Batteries International — issue 92

Issue 92 Summer 2014

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The Trojan story: 1920s LA repair shop to giant

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THE LAST W

ORD: TALES

FROM THE DARK SIDE

The puzzle that is Europe Why trans-Atlantic views on energy storage differ so much

Sally Miksiewicz, East Penn — the legacy

From start-up to world class player, China's ATL

The joys of lead, the early days of EVs

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CONTENTS

www.batteriesinternational.com Batteries International • Summer 2014 • 1

COVER STORY: EUROPE’S GRID COMES OF AGE 46

Turning theory into reality. That’s the next step for Europe where future

grid developments have been characterized by energy storage pilots

rather than bankable investments. But the technology’s full commercial

potential is starting to appear.

Large scale energy storage moves to the fore in Europe as momentum for change 46

ESS offers way to unify renewable power gap in Italy’s north-south divide 56

Axion’s Granville steps down for health reasons: DiGianto new chief exec 10

EDITORIAL 4

Think big, think stupid — but leave a legacy

OBITUARY 8

East Penn’s much respected Sally Miksiewicz died in an accident on June 20

PEOPLE NEWS 10

Axion Power’s Granville steps down for health reasons, David DiGiacinto becomes

chairman and CEO • Kreigler joins Nesscap board as adviser • Digatron appoints

Campbell as CEO • Hartman moves to Farmer Mold • ALABC formalizes appointment

of Ellis as chairman, Kolisnyk as PAM chair • Monahov, Meissner joint winners of Gaston

Planté medal • Rockwood announces executive changes as Ghasemi steps down as

CEO • Skeleton appoints Younicos’ McDougall as a non-executive director • Ron Van

Dell joins ViZn Energy Systems as chief executive • Ioxus appoints senior sales figures •

Bradley Hansen appointed president and COO of ZBB

NEWS 20

Princeton and Aquion Energy to build largest AHI Battery System • GS Yuasa plans

1MW-output system backed by lithium ion batteries • EaglePicher receives grant for

sodium-beta battery for grid storage • Next gen lead acid batteries for ISS • LG Chem

to supply electric car batteries to SAIC, Qoros • Corvus gets approval for marine Li-ion

battery banks • NEC commissions 5.7MWh of grid energy storage installations in the

UK • NEC closes A123 acquisition • Further grid testing project with first lithium-titanate

1MWh SCiB- • Shot in the arm for lithium as GM Invests $449 million for Next Generation

Electrification • Electrovaya provides battery packs to Dongfeng Motors, breaks into

mining industry • Ioxus opens second plant and gets series C funding • Graphene

improves supercap performance according to Californian researchers • Dual lead-

lithium battery research by Ford, Samsung • GM, University of Michigan extend research

programme • Corporate restructuring at Energizer • JCI signs auto supply with China’s

SAIC • LG Chem plans China battery plant • BYD win huge electric fleet order • EnerDel

to supply battery packs for Oahu Transit Services • Redflow supplies zinc bromine flow

batteries to SMS • Ambri gets ‘C’ round funding • New EFRC funding awards announced

• Axion Power receives $1.1m order for 4 PowerCube Energy Storage Systems • ABB

flywheels to stabilize grid for Alaska island • Babcock & Wilcox acquire MEGTEC • MESA-

1 energy storage in Washington state advances • Nexeon completes commissioning of

manufacturing facility

Sally Miksiewicz: missed by all at East Penn and elsewhere 8

Time to make money on grid scale investments 46

Boris Monahov: with JCI’s Meissner, this year’s Planté award winners 12

CONTENTS

2 • Batteries International • Summer 2014 www.batteriesinternational.com

PRODUCT NEWS 41HighWater gets patent for GO battery • Yuasa releases high performance new lithium ion

batteries for industrial applications and VRLA battery for Toyota hybrids • Saft launches

Seanergy lithium ion modules for marine use • Maxwell expands ultracapacitor range

• Texas Instruments introduces multi-cell battery monitors for 12V to 48V industrial lithium

ion batteries • Ioxus releases new iMOD X series • EnerSys adds 34R TPPL battery To

Odyssey Performance series

COMPANY PROFILE: ATL 61

One of the most extraordinary stories in the history of lithium ion battery manufacturing has

been the growth of a Hong Kong start-up to the world’s largest manufacturer of lithium pouch

batteries. Batteries International spoke to two of the architects of its growth, Mike Chang,

chairman and Robin Zeng, president and CEO as well as US battery veteran Bob Galyen

who relocated to China as part of a vision for the future. Part of the interest in ATL’s Chang and

Zeng has to come from their cultural complexity — they have a firm that deliberately choose

to root it’s commercial (and management) approach in terms of its cultural heritage but also

are more than happy to compete with other world class companies.

