be operated by utilities. “That said one is a utility company that has a gas turbine and they want to see how we can help them monetize spin up and spin down situations.”

Another one is for a wind repower (dismantling or refurbishing existing wind turbines and commissioning new ones) project, which Shaffer said will investigate the ability to recoup energy storage under wind clipping conditions.

“A separate project is more of a tra ditional one, involving solar panels needing help with providing energy storage.”

The company is also starting from a low-volume production line out of its plant in Clare, Michigan, which Shaffer says would need further in vestment to ramp up production fa cilities.

“That’s what our capital raise is for, if you know anyone who has got $50 million to “100 million to invest…” However, Shaffer says the company has ruled out a deal with a ‘blank check firm’ — a special purpose ac quisition company or SPAC.

“We’re not looking at that. At the right time, we will make a decision on how best to monetize our compa ny through an IPO or just keep run ning it as we are.”

In terms of pricing models for BOXBE, Shaffer says the company is con sidering options, including a leasingstyle scheme, where customers pay a set amount every month that has the advantage of providing ABC with a regular stream of income.

However, despite the focus now on BOX-BE and EverGreenSeal, Shaf fer says ABC also expects to make some major announcements in the first quarter of 2023 on new licens ing partners for its GreenSeal batter ies line.

“Covid slowed us down on that front, just as it did everyone, but we are back out there and re-engaging,” he says.

For Shaffer and his team, it’s “all about the numbers and the business potential” and he says the opportu nities for expanding into the energy storage space are 10-fold when com pared to the existing lead battery in dustry.

“GreenSeal was our first-genera tion technology where we focused on how to build a bipolar battery that could be manufactured at scale and remain cost effective. It was deliber

ately focused on the traditional lead battery industry.”

Shaffer says ABC’s pitch to market was by offering a different approach to the manufacture of group 31 (deep cycle) batteries — and to save money in the process.

“Again, during Covid, we had time to sit and think about a few things and so we thought more about the energy

storage business opportunities and knew they would be huge,” he says.

The new EverGreenSeal batter ies are designed for disassembly. The main components of the battery are separated and introduced back into the battery production cycle to be processed into new batteries.

ABC says the spent leady materials are converted to a “starting paste”

LIFTING THE LID ON BOX-BE, WHAT’S UNDER THE HOOD

ABC designs the systems with a limited depth of discharge to avoid active material degradation and ensure it achieves the life requirements of its customers. The system is designed to cycle between 100% to 40% state-ofcharge. Customers see constant capacity delivery every cycle while ABC monitors end of discharge voltage. The systems are designed to work daily and will experience very little float or stand situations.

ABC does not let the batteries stand at discharged state for extended periods of time. The company says that at a certain point, it knows end-of-life is approaching and replaces the entire BOX-BE bay quickly to minimize any disruption to customers. All of its economics are based on actual ‘use energy’.

BOX-BE is a large secure steel box loaded with EverGreenSeal bipolar storage batteries wired in series along with related electronic

components to make a stand-alone, or modular add-on, stationary unit providing high power and energy for long-duration discharges from a selfcontained, self-regulated DC electric storage container. Each unit is a DC battery pack that can store and deliver 341kWh of electrical energy, daily, at power delivery rates up to 1.8MW. The existing price indication is around $300 per kWh installation with maintenance costs of $12 per kWh annually for the system’s lifetime.

ABC said on September 15 that a recently-proposed BOX-BE modular installation at a remote site integrated with a solar field combines three BOX-BE units for storage of just over 1MWh, which is “enough daily energy for the planned headquarters operation to be selfsufficient, achieving their objective to create one of the greenest facilities in the state independent of any other source of energy”.

“At the right time, we will make a decision on how best to monetize our company either through an IPO or just keep running it as we are”

elements through a proprietary pro cess owned by ABC. There are no lead fumes or external wastes.

“Instead of grinding batteries up and then pyrometallurgically reducing the spent lead materials back to lead metal, we thought ‘what if we could disassemble the battery and collect the active materials, then instead of turning it back to lead, just return it to lead monoxide’?

“Remember that 90% of the lead that we use is lead monoxide, for the paste, they have very little lead metal in them and we use thin lead foils.”

Shaffer and his team figured out a way to build Box-Be units that was rugged enough and sealed well enough for large-scale stationary applications that could be disassembled at end of life and turned back to PbO with, he says, almost zero waste.

“As industry veteran Don Karner said, batteries don’t die, they are mur dered and he is right — so we also own and control the battery moni toring system and have total control, including remote monitoring. We’re watching it all.”

In terms of how EverGreenSeal is expected to evolve and what will hap pen to GreenSeal, Shaffer says you can’t build the former without the lat ter.

The details of what goes into and what happens inside the battery tech remain confidential, save for noting that EverGreenSeal takes everything that GreenSeal has but with extra at tributes. “You can build GreenSeal without EverGreenSeal but not the other way around,” he says.

Shaffer insists that the technology

powering BOX-BE is also an impor tant challenger to lithium ESS con tenders. “We’re out there marketing a technology that is essentially respon sible energy to meet the most demand ing of requirements.”

BOX-BE is more economically via ble, running at 25%-30% lower costs than lithium alternatives, Shaffer says.

A demonstrable commitment to what he says is social responsibility is part of the equation too: “This is a major factor and safety is put first and foremost,” he says.

“As we’re using a lead chemistry with aqueous electrolytes, it’s impos sible for our battery under thermal runaway conditions to auto ignite. Trust me, I’ve done the math and it just can’t happen.”

The all-important ESG benchmark ing has been done by ABC too and might be regarded as an added USP for the newcomer to the battery stor age marketplace when it comes to global sales potential: recyclability and reuse.

Shaffer says all the materials that make up BOX-BE — plastic, lead and sulphuric acid — are readily available to all and not just affluent countries.

“These are materials that are avail able from non-conflict regions and we will be proud to offer this technology to all kinds of communities, wherever they may be in the world.”

And the ability to recover, clean and reuse plastic components after inspec tion means that more than 98% of all the materials can enjoy a second life and beyond in subsequent BOX-BE bays.

“Our replacements cost is extremely low because we are re-using materials, so it’s a great benefit,” Shaffer says. “That’s why I love lead chemistry, be cause 90% of all batteries derive from secondary lead and they work just as good as primary lead.”

However, unlike with its GreenSeal bipolar tech, Shaffer says the compa ny has already decided it will not be licensing out EverGreenSeal.

“We want to get it into the market first, to show how well it works.

“We’ve engineering drawings for scaled production equipment to make a GreenSeal battery every 1.45 min utes or so, but we had to capitalize that and it forces your licensees to be very patient.”

This time, with EverGreenSeal, Shaffer says ABC wants to clearly demonstrate that “everything works. Then we’ll consider partnering with people, maybe not through licensing

but through a franchise kind of rela tionship.”

The dominance of lithium in the en ergy storage market means potential customers for BOX-BE are first told that they are being offered lead bat tery technology.

“I get that all the time and no, people are not always receptive to it,” Shaffer says. “We still have to overcome a lot of scepticism on the ability of the lead industry to meet the demands of en ergy storage.”

“We have to work hard to say we have an advanced technology and that we build the battery in a different way and because we do that, we can reduce production costs, offer lon ger cycle life and here’s the data. We spend a lot of time dealing with that.”

Shaffer says he is out in the financial markets daily raising money for the inevitable expansion of ABC’s pro duction plant and related projects and while potential investors “love a new battery chemistry unobtanium, when they are told it is lead-based they’re like ‘what’…!”

“But that’s just something we have to work through — and we are.”

Shaffer reveals that ABC secured its first, as yet unnamed, customer for BOX-BE after successfully being cho sen over a Tesla ESS system.

So could ABC grow to become the ‘Tesla’ of the lead grid storage busi ness?

“That’s my goal.”

LEAD IS ON THE MONEY

Nuveen, the $1 trillion global investment manager of TIAA Investments led a Series B growth equity round in ABC in October 2020.

The undisclosed investment was the first from the Nuveen Global Impact Fund, a private equity vehicle formed earlier that year to make direct investments in high growth companies that seek to address climate change and contribute to inclusive growth.

David Haddad, co-head of Nuveen Private Impact Investing, said at the time that ABC’s technology improves the performance, cost, and resource intensity of lead-acid batteries while preserving full recyclability.

“We believe high-performing lead acid batteries will play an important role as electrification continues globally.”

ABC expects to make major announcements in the first quarter of 2023 on new licensing partners for its GreenSeal batteries product line

The three from Murray Hill

It sometimes happens that scientists from entirely different backgrounds come together to form the catalyst be hind a great invention. And perhaps the most revolutionary of thinking was finding the way of turning the power of the sun directly into electricity and creating the first so-called “solar bat tery”.

Our heroes this time? A mix of an engineer, a physicist and a chemist — three middle-aged boffins called Chapin, Pearson and Fuller working at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey.

Hero number one: Daryl Chapin an engineer. Following his Masters at Washington University in 1929, he started at Bell Labs by investigating magnetic materials. During World War II, he evaluated underwater acoustics. Following three years of work on mag netic recording, he turned his attention to special projects such as magnetic measurement, simulated speech, min iaturization, and pulse code transmis sion.

Hero number two: Gerald Pearson a physicist. Following his Masters de gree at Stanford University in 1929, he was hired by Bell Labs and began to research noise in resistors, vacuum tubes and carbon microphones. Hav ing worked on military projects dur ing World War II, in 1945 when sci ence groups at Bell were reorganized, Pearson was put into a lab dedicated to studying solid state physics. From then on he concentrated on semiconduc tor research. In this field he had been concerned with thermistors, transistors and silicon reflectors.

Hero number three: Calvin Fuller a chemist. Following a PhD at the Uni versity of Chicago, he joined Bell in 1930 and began by researching organic insulating material. Several years later, Fuller turned his attention to the study of plastics and synthetic rubber, includ ing investigations of the molecular na ture of polymers and the development of plastics and rubber for telephone and associated apparatus. From 1948,

Fuller had been concentrating on semi conductor research and the develop ment of semiconductor devices.