THE RISE, RISE AND AMBITIOUS RISE OF BYD 74

The latest bus order for China’s wealthiest man, Wang Chuan-Fu, shows that the

automotive arm of BYD continues to flourish. But that’s not to say that everything is going

to be plain sailing.

HOW TO VALUE YOUR BATTERY COMPANY 83

Getting the funding for a start-up battery firm, is problematic in many ways. Not least of all

by finding what one should pay for it.

A HISTORY OF ELECTRIC VEHICLE POWER STORAGE 91

The electric vehicle story — at least till a decade ago — was always one of how lead acid

was the automotive power of preference. The early days were even more exciting than

modern times. And mostly the range was much, much longer.

CONFERENCE IN PRINT

LITHIUM ION DOUBLE CELLS 99

A new type of a double-cell lithium ion battery using a configuration different from the

conventional aluminium-laminated battery has been developed and evaluated

THE TROJAN STORY 120

From a small repair shop in downtown Los Angeles to an international battery firm, the

history of Trojan is also that of inventing and reinventing itself to remain successful

ADVERTISING DIRECTORY 125

THE LAST WORD 126Birthday bonanzas at BCI • Party time at ELBC • Edinburgh R&D electrolyte analysis on the

rocks • Farewell Carol • Human directional signpost guidatory thingies • Fine dining Bulgarian

style ILA • A little light fireside reading • Why the celebrations at Batteries International?

Looks like a fun spot for an ELBC party? Europe’s biggest lead event moves to Edinburgh 126

Electric vehicles: the way we were (circa 1890) 91

Brilymer’s GO lead acid battery: close to NiMH, (1400W/kg this year?) 41

ATL’s Mike Cheng (top) and Robin Zeng: from tiny start-up to multi-blilion dollar PRC giant 61

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Have You Made the Connection?

EDITORIAL


We were privileged to be among the elite few that witnessed the (then) signing of the biggest loan in UK commercial history. The year was 1987. And the largest ever syndicate of international banks — think Citi, JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan, Barclays, BNP, UBS — had gathered to agree an enormous project fi nancing.

The project was to fi nance construction of a tunnel linking Britain to France. The facility was for £5 billion ($9 billion)

Such was the enthusiasm for the project that the lemming effect kicked in. In all 170 international banks agreed to be part of the lending group. The French and the UK governments joined the party too.

And two years later the refi nancings and the refi nancings, which would eventually result in the bankruptcy of the Channel Tunnel, ended in tears.

What seemed odd about it — at least to those of us nifty with a calculator and with a healthy disregard for contractors’ promises of fi nishing on time — was that there seemed no way that these bankers would get their shareholders’ money back.

With interest rates in double digits the train line would have to make a profi t — not turnover but profi t — of $3 million a day just to stay even. Not forgetting, the $9 billion of capital that would have to be repaid at some point.

Just think of the revenues needed to generate that!

I can’t remember our fi nal guesstimate but we ended up reckoning that trains would have to run every 20 minutes around the clock and be completely full for the project to work. And, of course, any construction delays would be catastrophic. The slightest disruptions to the service would haemorrhage money.

In the end the tunnel came in some 80% over budget.

The bankers weren’t necessarily stupid. Their credit committees would have gone through the numbers in the same way that we did.

Their fault was that they suffered from that odd mix that characterizes humanity on the edge of gross stupidity — optimism, enthusiasm dashed with a mix of blind faith, resulting in delusion.