But in early 1953 an accidental col laboration behind these three pro duced a momentous invention — and something that potentially could lead (eventually) to the future energy salva tion of the human race.

Just possibly anway.

It started with Daryl Chapin who had been trying to develop a source of power for telephone systems in remote humid locations, where dry cell batter ies degrade too quickly. He had investi gated several alternative energy sourc es, and settled on solar power as one of the most promising. His research had led him to using selenium solar cells, but he found them too inefficient. He was unable to surpass a minimal level, 1% or so, of efficiency.

However, in another part of Bell Labs, professors Pearson and Fuller had been working on a separate proj ect: that of controlling the properties

of semiconductors by introducing im purities. One day Fuller gave Pearson a piece of silicon containing gallium impurities. Pearson dipped it in lith ium, creating a p-n junction. Pearson hooked up an ammeter to the piece of silicon and shone a light on it.

To their surprise, the ammeter jumped significantly.

Pearson, who was aware of Chapin’s work, immediately told his friend not to waste any more time on selenium solar cells, and Chapin switched to sili con.

Silicon solar cells

The three worked for several months together on improving the properties of their silicon solar cells. One prob lem was the difficulty in making good electrical contacts with the silicon cells. Another problem was that at room temperature, lithium migrated through the silicon over time, moving the p-n junction farther away from the incom ing sunlight. To solve that problem,

Scientific advancement, argued philosopher Karl Popper, is less about following a set plan to reach a goal but the importance of our ability to learn from our mistakes. Batteries historian Kevin Desmond reports on the genius — and accidental discovery — behind the first solar battery.

Gerald Pearson, Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller, a 1954 photo checking a sample device in this demonstration.

they tried different impurities, and eventually settled on arsenic and bo ron, which created a p-n junction that stayed near the surface.

They also found they were able to make good electrical contacts with the boron-arsenic silicon cells. Fuller de vised a special furnace and a melting process to get rid of the impurities in silicon.

After making some other improve ments to the design, they linked to gether several solar cells to create what they called a “solar battery”.

Many years later, Fuller’s oldest son Robert Fuller would recall: “In 1954 I was home from vacation from col lege to visit my parents. That night my father, Calvin Souther Fuller, came home with something that looked like a quarter with wires sticking out of it. This was a device that connected to a small electric windmill that stood on the table.

“He shined a bright flashlight on the quarter-like object, which was actu ally silicon solar cell, and the blades of the windmill started turning. It was

so exciting to see the flashlight power the tiny windmill. While this device looked like a quarter to anyone else, it was actually the world’s first silicon solar battery — a device that later be come known as the silicon solar cell.”

A historic press release reads: “News from Bell Telephone Labora tories. For Release at 6pm, Sunday, April 25, 1954. A solar battery — the first successful device to convert useful amounts of the sun’s energy directly and efficiently into electricity — was demonstrated today at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

“Scientists there, with an amaz ingly simple-looking apparatus made of strips of silicon, showed how the sun’s rays could be used to power the transmission of voices over telephone wires. The Bell solar battery also used energy from the sun to power a tran sistor radio carrying both speech and music. Bell Laboratories reported that it was able to achieve a 6% efficiency in converting sunlight directly into electricity. This compares favourably with the efficiency of steam and gaso line engines, in contrast with other photoelectric devices which have nev er been rated higher than 1 per cent.

“A demonstration of the revolution ary new solar energy battery will be given by Bell Laboratories at the an nual meeting of the National Acad emy of Sciences in Washington, DC, Monday, April 26.”

Following this demonstration, the New York Times wrote that the sili con solar cell “may mark the begin ning of a new era, leading eventually to the realization of one of mankind’s most cherished dreams–the harness ing of the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.”

On May 3 Time magazine published the following: “Turning the sun’s en ergy directly into electricity has long been a goal of scientists. In Washing ton last week, the Bell Telephone Lab oratories demonstrated a solar bat tery which can convert sunlight into usable electric current without costly intermediate steps. The Bell Solar Bat tery resembles a miniature xylophone.

It is made of wafer-thin strips of spe cially treated silicon, linked in series. Silicon is a semiconductor, i.e., under certain conditions it can be made to carry electricity. The battery is far more efficient than other photoelec tric devices (eg the cells used in light meters), produces enough electricity— 50 watts per square yard of exposed surface — to power small radio trans mitters, record players and the like.”

Soon after, the solar three published a paper in the Journal of Applied Physics. It was called “A New Silicon p-n Junction Photocell for Convert ing Solar Radiation into Electrical Power”.

A new era in energy storage and cre ation had been formalized.

AT&Ts film unit now made a 13-minute documentary about the “Bell Solar Battery”. While shooting at Murray Hill took only six days, the script had been in preparation, undergoing various revisions, for sev eral months. The three inventors — Chapin, Fuller and Pearson were each photographed in typical laboratory locations as they talked briefly about their work.

To place the solar battery in a broad er context, over in the UK at Cam bridge University, British physicist Francis Crick and US biologist James Watson unveiled their famous double helix model of DNA. Meanwhile,

In early 1953 an accidental collaboration behind these three produced a momentous invention — and something that potentially could lead (eventually) to the future energy salvation of the human race. Just possibly anyway.

D.F. Ciccolella, Bell Laboratories engineer, compares the electrical output of the battery with the total energy availability from the sun, as measured by a pyrheliometer.

1955: The Bell Solar Battery, being used in experiments, in Georgia, to develop more and better rural telephone service. A Southern Bell cable repairman is adjusting the device to pick up the prevailing light.

Marilyn Monroe is starring in “Gen tlemen Prefer Blondes” and is also on the front cover of the very first issue of Playboy, and Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” is being played in juke boxes around the world. The wealthiest in America were watching some of the first colour televisions and cooking with the earliest Teflon nonstick pans.

Daryl Chapin and his colleagues then had to prove that, although work was still in the laboratory stage, the actual practical use of the solar bat

tery in the telephone business was a strong possibility.

They were eager to show that silicon solar batteries could be used as pow er supplies for low-powered mobile equipment, as a sun-powered battery charger which could be used at am plifier stations along a rural telephone system.

That first demonstration was not to take place until the autumn. The site chosen was the rural town of Ameri cus, Georgia. And on October 4, 1955, County Commission chairman, George Mathews made the world’s first solar-powered telephone call, in the 28th District, near Bethel Baptist Church. We do not know to whom he phoned or what was said.

Just over three weeks later, William Henry “Bill” Gates was born in Seat tle, Washington.

In 1957, Chapin, Pearson and Fuller were awarded US Patent No 2780765 for a “Solar Energy Converting Appa ratus”. During the next three years, Bell scientists continued to improve the solar battery, increasing its ef ficiency from 6% to 11%. The team responsible included KD Smith, EJ Stansbury, CJ Frosch and DF Ciccolel la. Another company, Hoffman Elec tronics, was also working on more efficient panels.

Very soon, the US Department of Defense realised an extremely valu able application of this device as it deployed self-sufficient, power to ve hicles and satellites in space. So it was that the earliest significant application of solar cells was as a back-up pow er source to the Vanguard I satellite launched on March 17, 1958.

The initial 1.4 kg spherical Van guard satellites were built at the NRL, and contained as their payload seven mercury cell batteries in a hermeti cally sealed container, two tracking

radio transmitters, a temperature sen sitive crystal, and six clusters of solar cells on the surface of the sphere. The latter allowed Vanguard 1 to continue transmitting for over a year after its chemical battery was exhausted.

The successful operation of solar cells on this mission was duplicated in many other Soviet and American satellites; for example, in 1962, Telstar, the first com munications satellite, was powered by 3,600 solar batteries. Seven years later, Bell scientists adapted these principles to translate electronic data into light energy. This led to the charge-coupled device, or CCD, now used in digital cameras and the internet.

And as for the three pioneers.

With a total of 33 patents to his name, Fuller eventually retired to Vero Beach, Florida, although he spent his time travelling around the US in a Sil ver Stream Camper with his wife. He died aged 92.

As early as 1958, Pearson had re turned to Stanford University where he set up a solid state electronics pro gramme which put his old university in the forefront of the universities in this field. He continued researching into his 79th year.

In 1959, Chapin simplified the so lar-cell making process. It became a widely used science experiment for advanced high school students, who used Chapin’s accompanying text book “Energy from the Sun”.

On the afternoon of his death in January 1995, aged 88, in Naples, Florida, Chapin was working with a friend on a new board game for the blind.

On May 2, 2008, posthumously, the three were elected to the US National Inventors Hall of Fame for their in vention of the “Silicon Solar Cell.” n

All photos: Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc

From top to bottom: Calvin Fuller, Daryl Chapin, Gerald Pearson.

Bell Laboratories in the late 1950s — a photo now seemingly redolent of a distant and more innocent age

An international investment push for energy storage in Africa is underway, lighting the way to a new era of electric-powered economic prosperity, as the continent’s leaders are told minerals and technology are the ‘low-hanging fruit’ to revitalize growth

Africa rising to embrace battery tech finance

Africa is ripe for development as a key player in the global batteries industry by expanding activities to exploit the region’s minerals wealth and energize an African industrial renaissance, ac cording to leaders of major institu tions.

As this issue of Energy Storage Jour nal went to press, the World Bank Group announced it planned to “ac celerate the pace of electrification” across the continent, by directing in vestments that would principally tar get renewable energy projects under pinned by battery storage.

At current rates of electrification, more than half-a-billion living in subSaharan Africa (SSA) will still be with out electricity in 2030 unless the cur

rent electrification pace is tripled, the World Bank said.

According to latest projections re leased on November 9, the bank said only eight SSA countries would achieve universal electricity access to electricity by 2030 — and some could take more than a century to “fully electrify”.

The bank, together with other lead ing global financial institutions in cluding the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, the International Finance Corporation and develop ment agencies, will promote private investment in distributed renewable energy (DRE) systems to electrify tar geted areas quickly and efficiently.

DRE systems generally involve a

solar photovoltaic plant paired with battery storage, the bank said. In ru ral communities, these systems can be invaluable to homes, businesses and health care facilities, to name but a few, that have no connections to na tional or regional grids.

“DRE’s can be easily installed, are reliable, and do not require the large investment needed to build a utilityscale power plant,” the bank said.

And in a rallying call to manufactur ers and developers of energy storage systems of all chemistries, govern ments and investors, the bank said it was ready to coordinate funding for projects to “solve Africa’s immediate needs, while developing DRE solu tions that can be applied globally”.

Meanwhile, Jerry Ahadjie, chief minerals officer of the African Nat ural Resource Management and Investment Centre — part of the African Development Bank (AfDB) — said battery precursor produc tion and two and three-wheel elec trical vehicles were part of Africa’s “low-hanging fruit”. He urged na tions across the region to develop a homegrown strategy to exploit opportunities to serve the batteries market for EVs and energy storage systems worldwide to their fullest extent.

Ahadjie told Energy Storage Jour nal that the AfDB is now leading the preparation of a ‘green minerals strategy’ for Africa in collaboration with partners including the African Union (AU) and the UN.

The AfDB hosted an event in July that brought together experts to examine how Africa could become a hub for manufacturing lithium ion batteries to store energy and electrify the transport fleet.

Marit Kitaw, interim director of the AU’s African Minerals Develop ment Corporation, told the AfDB webinar that mineral-based indus trialization in Africa was critical, but said this required “bold indus trial policies” to spur demand.

Meanwhile, Wale Shonibare, di rector of the AfDB’s energy finan cial solutions, policy and regulation department, said finance needed to be “mobilized” to accelerate the de velopment of battery storage and battery technologies for e-mobility.

“We have to put financial vehicles in place because the cost of capital is a challenge,” he said. Shonibare also called for pan-African policies to kickstart battery supply chain projects including harmonized standards, tax relief and free trade between countries in the region.

Meanwhile Demitta Gyang, sen ior advisor on customs and trade facilitation at the African Conti nental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretariat, said the agency would be an invaluable partner for project developers.

She said the AfCFTA agreement itself aims to support intra-African trade, from which the battery and electric vehicle value chain could benefit. “The agreement provides for a better business environment, by ensuring that bureaucratic bot tlenecks and time and cost are re duced as goods move within the continent.”

president

Batteries’ new frontier ‘primed for investment’

The African continent has finally “arrived”, in the sense that the world can expect to see more devel opment across the region over the next couple of decades, Fink said in an exclusive interview with Energy Storage Journal.

“The attention that has been paid to developing the continent has been gaining momentum. There are some crosswinds right now — in terms of the macroeconomic envi ronment and rising interest rates, which are going to slow the avail ability of capital, especially for de veloping countries and emerging projects.”

Fink says the continent cannot be immune from the global economic slowdown, but there is momentum nonetheless in terms of a need for and investment in battery storage.

In that sense, Africa is becoming the “new frontier and one that still has a lot of development potential”.

We can expect to see that over the next decade or two, regardless of the negative impact of short-term disruptions in the flow of financial support, says Fink.

“I do think the underlying signals are there, in spite of the Covid after math and the Russia-Ukraine war and so on.”

“As population increases addi tional infrastructure always needs to be put in place, whether that’s for energy storage or transportation systems, so you will see demand for more battery usage there in the months and years ahead.”

Fink says batteries have always followed population growth. “We’re not reinventing the wheel here. The reality is that where you see large population centres, you will see a need for battery manufac turing and consumption across all applications. I truly believe it’s that simple.”

In addition, as one of the lesserdeveloped continents, Fink says Africa is now a region “primed for investment battery manufacturing”.

But he says incentivization will be key in attracting partners for local manufacturing, while ensuring that political and commercial interests do not create obstacles that might discourage private investment in

Sorfin Yoshimura

Scott Fink says while

Africa is being buffeted by the same economic crosswinds chilling the rest of the world, it is a region filled with opportunities to expand the battery supply chain — and the industry should take note

The continent cannot be immune from the global economic slowdown, but there is momentum in terms of a need for and investment in battery storage’

Picture Credit: Magda Ehlers/Pexels

increasing localized production.

As a battery manufacturer repre sentative that has been a supply chain service partner to the industry for 40 years, Sorfin Yoshimura has immense expertise.

“As a global operation, most bat tery manufacturers around the world buy something from us,” Fink says. “That could be consumables or large production lines for grid making. We tend to work with most companies making lead acid batteries and have done so for a long time.”

Fink says his company constantly “takes the temperature of the in dustry” and will put support offices and infrastructure in a country when “deemed valuable by the local mar ket”.

“Our margins are tight, so I can’t just create a whole mass of expense to get the feedback I need to evaluate that. I typically do that in a respon sive way. For example, if the market says there is value in warehousing something locally and trading it in

the local currency to the local mar ketplace, then I will put that infra structure in place.”

Sorfin’s sales into the African mar ket are currently handled primarily by the company’s office in France, which has responsibility for the wid er EMEA region.

“Our sales team is selling into Af rica from France, but I would expect we would have an office and ware housing facilities in Africa in the fu ture,” he says.

Like any other company doing business in any part of the world, Fink says it’s a case of putting the right building blocks in place.

“In the end it comes together. We’ve done this a multitude of times. It’s just a matter of whether or not the

local marketplace really wants and needs a product and service. At the moment businesses want the leastcost materials and parts, so we work to keep things lean for prices to suit the end user.”

On the question of whether more battery materials could be manufac tured in the African market, Fink says there has been a “robust” lead batteries presence in the region for decades, such as in the North African rim as well as in South Africa, Cen tral Africa, Botswana in Southern Af rica and Kenya in East Africa.

“Those manufacturers continue to produce lead batteries en masse and that is clearly expected to boom in the decades ahead.”

Sorfin’s customers on the continent can be found in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, where there are major lead battery manufacturing operations.

There could be “options” to devel op more localized supply chain pro duction in Africa to serve the lithium ion sector, as opposed to exporting raw materials, but Fink points out that would require major manufac turing initiatives.

However, while there is a clear need for more batteries on the continent, he says it will be interesting to see how African nations take the next steps, whether they opt to expand production of batteries of all chem istries on the continent and what opportunities that might mean for importers and most particularly for intra-African trade deals.

Whatever happens, Africa presents “lots of opportunities for any bat tery chemistry”, as the continent is no different to the rest of the world in needing increased access to energy storage, Fink says.

“I believe without question that en ergy storage systems can improve the lives of society everywhere.”

Tunisia’s Nour is one example of the endurance and growth of lead battery manufacturing in Africa. On April 27, Italian lead recycler STC confirmed it had been awarded a $5 million contract to supply a lead battery recycling plant to Nour. STC, whose parent company is Bulgarian battery manufacturing group Monbat, said the deal was agreed following Monbat’s formal acquisition of a 60% stake in Nour, announced earlier that month.

Whether for e-mobility, electricity storage or back-up power for essen tial services, Fink says there are a “whole host” of reasons for invest ment in the manufacture and deploy ment of energy storage systems on the continent, adding: “Batteries do ultimately improve the quality of life.”

African manufacturers continue to produce lead batteries as they have for years and that ‘is clearly expected to boom in the decades ahead’

“Our sales team is selling into Africa from France, but I would expect we would have an office and warehousing facilities in Africa in the future”

As global financial institutions eye opportunities to support battery manufacturing and raw materials mining across Africa, the region is already a hub of investment activity, as Energy Storage Journal’s snapshot of projects from across the region shows…

Zimbabwe looks to economic boost as Chinese firms back battery metals plan

Chinese investors have signed an agreement that will set Zimbabwe on the path to becoming a significant producer of lithium ion and estab lish a $2.8 billion battery metals industrial park, Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa announced on September 16.

Mnangagwa said his landlocked southern Af rica nation was among others in the region that intended to carve out a share of the continent’s minerals wealth to boost the economy.

In addition to produc ing lithium and nickel, the 50km2 site earmarked for industrial development at Mapinga, northwest of the capital city of Harare, will host a battery metals

park and eventually create more than 25,000 jobs, the president claimed.

China-based backers Eagle Canyon Interna tional Group and Pacific Goal Investment are the government’s investment partners for the project.

Mnangagwa said at the signing ceremony for the project: “The mines-toenergy park will augment my government’s thrust of value addition and beneficiation of minerals, as well as bolster the cru cial role that the minerals value chain plays in the national industrialization agenda,”

“It is set to mark the in ception of a lithium ion battery chain in Zimba bwe (and) place us among the world’s producers of lithium ion batteries.”

Mnangagwa has spo ken of aiming for a $12 billion mining industry in Zimbabwe within the next few years.

According to research

and analysis firm Statista, overall existing produc tion of lithium in Zimba bwe amounted to 1,200 tonnes in 2021. Statista said figures have fluctu ated, with a peak pro duction of 1,600 tonnes recorded in 2018 and a low of just 417 tonnes in 2020.

The World Bank’s Zim babwe Country Economic Memorandum, published in October, said mining firms do have the poten tial to attract significant foreign direct investment to modernize production and beneficiation.

However, the report warned that difficulties in repatriating profits “due to macroeconomic condi tions and deficiencies in the mineral legislation”, in addition to problems in processing licences, have historically prevent ed large-scale investment from abroad.

Canadian mine de velopment company

NextSource has said it expects to complete the first phase of construc tion and start mining in November at its Molo graphite project in Madagascar.

Completion of plant commissioning on the is land nation, off the East African coast, is expected before the end of 2022, followed by a ramp up period prior to declaring

commercial production, the company confirmed.

Phase 1 of the Molo mine is designed to oper ate at a production ca pacity of 17,000 tonnes per annum.

President and CEO Craig Scherba said the project would support the company’s plans to become a key producer of graphite anode materi als for the international EV batteries market.

Meanwhile, Scherba

said the company had selected a location for its first battery anodes facil ity — although it would not reveal details until late 2022.