At the time of the decision about building the tunnel, 15.9 million passengers were predicted for Eurostar trains in the opening year. In 1995, the fi rst full year, actual numbers were a little over 2.9 million, growing to 7.1 million in 2000, then dropping to 6.3 million in 2003.

Academia has been fascinated by this. How could these experts get these projections so spectacularly wrong?

Danish economist Bent Flyvbjerg has spent most of the last two decades puzzling at humanity’s inability to understand this. His book, Megaprojects and Risk,

Think big, think stupid — but leave a legacy

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EDITORIAL


an Anatomy of Ambition, looks at how strategic misrepresentation — deliberately mistaking the likely outcomes of planned actions — plays a part in huge project fi nancings.

Flyvbjerg reckons that nine out of 10 projects face a cost overrun, with costs 50% higher than expected in real terms not unusual. And then, of course, there are the implications from all this and many of these are not so immediate to grasp.

So how does this fi t into the energy storage industry?

The most obvious of these has been the way that US administrations have sought the rational through the irrational. The theory that if we throw huge amounts of taxpayers’ money at the nascent lithium battery industry then we’ll get spectacular results doesn’t hold water unless these same forces of optimism and delusion are not fully operational.

But there’s no need to pick on the US, look east to China and there’s been a similar knee-jerk reaction to huge projects. As a country, it would appear that the encouragement of government meant that LiFePO4 was the basic lithium chemistry chosen for adoption — a decision that could well look as if it will cost billions of misspent money in the end.

Both China and the US could each be proven wrong if, as Toyota believes, the future electric automotive business will be based on fuel cells rather than batteries.

Flyvbjerg talks about the “four sublimes”: the excitement of engineers and technologists building the newest or largest item of its kind; the rapture politicians receive from building monumental works that increase their public profi le; the delight of businesses and trade unions generating money and jobs; and the aesthetic pleasure generated by iconically large design.

All this optimism contributes to overestimates of benefi ts and underestimates of cost.

The economist Albert Hirschman decided that the underlying principle was “the hiding hand” — if people knew the actual costs of projects like these, they would never undertake any, so there must be a mechanism that hides this reality from people, engendering progress but also the occasional disaster. Flyvbjerg argues instead that what is called for is greater and more detailed studies of why some huge projects succeed, while others don’t.

But as ever in the development of these things, the law of unintended consequences is at work. Wasted money is indeed wasted money but that’s not to say that everything is wasted.

The history of great ventures and the rise of great industries is littered with the legacies of what they leave behind.

The railway boom that littered the UK initially and later Europe and the US with unprofi table lines and massive shareholder losses also left an infrastructure that is recognisable today. It also made some of these pioneers, such as the so-called ‘robber barons’ in the US — think the ruthlessness of Vanderbilt — some of the richest in the world.

Some 20 years ago a similar territorial battle emerged — a race to put in place the huge fi bre-optic highways across the western world that would serve the internet of the future. Huge investments were made, investor support was massive but in the end the two major players for the space ran out of money.

The shareholders went bust but, like the millions that use the Channel Tunnel each year, their legacy was the hundreds of millions of miles of fi bre-optic cable that we use today and run through cities across the planet.

So as we see mankind’s energies invested (or frittered, if that’s your view) in the mega-giga-giga battery-making plants of the future, or the smartest of smart grids that will sweep across the planet, we’re not going to worry.

We don’t have to fear the consequences of these failures — as long as we’re not investors that is — but rather we should just wonder about what legacy we and our children will inherit.

So to misquote the poet William Blake … “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”.

Let’s face the Next Big Battery Thing with optimism.

OBITUARY


According to the local press some 3,000 people came to pay their re-spects at her Celebration of Life Me-morial Service on June 27.

Sally started work at the family company in June 1984 after gradu-ating with a BA in business manage-ment and sociology at Moravian Col-lege, Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania. On the day of the funeral, the college, of which she was on the board of trus-tees, fl ew its fl ag at half-mast in mem-ory of Sally.

Sally was the daughter of DeLight

Breidegam, who founded East Penn on his return from the second world war. DeLight and his wife survive his daughter’s death; as does her brother, Dan Breidegam, vice president of met-als and commodities management for East Penn. DeLight was keen that Sal-ly learnt the family business from the ground up. She started in sales.