NextSource said on October 25 that it planned to build a series of such facilities, with modular production capacities, “each to be strategically positioned to serve key markets in Asia, North America, and Europe”.

“In an increasingly competitive environment, Zimbabwe’s ability to compete successfully in both domestic and for eign markets requires up grading and modernizing equipment and technolo gies,” the report said.

Nevertheless, despite various economic set backs, the report said Zimbabwe regained low er middle-income country status in 2018 and aspires to become an upper mid dle-income country by 2030.

Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa

Madagascar graphite mine nears start-up

Africans ‘must master own minerals destiny’

Zambia and the Demo cratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are in talks to final ize plans for a partnership to jointly develop batteries for electric vehicles and en ergy storage systems, En ergy Storage Journal has learned.

A spokesperson for the UN’s Economic Commis sion for Africa (ECA) said detailed discussions — fol lowing the signing of an agreement earlier this year — will pave the way for bi lateral cooperation on de veloping “the battery value chain”, as well as boosting ties between the nations.

Meanwhile, the coun tries are setting up a DRCZambia Battery Council to oversee the implementa tion of the agreement.

Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema and his DRC counterpart, Felix

Tshisekedi, will sit on the council’s executive body.

Hichilema said the initial agreement to start manu facturing EV batteries, signed on April 29, was a key milestone towards al leviating poverty and had “removed shame from Af rica” over its role in being an exporter of “cheap raw materials”.

“Africa has for long been viewed as a source of raw materials but the narrative is now being changed,” he said.

DRC president Felix Tsh isekedi said Africa “has to be the master of its own destiny”.

The two countries are home to at least 80% of minerals required for EV battery production, ECA.

Director of the ECA’s subregional office for Central Africa, Jean Luc Mastaki,

said the DRC and Zambia had a golden opportunity to move from their his toric status as exporters of cheap raw materials to become manufacturers and suppliers of battery precur sors and related services.

“Adding value to the bat

$1m boost for solar and BESS projects

Renewables developer EDP said on November 15 it would support nine more projects with total funding of €1 million ($1 million) that promote ac cess to renewable energy in remote and vulnerable communities in four Afri can countries — Mozam bique, Nigeria, Angola and Malawi.

The funding, guaranteed by the Access to Energy (A2E) Fund, will support

the use of decentralised solar and battery energy storage technologies for nearly 160 applications for projects to help mater nity hospitals, micro-elec tric grids, solar systems for agricultural produc tion or cold storage in markets.

EDP said Nigeria, with four projects, and Mo zambique, with three, are once again the countries with the most proposals

selected in the fourth edi tion of the A2E Fund.

In the three previous editions, the fund has already provided a total of €1.5 million to support 20 projects across Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania.

EDP executive board member Vera Pinto Pereira said: “Access to electricity is crucial to ensure the security and development of any community — and is an impactful issue in many remote communities or in more vulnerable situations in sub-Saharan Africa. Our commitment, now reinforced with the funding of nine more projects, is to continue contributing to facilitate this access to clean, safe and low-cost energy in these communities, and thus promote energy inclusion.”

tery minerals, through an inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, will defi nitely allow the two coun tries to pave the way to ro bust, resilient and inclusive growth,” he said.

Mastaki said the coop eration agreement would also underpin the develop ment by the Congolese and Zambian schools of mines and polytechnics of an Af rican centre of excellence on electrical battery skills.

Canadian mining and metals group First Quan tum Minerals said in May it had approved plans for a $1.25 billion expansion of the company’s Kansan shi copper mine in Zambia as a result of what CEO Tristan Pascall said was “increased confidence” in the country’s investment climate.

The expansion and as sociated Enterprise nickel project will extend the mine’s life for another two decades, Pascall said.

“The low-cost, highgrade Enterprise nickel project is well placed to supply the rapidly growing electric vehicle battery sec tor. The approval of these two projects is an impor tant milestone for the com pany’s path towards re sponsible production growth of the metals need ed for the global green en ergy transition.”

Presidential power push for batteries: Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema (left) and DRC’s Felix Tshisekedi

Nigeria solar-storage projects brewing

African renewables devel oper CrossBoundary En ergy has started work on a $10 million project to construct two solar and battery storage projects in Nigeria, in what the com pany said will be one of the largest such develop ments for a business in the country.

CrossBoundary an nounced on November 2 that the projects are for the Heineken-owned Ni gerian Breweries’ (NB) Ibadan and Ama brewery plants in Oyo and Enugu States.

As part of the agree ment, CrossBoundary will expand the existing renewable energy system at Ibadan from a 66kWp solar PV plant to a hy

brid solar-storage facil ity comprising a 3MWp solar PV system and a 2MW/2MWh BESS.

The company said that Germany-headquartered DHYBRID Power Sys tems has been contracted to design and supply the BESS and hybrid control units for both projects. CrossBoundary did not specify the battery chem istry involved, although DHYBRID says its BESS products use lithium ion battery technology.

CrossBoundary will fi nance the development and construction and will operate both facilities as part of a 15-year solar services agreement with NB. Under the agreement, NB will only pay for solar power produced, receiving a single monthly bill that incorporates all mainte nance, monitoring, insur ance, and financing costs.

The company’s first solar project at the Ibadan brewery was commis sioned in 2021.

Equity financing boost announced

A new $25 million boost has been announced for a fund targeting early-stage equity financing to devel op, construct and operate renewable energy projects in North Africa and other regions.

The Strategy Emerging Market Climate Action, backed by the European Investment Bank and Al lianz Global Investors (Al

lianzGI), said the invest ment has been made into Alcazar Energy Partners II — a fund that also sup ports projects in the Mid dle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

AllianzGI said on No vember 14 that Alcazar has a target size of $500 million to invest in onshore wind and solar photovoltaic, with additional potential

investments in hydropower, biomass or battery-based electricity storage or other low-carbon technologies.

Tobias Pross, CEO of Al lianzGI, said: “Emerging markets are where the money for climate adapta tion and mitigation is need ed most and where it will have a much more immedi ate impact than in devel oped countries.”

Askari Metals deal for Namibia lithium

Australia-based mining group Askari Metals has unveiled plans to expand its presence in the bat tery materials market by acquiring a 90% stake in Namibia’s advanced Uis Lithium-Tantalum-Tin Project.

Askari said on October 25 that it had entered into a binding heads of agree ment with Namibia-based LexRox Exploration Ser vices — signalling its in

tention to “evolve into a focused lithium explo ration and development company”.

Askari executive director Gino D’Anna said: “This project not only boasts exceptional lithium min eralization but is located less than 230km from the deep-water port of Walvis Bay. Infrastructure in this region is readily accessible with a well-maintained network of roads direct

to site as well as access to power and water.”

D’Anna said the compa ny is planning to conduct a reverse circulation drilling campaign of up to 10,000 metres to test the miner alisation of the pegmatites beneath the surface.

Acquisition of the 114km2 project is subject to the approval of share holders, who are expected to meet in late December or early January.

New

pledges $10bn for investments

The Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa (AGIA) was launched on November 9 to raise up to $500 million to pro vide early-stage project development capital for initiatives ranging from solar and green hydro gen projects to venture capital schemes includ ing energy storage and e-mobility, the African Union announced.

In addition to the AU, AGIA partners include the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Euro pean Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the French Development Agency, The Rockefeller Founda tion, the US Trade and Development Agency and the African Sover eign Investors Forum.

According to the AU, the project development capital “will build a ro bust pipeline of bankable projects — projected to generate up to $10 billion worth of invest ments in green infra structure — starting with the pre-feasibility stage all the way through to commercial and financial close”.

AfDB president Ak inwumi Adesina said: “The needs in Africa are simply enormous. Africa needs infrastruc ture financing, estimated at between $130 billion to $170 billion a year, with an infrastructure financing gap of up to $108 billion a year. But most of the infrastruc ture for Africa is yet to be built. This presents an enormous opportunity to get it right. Build green infrastructure that is climate smart and that is climate resilient.”

‘Alliance’

Solar-storage powers hope for the energy deprived

In an updated report focused on the eight countries in the greater Horn of Africa region — defined by the International Energy Agency (IEA) as Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ke nya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda — the Paris-based body is calling on countries in the area to step up regional collaboration to ex pand the use of clean energy systems.

The region represents nearly a quarter of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP and is home to some of the fastest growing economies, despite the fact that many areas face ongoing conflict and instability.

According to the IEA’s figures, pub lished in its October Clean Energy Transitions in the Greater Horn of Africa report, energy consumption has grown at 3% per year over the last decade, but the region remains energy-deprived. Half the region’s population lacks access to electricity and only one in six people have ac cess to modern cooking fuels.

But as is often the case in even the most developed nations, some are more equal than others.

For example, Kenya has one of the highest access rates in sub-Saharan Africa, while other countries lack centralised grid infrastructure alto gether.

Total energy demand in the region was 120 million tonnes of oil equiv alent in 2020 — less than the com bined energy consumption of Bel gium and the Netherlands, but with 10 times the number of people, says the IEA.

And the fact that bioenergy (often in the form of firewood and agricul tural waste) meets around 80% of overall demand across the region, indicates the substantial positive im pact extensive deployment of battery energy storage could provide.

According to the IEA, large hydro power projects in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya dominate the power mix today but the region’s potential for solar, wind and geothermal is “mas sively under-utilized”.

But energy infrastructure has strug gled to keep pace with the region’s growth, with the IEA noting that grids remain unreliable, many coun tries are still dependent on costly fuel imports and utilities are under finan cial duress”.

Progress stagnated

Today, 140 million people in the greater Horn lack access to electric ity — more than the population of Mexico, according to the report.

The picture is improving in that, on

average, eight million have gained ac cess to electricity supplies every year since 2010.

But progress has stagnated as utili ties cut back on infrastructure invest ment in the face of escalating debts, after taking on losses to keep bills af fordable during the Covid pandemic. Power providers are also grappling with higher energy costs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The IEA estimates that around five million more people live without ac cess to electricity as of 2021 than did before the pandemic.

However, there is still, as the IEA says, cause for hope. Ethiopia and Kenya together accounted for 30% of global solar home systems and solar appliance sales in 2021. These countries, along with Uganda, are also “front-runners in Africa for mini-grid expansion”.

Governments have made conscious efforts to provide supportive regula tory and policy frameworks for the off-grid sector, which have led to a high uptake of stand-alone solar sys tems, from lanterns to multi-appli ance solar and battery systems.

In Somalia, a country without a na tional grid, an active off-grid market has been developed and Eritrea “has reached nearly universal access in cit ies”.

Under its existing STEPS (stated policies scenario) the IEA says 110 million people in the region are still expected to be living without elec tricity in 2030. However, the agency says there is every opportunity for the Horn to have universal access to electricity in 2030, but that requires more work.

All countries in the region need policies to attract and enable invest ment to enable a “massive uptake of renewable energy”.

Achieving full access to modern energy across the continent by 2030 would require investment of $25 bil lion annually, which the agency says

A modern mix of clean energy in the greater Horn of Africa can power an economy twice as big as today’s with just 30% more energy, providing universal access to electricity and limiting emissions, says the International Energy Agency

is comparable to the cost of “just one large liquefied natural gas terminal investment”. Current investments fall far short of these levels. In 2019, they amounted to just 13% of the average needs for 2022-2030 in the case of electricity and 6% for clean cooking.

Battery costs set to fall Results-based financing for off-grid options could provide a flexible source of funding for companies and could mitigate the rising cost of offgrid technologies in the region, the IEA said.

“As the costs of solar power and batteries in the medium term are ex pected to fall globally, new business models and efficient devices such as electric pressure cookers can also help increase access to clean cooking.”

According to latest agency data, the African average for electricity prices is $0.14 per kWh for grid-connected electricity. However, across the con tinent as well as in the greater Horn region, prices within countries are highly variable.

In Kenya, the private sector is be coming increasingly active in the country’s public transport system and the government has set a target of electrifying 5% of its vehicle stock by 2025.

EV and finance start-up BasiGo is working to bring electric buses to pub lic bus operators in Nairobi. Bus own ers would then use a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model to pay for battery charging.

The company announced $6.6 mil lion in new funding in November led by Mobility54, the corporate venture capital arm of Toyota Tsusho, together with others including Trucks VC, a transportation-focused venture capital fund in Silicon Valley and Novastar Ventures, a global venture capital firm supporting entrepreneurs who trans forming markets in Africa.

Separately AROAM, a SwedishKenyan company initially focusing on domestic production of electric mo torcycles and off-road vehicles, has in troduced its first African-designed and manufactured electric bus in Kenya.

The IEA says that investing in local manufacturing and assembly of twoand three-wheelers, including motor and pedal ones, countries could create millions of green jobs for African na tions’ young populations.

“However, serious challenges still need addressing in the EV sector. Strengthening and improving the re liability of the distribution grid is a major one. In addition to tax incen tives for the import of EVs and their components, measures in support of a

conducive EV start-up ecosystem are likely to scale up growth and catalyse investment in the EV sector,” the agen cy’s report says.

Meanwhile, the East African Region al Energy Project, as part of the African Development Bank’s Desert to Power Initiative, aims to develop a “harmon ised” renewable energy policy for the East Africa Sahel countries — notably Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan — with the financial support of $5.5 million from the bank.

Desert to Power plans to speed up deployment of solar systems with as sociated battery energy storage at scale in the 11 countries of the Sahel region — Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Er itrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Ni ger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The IEA says these countries, which have some of the world’s best potential for solar energy, have the lowest electricity access rates globally.

Bank grant powers ESS study for Mozambique

The African Develop ment Bank (AfDB) has approved a grant of $2.5 million to the Mozam bican government to develop renewable energy resources — including a study into developing battery energy storage systems at up to 10 sites in the country.

The grant, from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA), which is administered by the AfDB, is being used to implement the Mozam bique renewable energy integration program.

The funding will also help the country’s power utility in providing finan cial support for technical, economic, environmental and social feasibility stud ies for the development

of a solar floating power plant in the Chicamba reservoir.

Daniel Schroth, direc tor of the bank’s renew able energy and energy efficiency department, said on October 14: “Given that Mozam bique is one of the most highly climate-vulnerable countries in the world, the project will help build a more sustainable and resilient power generation infrastructure.”

Schroth said that with the support of SEFA,

Mozambique’s capacity to integrate larger shares of variable renewables will increase its efforts to become a major regional electricity supplier.”

The AfDB is a key player in the energy sector in Mozambique, which the bank says is increasingly affected by severe and sud den cyclones, storms, and prolonged drought periods.

According to the bank, the country is a net exporter of electricity despite low access rates (57% in urban areas and

13% in rural areas). With 187GW, Mozambique “has the most significant power generation poten tial in southern Africa, thanks to untapped re sources in coal, hydro electricity, gas, wind, and solar energy”.

Hydropower accounts for about 81% of in stalled power generating capacity. But the bank says natural gas and renewable energy sources are set to take a growing share of Mozambique’s energy mix.

“Given that Mozambique is one of the most highly climatevulnerable countries in the world, the project will help build a more sustainable and resilient power generation infrastructure.”

Africa is serious about maximizing its exposure to the resource sector over the coming decade, a clear strategy relating to nickel, copper and lithium

critical, writes Craig Brewer, co-head of origination at Absa Corporate and Investment Banking

Investment roadmap needed for way ahead

Africa has enjoyed a significant windfall from the rebound in global commodity prices with coal, iron ore gold and platinum group met als coming to the party. However, a limited focus on downstream ben eficiation and limited investment in industries which support the com modity ecosystem will catch the continent out down the line.

With the rise of new energy tech nology, governments on the con tinent are now turning their atten tion to the potential offered by this cluster of battery metals and it will be interesting to see how they ap proach this opportunity.

Invariably we expect a rise in some form of ‘resource national ism’ as countries attempt to rebuild their balance sheets in a post Co vid-19 world, but forward-thinking decision-makers and investors will be looking for countries which can think longer-term.

What we need to be wary of is cre ating this narrative that it is people versus profits and rather start de veloping a framework that aligns a combination of environmental, so cial and governance (ESG) metrics which sees all stakeholders benefit ing from the upside.

In South Africa, global oil giant Shell was interdicted from conduct ing exploration work off the west coast of South Africa with environ mentalists arguing against the im pact on the local communities and wildlife in the area.

While this ruling was greeted by much fanfare, the news headlines in the following days and weeks be moan the fact that South Africa is facing record unemployment, the average consumer is being crushed by record oil prices as a result of the war in Ukraine and the coun try can’t generate enough power to deliver any meaningful economic

growth. This perfectly encapsulates the challenge that African govern ments face:

Unless there is a strategic ap proach to all three elements on the ESG matrix, they cannot deliver sus tainable growth that will benefit all stakeholders.

While the explorative nature of the Shell project meant that there were many unknowns, the current debate and outlook for the coal sec tor will be informative to determin ing which countries understand the importance of integrating a proper ESG framework.

There has been extensive lobby ing from those focused on the ‘E’ side of the equation arguing: “Coal is dirty and bad, Renewable energy is clean and good” — this was a very comfortable narrative until the point that Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine and much of Europe found itself facing its own energy security crisis.

In the euro area, the unemploy ment rate sits at just under 7% — in South Africa, the latest employment statistics show a 35% unemploy ment rate and youth unemployment is at 65% in certain communities. With the coal sector employing one out of every five people in the min ing sector and creating over 90,000 jobs, what will the social impact be if we simply elect to stop all invest ment in the coal sector?

Communities in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the Free State are all big beneficiaries of coal mining ac tivities and simply adopting a view that projects in this sector shouldn’t be funded is not conducive to eco nomic growth.

This segues into the ‘G’ part of the equation.

While there has been a big push to change South Africa’s energy mix, one has only to look at the

risk mitigation independent power producer procurement programme announced in 2021. The pur pose of this had been to introduce 2,000MW of private sector capac ity into the grid across 11 success ful bidders — a year down the line, none of these projects have gotten out of the starting blocks due to various legal challenges.

Whether you are private sector capital, a bank, or a development finance institution, it is impossible to release capital for large projects if a proper governance framework is not in place.

Understanding all three legs of the ESG matrix will be critical when it comes to growth of the battery metals such as nickel, cop per and lithium and it needs to be viewed through an African lens. How can we seize this opportunity with broad-based benefits for all stakeholders?

The Russia and Ukraine crisis is going to fundamentally change the commodity market for years to come. As Europe is rapidly discov ering, sanctions have limited impact when you are dependent on Russia for much of your energy security.

The western world will no longer want to rely on Russia for key com modities, yet for the foreseeable fu ture is beholden to them due to the rich resources within Russia.

Whether it is microchips which require neon (50% of global supply is from Russia) to palladium (45%) which is used for exhaust systems to mobile phones to potash and nitrogen (20%) used for fertilizer, the West will take time to lessen its dependence on Russia, which will make for an interesting tension be tween global nations.

Resource-rich Africa can benefit here, but only if there is a clear roadmap for investors to follow.

If

will be

CellCube chief backs regional technology mix

The CEO of vanadium redox flow battery brand CellCube, Alexander Schönfeldt, says the company ex pects to make “further announce ments” before the end of 2022 on the progress of its business activities in Africa and Australia, following the deal unveiled earlier this year to open a “gigawatt-sized pipeline” for the company in energy-starved Southern Africa.

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

Talking to Energy Storage Journal shortly before this edition went to press, Schönfeldt was keeping tight lipped about the next steps forward, but in terms of the overall invest ment potential for energy storage projects in Africa, he says there is increasing support “for building up a local value chain” involving the manufacture and sales of made-inAfrica systems.

And while Schönfeldt’s role is to fly the flag for CellCube’s battery tech alone, he says Africa will benefit from having access to a range of battery chemistries and associated technolo gies for the time being, stressing that he is unafraid of the competition.

“I think Africa needs everything at the moment and I would say it’s too early for consolidation. If you really

want to speed up the use of energy storage to help achieve industrial production and climate goals, then every technology is going to be need ed.”

“Some regions in Africa may be looking more at the hydrogen space and others are moving towards bat teries,” he says.

Fuelling demand is a desire for se curity of energy supply for homes, businesses and essential services. In addition, Schönfeldt says countries want to expand the use of renew

able power supplies to avoid load shedding — interruptions of electric ity supply — which are endemic for towns and cities fortunate enough to have access to a power grid

Schönfeldt understands calls from African leaders seeking greater homegrown production of energy storage systems, using the expertise of inter national partners where necessary.

“CellCube’s position is that we want to put our own manufacturing operations in Africa, Australia and South America and we support any other activity that supports our strat egy.”

“As CEO, my position is there is a strong demand for local value chains and this can help developing coun tries to actually have a better share in the value chain overall. This is also beneficial from an ESG perspective.”

African nations should be encour aged if they desire to source and process materials on the continent, because it adds to the environmental benefits, Schönfeldt says.

“Why send materials produced in Africa to other regions such as Asia for processing, then ship it on to the US or Europe for further process ing?”

“Africa needs everything at the moment and I would say it’s too early for consolidation. If you really want to speed up the use of energy storage to help achieve industrial production and climate goals, then every technology is going to be needed.”

The path to taking any infrastructure project from the drawing board to commercial operation is fraught with challenges, but firms bringing new BESS tech to market can find it more difficult than most. However, a

partnership with global insurance provider Munich Re is underpinning the international development of iron-based flow battery firm ESS.

Underwriting the future of new energy storage

Mounting energy crises around the world, fuelled largely in part by Rus sia’s war with Ukraine, has focused at tention more than ever on the need for a shift to encouraging the development of innovative sources of clean electric ity generation.

Battery storage and in particular long duration energy storage (LDES) tech nologies have become increasingly at tractive to policymakers and utilities.

LDES solutions often mean introduc ing new technologies to markets that have become accepting of the domi nance of lithium ion battery tech.

The risks and bankability of new technologies have made it difficult to achieve a breakthrough.

However, the arrival of one of the world’s leading providers of reinsur ance, primary insurance, and insur ance-related risk solutions in the en ergy storage market, Munich Re, could be turning the tables in the favour of new entrants to the market.

Sebastian Scholz, of Munich Re’s Green Tech Solutions unit, provides B2B primary insurance for large in dustrial clients — particularly in the renewables sector.

Now Scholz heads a team focused on

the energy storage market and whose first customer after launching its insur ance scheme is US-headquartered ironbased flow battery company ESS.

“We entered into the energy storage market in around 2019 but we did so having already had more than 10 years of experience in insuring long term product and performance warranties for new technologies, particularly in the green energy space,” says Scholz.

Munich Re had been a driving force

in insurance for solar, onshore and offshore wind manufacturers, so the move into energy storage was regarded as a complementary one.

“We know the ecosystem and many of the players and the need for storage and in particular LDES.”

The relationship with ESS grew from a conversation at a trade fair in North America.

Scholz said it quickly became appar ent that Munich Re’s service could be a gamechanger for ESS.

“That’s how it started and since then ESS has been on a tremendous growth path.”

Munich Re offers what it describes as a backstop for ESS’s long-running war ranty promise and Scholz says the risks that come with it are “pretty similar across different technologies in renew ables”.

“We decided to translate our knowl edge into the energy storage space — it’s worked with ESS and other players and we are now building a growing insurance book in this sector.”

Scholz says the company is “particu larly technology centric” and technolo gies that are candidates for Munich Re’s books are examined in detail be forehand.

“We also hire market experience, for example we have electrochemists in the team. We also have folks from the en ergy storage industry that work for us and they do the technical due diligence that comes with insuring an energy storage asset.

“Technical due diligence is the entry point for such a technology-oriented insurance product. That’s what we did with ESS and we’ve been insuring them ever since.”

Scholz is coy, largely because of a number of commercial non-disclosure agreements, about the names already on Munich Re’s battery insurance books.

Insurance scheme aims to lighten the load of developers expanding in the global energy storage market

Sebastian Scholz of Munich Re’s Green Tech Solutions unit

The company insures players in what he describes as the “more exotic corner of the market — which still is redox flow technology of different sorts” — but it supports “plain vanilla players” too, such as those selling containerized lithium assets into the market, Scholz says.

But there are no battery technologies or chemistries that would be ruled out for insurance guarantee coverage. All would be considered on a customerby-customer basis.

Green Tech Solutions is on a “good growth path… our successful business model is simultaneously enabling the energy transition”.

Scholz acknowledges that while en ergy storage insurance is a growing niche business, it has the scope to ex pand alongside other initiatives, such as insurance for AI projects, which is already being pursued by Munich Re colleagues.

How policies are devised “AI is increasingly involved in the op eration of energy storage assets, such as to make use of arbitrage,” he says.

“Thorough due diligence” is the es sence of work before Munich Re adds a customer’s technology to its books.

“We have developed risk assessment questionnaires for the various technol ogies we look at considering a number of factors such as cell chemistries.”

Based on the findings of the com pany’s technical advisers known as risk analysts in insurance lingo, the next stage is opening in depth talks with the customer.

“That’s what we did with ESS cofounder and CTO Julia Song, who was our technology partner for discussions revolving around ESS’s technical due diligence,” Scholz said.

Only then can Munich Re start to structure a policy based on technical risk and on talks with the future client

about how much risk should be placed on the insurer’s books.

In a world where concerns about se curity of supply in the battery materi als supply chains are a dominating fac tor, that is not an influencing factor as far as Munich Re is concerned.

Scholz says there is no coverage for any impact on delays to supply of a battery’s ‘fuel’. But there is ‘delay-instart-up’ insurance for larger scale en ergy storage investment projects.

“What we currently focus on is the point when the asset comes into op eration. And as we know, they are sup posed to be in operation for 10, 15 or in some cases 20 years. We cover en dogenous risks over the duration of the lifetime of the asset.”

PRODUCTION CAPACITY ‘SET TO TRIPLE DESPITE SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES’

August 11 that the company had doubled its annual production capability to 500MWh with the addition of a new manufacturing line in the second quarter of this year.

The US-based firm expects to have its next fully automated line up and running in the fourth quarter, taking annual capacity to 750MWh — “tripling where we started the year”.

On the operational front, Dresselhuys said ESS continued to “battle various supply issues” with components for its Energy Warehouse units, which have slowed its production schedule.

However, Dresselhuys said while the firm is sticking to its original plan of shipping 40 to 50 Energy Warehouse units this year, “we would likely be near the low end of the range and possibly below it, depending on our ability to resolve these supply chain issues”.

But he revealed a “landmark deal” would see the company delivering more than 1GWh of storage systems to Australia-based Energy Storage Industries Asia-Pacific (ESI) in the next five years.

ESI has already placed multiple orders for more than 70 EW units, which ESS began shipping in July,

Dresselhuys said.

“In the coming quarters, ESI will ramp up facilities in Queensland, Australia, that will take key components that ESS will ship from our Oregon factory such as energy modules and proton pumps and assemble them with the balance of plant.”

Dresselhuys also welcomed the signing in the second quarter of a contract to deliver an Energy Center storage system to Tampa Electric Company (TECO) in Florida.

This installation will support TECO’s Big Bend Solar Project, which powers 3,300 homes.

The Energy Center which should ship early 2023, will be able to provide up to 10 hours of total capacity and is intended to be used for solar peak shifting, and fossil fuel displacement.

An additional layer of protection — solvency coverage — is available to offer support and confidence in large scale developments, such as in cases where a technology provider might go out of business and a valid warranty claim occurs in the future, be it in con nection with the product or perfor mance.

Scholz said developers can then turn directly to the insurer for a financial in demnification.

“This really speaks to the bankabil ity aspect that financiers do want to see when they invest in these types of new technologies.

“On this very aspect, the fact that Munich Re has been operating since 1880, with our credit rating backstop ping the warranty promise, ensures projects are viewed as bankable.”

ESS: ‘Insurance is an enabler’

For iron-flow storage firm ESS, as one of the relative ‘newcomers’ on the LDES scene (although the company has been developing its systems since the early 2000s), Munich Re’s support has been key to its expansion in the US and Europe.

Europe director, Alan Greenshields, praised the leadership of Munich Re in showing support for the challenges facing new technologies coming in to the market “where financeability is a big issue”.

“They have created a path for com panies such as us by defining the in surability of new technologies that can contribute to combating climate change,” he says.

Risk mitigation and management is “probably one of the biggest single el ements” private sector developers and utility customers look at because “they are always looking for what could go wrong”.

ESS CEO Eric Dresselhuys (right) told an earnings call on

“An insurance product that is cover ing part of the tech risk is a huge thing from their point of view. It’s also an enabler from going from early-stage deployment up to making the product ready for mass deployment.”

Greenshields says he thinks policy makers and utilities have been encour aged to see the private sector turn to non-lithium technologies

“They are interested in trying some thing new and excited about the fea tures of the product and that’s the status ESS had in 2015. We had small numbers of our products going out for trials.”

But what global decarbonization policies need now is mass deployment, Greenshields says.

“And whether it’s a private sector developer, power utility or any other large body seeking to enact mass de

ployment the financeability of their project is the important thing and is a completely different focus from the point of view of the customer.”

The real value of the kind of policy provided by Munich Re is in those early stages of deploying a new tech nology or entering foreign markets.

Greenshields says the huge balance sheets of major Asian companies has been a key driver in the deployment of massive amounts of lithium, “even though there are concerns about dura bility and fires”.

“It will take ESS sometime to have a balance sheet to anything as close as theirs, so this insurance offered by Munich Re is essential for the scaleup.”

Greenshields says the need for a major ramp-up of LDES systems is a key building block to building sus

tainable energy policies that can make the most of the intermittent nature of renewable power generation such as solar and wind.

“But technology is only part of it — a big part is funding.”

Such funding has to come from the private sector such as pension funds, which have shown a zeal to invest in energy storage.

However, funds will expect to get a reasonably safe return on their invest ments and insurance is “an invaluable part of that equation”, Greenshields says.

In a report published last June, the International Energy Agency said in vestment in battery energy storage was expected to more than double to reach almost $20 billion in 2022.

From a low base, there is rapid growth underway in spending on some emerging technologies, “notably batteries” and other clean tech sys tems such as carbon storage, the IEA said.

It could be argued that despite the frequent reports of fires caused by the propensity of thermal runaway in lithium ion battery storage systems, it might seem surprising that the chemis try has continued apace.

However, as Greenshields says, the deep pockets of the largely Asian bat tery behemoths behind vast numbers of lithium BESS projects around the world has comforted customers.

The financial fire blankets that es tablished battery makers can rollout to quell concerns of utilities and oth ers in the event of explosions and other such incidents involving energy storage systems has been a major influencing factor.

But the entry of Munich Re into the battery insurance market appears to be signalling a wind of change in favour of new technology players.

Alan Greenshields, ESS Europe director

27th International Congress for Battery Recycling, ICBR 2022

September 14-16, Salzburg, Austria

Recycling

However, Bedford was not alone in speakers that seemed determined to ‘keep it real’ and not pull any punches when it came to facing up to the problems the lithium recycling industry knows deep down that it faces. This was to their credit.

The International Congress on Battery Recycling would, it’s fair to say, not be a ‘must do’ fixture on the calendar of the titans of the lead battery industry.

As worthy as ICBR is — indeed it’s now a grand old presence on the global convention scene, having held its 27th outing in Salzburg, Austria in September — and is a natural home for the what-to-do-with-lithium cognoscenti.

However, if anyone from the lead battery industry did give ICBR 2022 a miss, they missed a performance that ended up singing, impromptu, the virtues of lead recycling verse by verse in a manner to make their hearts sing — and full credit to the conference organizers for being so inclusive as to include it in their postconference presentations that are still available online.

Mark Bedford, battery materials director for Johnson Matthey, had just finished his presentation, during which he detailed a litany of hazards and difficulties that the lithium battery recycling sector needs to address as a matter of urgency.

A member of the audience then said: “I bet it makes you miss the good old times of lead acid batteries.”

Pointing out that lead batteries are still very much alive and kicking, Bedford said: “It strikes me that the lithium ion battery is like a mini chemical factory. It has so many challenges attached to it.

“But the lead acid battery industry has shown the way in respect of having had very serious issues

connected to it (in the past) such as the toxicity of lead.”

However, some of the technology and capability that’s been delivered by the lead acid battery recycling industry over the years is “exemplary, because it has a great reputation”, Bedford said.

“It certainly offers the highest recovery rates of any industry in the world, we can learn something from lead acid.”

Bedford had earlier warned ICBR delegates that they “really have to contend with” the issue of thermal runaway of lithium ion batteries.

While “mitigating technologies” are being developed as the nascent lithium recycling industry moves ahead, he said chemical hazards were “less well understood”.

Nonetheless, chemical hazards need the same degree of attention in devising safe processes, such as for the handling and recycling of end of life Li-ion batteries, he said.

Bedford also warned that, in the European Union, increased occupational exposure limits for lithium are looming and the risks from a range of battery materials used in lithium battery technology must be taken seriously.

But as if sensing that delegates had been subject to a little too much doom and gloom, he ended with some encouragement: “I don’t want to be unduly pessimistic. As an industry we have fantastic capabilities in terms of our understanding and engineering around the construction and operating of (recycling) processes.”

Conference steering committee chairman Arie de Jong, director of Dutch recycling services company Stibat Services, noted that the capacity for recycling lithium batteries in Europe was still “very limited” and not being helped by escalating energy costs that were placing a “huge burden” on the sector.

He warned that much work remained to be done on safety issues — and bemoaned the fact that too many lithium batteries were being discarded along with general waste, leading to battery fires breaking out in household waste recycling centres that in turn gave the industry a bad name.

Another speaker revealed similar problems were engulfing Japan. Atsushi Terazono, of the National Institute for Environmental Studies of Japan, said fires caused by lithium ion batteries at domestic waste collection sites had become, in his words, “a hot issue”.

Only last year, two companies had to recall non genuine lithium ion batteries for use in cordless

The recycling industry is in the spotlight as never before, amid concern over the sustainability and supply of raw materials supply to power the lithiumled gigafactories springing up worldwide. But delegates were also keen to address the reputational damage being done to the industry

Mark Bedford

vacuum cleaners from well known manufacturers that were at risk of igniting even when being stored and not in use, Terazono said.

“One company even went bankrupt and therefore was unable to recall its product, leaving it to municipalities and the public to deal with the problem,” he said.

He said many stores were reluctant to host collection points for primary batteries and even when they do, more needs to be done to educate the general public to use them.

He said authorities at a local and national level in Japan are now discussing ways of tackling the issue, not least because some LIB products are not regulated by any laws.

‘Firefighting’ was a common theme and taken up by another keynote speaker, Christian Holzer, representing Austria’s federal ministry for climate action, environment, energy, mobility, innovation and technology.

He said insurance companies were increasing their charges and technical requirements and requiring general waste recycling companies to adopt new fire detection measures and invest in fire safety equipment.

“Some insurance companies are pulling out of the waste industry altogether, so fire protection is becoming a major factor in the development of waste management,” he said.

“We live in a time of fundamental changes and challenges, with a climate crisis the aftermath of covid, combined with increasing political and economic instability,” not to mention the impact of high inflation ratcheting up the cost of raw materials, he added.

Austria’s view, said Holzer, was

that the world needs to reduce its consumption of battery raw materials by increasing recycling and in turn reduce the impact on the carbon footprint left by transporting raw materials to-and-fro for processing and eventual use.

He also called for a more transparent analysis of the “entire EV value chain” — focusing on the extraction of raw materials right up to the production of batteries and subsequent recycling.

“More due diligence is needed,” and Holzer said the industry had to address increasing environmental concerns about lithium extraction in Argentina and cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Several speakers referenced the EU’s upcoming Batteries Regulation, which will overhaul existing laws and tighten requirements for battery recycling.

However, European Commission policy officer Cesar Santos cautioned that it could be some time yet before the long-awaited policy document, said to run to some 100 pages, becomes law.

Santos, who works within the European Commission’s directorategeneral covering the environment and the circular economy, told the conference that political negotiations to finalize the Batteries Regulation were still underway in the corridors of power in Brussels.

As a best case scenario, those negotiations could be concluded by the end of this year. However, if no agreement is reached, that could potentially delay the formal adoption of the incoming rules until the spring of 2023.

But even then, a further four to six months will probably be needed to

A tour of European Lithium’s Wolfsberg mine in Austria was among activities lined up for ICBR delegates. The mine, which is the most advanced such project in Europe to date, stretches 1.5km deep. During the tour, delegates learned the basic principles of lithium mining as well as the special features of the deposit in Wolfsberg.

comply with various administrative procedures — not least the translation of the regulations into the myriad of official languages of EU states. So, it could be as late as next autumn before the regulations finally come into force, Santos said. Until then, as one attendee told Energy Storage Journal after the event, it’s a case of “do your best, keep calm and carry on”.

Atsushi Terazono

Cesar Santos

Arie de Jong

World Future Energy Summit — WFES

January 16 – 18, 2023

Abu Dhabi, UAE

The annual World Future Energy Sum mit in Abu Dhabi is the leading global industry event and exhibition for fu ture energy, clean-tech and sustain ability. Bringing together government and business leaders, 800 specialist exhibitors and 33,500 visitors from 170 countries, it showcases pioneer ing technologies and ground-breaking thinking in energy, energy efficiency, water, solar, waste and smart cities.

Contact RX Global E: worldfutureenergysummit@rxglobal.com www.worldfutureenergysummit.com

EV Battery Technology Conference and Exhibition

February 13 – 14 Long Beach, CA. USA

Battery technology is the future. The world’s emerging appetite is for electric vehicles. The automakers and compa nies for batteries are investing copi ously to construct lighter, denser and affordable batteries. The formation and assembling of the battery is a key factor in performance and cost. But for the future, wholly different chemistries and bigger breakthroughs are expected to emerge.

Electric power is the latest technol ogy that is revolutionizing the auto in dustry. There are many kinds of batter ies, but lithium-ion is emerging as the dominating battery technology. How ever, research and development is con tinuing into alternative cell chemistries as developers strive to provide cheaper, more energy efficient products.

This is the area of focus for the EV Battery Technology Conference and Ex hibition 2023. We will provide you with an exclusive platform from which to explore these issues and more in depth. Come and hear at first hand from the in fluential voices and key players that are driving the EV industry forward.

Contact Meta Tech E: info@metatechevents.com www.evbatterytechconference.com

Intersolar North America

February 14 – 16, Long Beach, California, USA

Dedicated to accelerating the energy transition #isnaesna23 will bring in stallers, developers, utilities, technol ogy providers, policy makers, and key stakeholders from around the world

together for three days of impactful learning, networking and business.

With a comprehensive conference programme, lively Solar Games compe tition, and immersive exhibit hall expe rience, #isnaesna23 will deliver energy professionals an unmatched oppor tunities to gain critical insights, make meaningful connections and source quality products.

Contact Diversified Communications www.intersolar.us

EV Charging Infrastructure Conference and Exhibition

February 20 – 21 Long Beach, CA. USA

As the world embraces the e-mobility sector at pace, the importance of having access to a robust electric vehicle charg ing infrastructure will be a key enabler to accelerate the take-up of EVs.

This event will explore key challenges and issues facing the mobility revolution as countries strive to ensure they have a charging infrastructure ‘backbone’ to support the transformation to an electri cally-powered mobility revolution.

Major players from across the EV industry will be on hand to share their expertise and provide insight and analy sis for investors, policymakers, manu facturers and infrastructure developers alike.

From electric scooters to e-bikes EVs and e-buses, all sectors we will have it covered. Join us in Long Beach for what promises to be an invaluable ex perience.

Contact Meta Tech E: info@metatechevents.com www.evcharginginfrastructureconference.com

NAATBatt Annual Conference

February 20 – 23 Arizona, USA.

NAATBatt 2023 will among the lead ing networking and market intelligence events in the North American advanced battery industry in 2023. Top execu tives, scientists and investors use the

NAATBatt annual meeting to renew acquaintances, network with new com panies and hear about the latest technol ogy developments in the industry.

Joining NAATBatt International is a great way to build relationships in an industry that is helping to shape the 21st century, as vehicle technology, re newable energy, light aviation, maritime propulsion systems, robotics, weapons systems, medical devices, consumer electronics and the internet of things will all depend on electricity supplied by advanced battery technology.

Contact NAATBatt International E: info@naatbatt.org www.nac.naatbatt.org

Energy Storage Summit

February 22 – 23 London, UK

As Europe grapples with an energy secu rity crisis, net zero targets and increas ing amounts of intermittent renewable generation, energy storage continues to play an essential role in the power sec tor.

The 8th edition of the summit in 2023 will guide the market on how to maxi mise storage revenues and reduce energy costs.

Contact Solar Media E: energystorage@solarmedia.co.uk www.storagesummit.solarenergyevents.com

RE+ Northeast

February 22 – 23 Boston, MA USA

RE+ Northeast’s primary mission is to deliver on the objectives of both the So lar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) in a way that strengthens the solar energy industry domestically and globally, through networking and edu cation, and by creating an energetic and engaging marketplace to connect buyers and suppliers.

Contact Smart Electric Power Alliance E: customerservice@re-plus.com www.events.solar/northeast/

Long Beach, USA

ACI Battery Recycling Europe

March 1 – 2 London, UK

The conference will bring together battery recycling industry experts, col lection scheme operators and battery manufacturers to learn, share and dis cuss the current and emerging topics in the sector.

The two-day event offers an insight into the newest recycling technologies, latest updates in policy and regulations, and commercial benefits of recycling spent power batteries.

ACI’s Battery Recycling Europe will also showcase future opportunities in the battery recycling market and blend together inspirational keynotes, infor mative sessions and wonderful net working opportunities.

Contact Active Communications International E: luca@acieu.net www.wplgroup.com/aci/event/battery-recy cling-europe/

The Distributed Energy Show

March 14 – 15, Telford, UK

The Distributed Energy Show is a freeto-attend exhibition and conference that will bring together the entire sup ply chain focused on distributed energy resources and provide a comprehensive overview of the array of technologies and systems that can enable them to generate, store, manage and distribute their own power and heat.

Contact Event Partners Danny Scott, Exhibition Manager E: danny.scott@event-partners.org www.distributedenergyshow.com

Intersolar Middle East

March 14 – 16, Dubai, UAE

Middle East Energy (MEE), Intersolar, and ees, the leading energy exhibitions are joining hands to co-deliver an out standing renewables and energy stor age event at Middle East Energy.

Renewables and energy storage at MEE is the largest gathering of solar and renewable energy industry profes sionals in the Middle East & Africa, of fering the most effective trade focused platform to international manufactur ers and distributors looking to meet regional buyers.

Intersolar and ees conferences pro vide solar and energy industries with platforms for sharing information and strategies. In collaboration with speak

ers, participants and partners, we shape the energy supply of the future.

Contact Solar Promotion www.intersolar.ae/en/home

Battery Japan March 15 – 17 Tokyo, Japan

Battery technologies are the key to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 as they will largely contribute to the popu larisation of renewable energy and EVs. BATTERY JAPAN gathers a broad range of technologies, components, materials, and devices for rechargeable batteries development & production. The show attracts professionals from all over the world.

Contact RX Japan E: wsew.jp@rxglobal.com www.wsew.jp/hub/en-gb/about/bj.html

InterBattery

March 15 – 17 Seoul, Korea

First launched in 2013 in Seoul, Korea, InterBattery is Korea’s leading battery exhibition showcasing various new products and technologies of battery industry.

InterBattery 2023 attracts more than 400 exhibitors(domestic/ overseas) and 1,200 booths including global top corporates of battery manufacturers such as Samsung SDI, LG Energy solution, SK On, CATL.

CHARGE Your Business through InterBattery 2023!

Contact InterBattery Secretariat E: interbattery@coex.co.kr www.interbattery.or.kr/en/

International Battery Seminar and Exhibit

March 20 – 23 Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Founded in 1983, the International Bat tery Seminar & Exhibit has established itself as the premier event showcasing the state of the art of worldwide energy storage technology developments for consumer, automotive, military and in dustrial applications.

Key thought leaders will assemble to not only provide broad perspectives, but also informed insights into sig nificant advances in materials, product development, manufacturing, and ap plication for all battery systems and enabling technologies.

As the longest-running annual bat tery industry event in the world, this meeting has always been the preferred venue to announce significant develop ments, new products, and showcase the most advanced battery technology.

Contact Cambridge EnerTech E: ce@cambridgeenertech.com www.internationalbatteryseminar.com

Seoul, Korea

Tokyo, Japan

RE+ Texas

April 5 – 6

San Antonio, Texas, USA

RE+ Texas attracts energy profession als from across the solar and storage markets each year. Featuring two days of exhibition, a robust education sched ule and networking opportunities, at tendees will hear from visionary lead ers on what’s next for the Texas clean energy market to propel businesses to the next level.

Contact RE+ Events / Solar Energy Trade Shows E: customerservice@re-plus.com www.re-plus.events/texas

Battery Tech Expo

April 20

Silverstone, UK.

The battery industry is going through a power revolution with big technology companies investing heavily in the next generation of battery development and energy storage.

Battery Tech Expo brings together professionals from across the advanced battery technology and energy stor age sector to connect, innovate and do business. The event will provide an opportunity to showcase the lat est products, technologies and services covering battery management systems, EV batteries, battery storage and devel opments including for commercial and mobile power devices.

Contact 10fourmedia

David Reeks

E: david.reeks@10fourmedia.co.uk www.batterytechexpo.co.uk

BCI Convention + Power Mart Expo April 23 – 26 Louisville, KY, USA

BCI brings together the leading lead battery manufacturers and recyclers in North America and around the world, and establishes technical standards for battery manufacturing and actively promotes workable environmental, health and safety standards for the in dustry.

Each year, hundreds of lead battery industry executives gather at the indus try’s premier event, the BCI Convention + Power Mart Expo, for three days of networking and exposure to valuable industry knowledge. Past convention presentations have included global regulatory and legislative updates, lead market analyses, the BCI Failure Mode Study, and industrial and transporta tion batteries outlooks.

The Power Mart Expo allows sup pliers to display products, equipment and new innovations to an audience of senior executives from major battery manufacturers.

Contact Battery Council International E: info@batterycouncil.org www.convention.batterycouncil.org

International Advanced Battery Conference

April 26 – 28

Aachen, Germany

Now preparing for its 15th edition, the conference supported by partners Haus der Technik, Essen, the ISEA Institute, RWTH Aachen University and the MEET Battery Research Centre Mün ster, will bring together engineers and scientists from the entire field of battery technology at the Eurogress in Aachen in 2023. This event is always guaran teed to attract strong participation of young scientists and innovative compa nies among its global audience.

Contact Haus Der Technik — HDT E: hdt@hdt.de www.battery-power.eu/en/

Solar + Storage Mexico

April 26 – 28 Mexico

Solar + Storage Mexico turns the spot light on developments in the energy and solar technology sector, as renew able energy is expected to attract in vestments worth more than $100 bil lion by 2031.

The exhibition is operated by Deutsche Messe, one of the leading trade show organizers worldwide, SNEC PV Power Expo, the world’s leading solar technology event based in Shanghai, China and Solar Power International, the organizers of North America’s leading events and confer ences.

Contact Hannover Fairs Mexico E: info@hmexico.mx www.hfmexico.mx/solarpowermexico

San Antonio, Texas, USA

Louisville, Kentucky, USA

The last word

Psst … time to rat on the boss

Late night jinks after conference receptions aren’t new. Especially if drinks are involved. And some of their tried and tested pranks have a proven history of success. The right room number, wrong hotel ploy — recently perfected by one of Energy Storage Journal’s newest staff — ‘honest I was just having a blond moment’, he told us after his second encounter.

But what about the supposedly true story of a senior speaker at a conference being led away by his ‘granddaughter’ late at night in an Asian capital? Perhaps she was a tour guide? Got any dirt on your boss? Call us now with your hotel room details!

No golden arches for ABC in 2023

Has the impossible happened?

Next September’s Asian Battery Conference is already striking terror into the hearts of North American delegates about fine dining … Cambodian style.

Yes, there are no McDonald’s restaurants in the country. Not one. Yes, KFCs do exist but Cambodia is the only country in the world where the firm is not profitable.

But no need to despair. According to its Facebook page — burgerkingcambodia — there are 10 fast food outlets scattered across the country.

New on board at ELBC 2022

The latest member of the energy storage community is Lewis McKinnon, trainee for business development at CTT Technical. Aged, just 16, Lewis is already hard at work educating his boss Mike Dunn on social media and that new fangled piece of technology called the World Wide Web. He says: “It’s a bit difficult when Mike says to me every start of the week: ‘I’m on Linkedin now how the heck does it work?’ and he wonders why I start moaning.”

New York’s burning, fire, fire!

Another day, another lithium blaze. That seems to be the new normal for New York’s fire chiefs, as they report that they deal with one such conflagration five days a week.

It’s the variety that we like best,” says one chief with a happy smile. “Mostly they’re e-bike fires but we still get laptops and EVs too.

“The EVs are the best fun, because just after you’ve put them out, they self-ignite! Whoosh!

“Sometimes they’re in apartment blocks, sometimes in garages, sometimes in offices too — it keeps us out and about and away from towering infernos, catching jumpers from skyscrapers or cats stuck up trees.”

Energy Storage Journal’s intrepid reporter thinks the taxi may have taken him to the wrong hotel