In her 30 years with the fi rm she pro-gressed from junior positions to ever more senior ones, eventually moving from being in charge of her own terri-tory to a sales director of one of East

Penn’s divisions and then into greater management positions.

She was fortunate to be around in the massive expansion of the company during the 1980s and 1990s when East Penn rolled out warehouses across the US and Canada and branched out into other product segments requiring bat-tery power from marine applications, to golf carts, to wheelchairs.

She later worked closely with the personnel department — work that rounded out her understanding and belief that it was possible to create a

SALLY MIKSIEWICZ1962-2014

It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Sally Miksiewicz, chief executive

offi cer of East Penn Manufacturing, died on June 20. She was a much-loved, much-liked

and much-admired member of the energy storage industry. She was known for her lively

personality, business acumen and down-to-earth kindness and modesty.

Father DeLight Breidegam, founder of the company; Dan Breidegam, brother and East Penn treasurer

OBITUARY


corporation that could think and act like a family.

And, she believed, hand on its legacy to families yet unborn.

“She made it her mission to make East Penn a good place for employees, and the company has been named one of the best places to work in the state for 14 consecutive years,” says Dan Langdon, president of East Penn. She would never take credit for that, but I’m here to say Sally Miksiewicz made it happen. She had an unselfi sh love for this business.”

In the numerous tributes that Bat-teries International gathered for Sally, one of the most striking characteris-tics that everyone alluded to was the relationships she forged with everyone — high and low, East Penn customer or supplier — at a personal level.

Loyalty “Sally cared about people in a way you don’t often see,” says John Wood, chief executive of Ecoult. “When-ever we’d bring customers to East Penn she’d drop everything and show them around. And on these tours she seemed to know everyone by name. She inspired loyalty from the people she worked with and was fi ercely loy-al to them in return.”

Before her appointment as chief ex-ecutive of East Penn in 2009 she was vice chairman and secretary of the corporation, working in government affairs and leadership development, among other duties.

Sally had many business accomplish-ments, but one that will be remem-bered is the way that she pushed for East Penn’s adoption and manufacture of the UltraBattery, a landmark that drastically improved lead acid battery performance, under partial state-of-charge conditions.

At fi rst East Penn’s interest was mostly in automotive applications of the UltraBattery but Sally, realizing its potential, also pushed for developing the UltraBattery for stationery and other applications.

“In her most recent years, Sally bridged the gap between the leader-ship of her father and the challenges of this century,” according to Lang-don. “She was the key fi gure in getting US Department of Energy support for a 3MW advanced battery frequency regulation project as we moved to re-direct the company into new avenues of business.”

There was another side to Sally that shone through in her approach to business generally. Perhaps a word

like stewardship would be best suited. Sally loved the East Penn family and

saw herself as helping to lead the com-pany forward and passing it on strong for generations to come. Sally would always say that one of the reasons she loved East Penn so much is that the company embraces the concept of treating each other right and taking care of its customer and surrounding communities.

She was very proud of the compa-ny’s progress over the years as well as its ability to adapt to change, but was always mindful of its core beliefs and values. That commitment, deeply embedded throughout East Penn, was largely the result of her dedicated leadership.

Business acumen and an understand-ing or vision of the future are different things. “Sally had both,” a colleague at a supplier fi rm told Batteries Interna-tional. “She saw that grid energy stor-age was going to be an important part of everyone’s future — renewables such as wind power and solar were going to change everyone’s lives.”

StewardshipIn effect she saw the positive impact she could contribute to that future through combining energy storage in-novation with East Penn’s strong com-mitment to environment stewardship and recycling.

Bob Galyen, chief technology of-fi cer at ATL, one of the largest lithium pouch manufacturers, says: “her com-mitment to a better environment was absolute. She wasn’t just mouthing words, I remember sharing a panel discussion with her and realising that to her environmental responsibility

was as much core to her thinking as it was to her business.”

There is no question that Sally’s en-ergy and enthusiasm was boundless. Others said that once you got behind the outgoing and fun person she was a very serious person. “She was abso-lutely committed to the company and the people within it,” one battery vet-eran said.

“What was so surprising to those of us who knew how accomplished she was, was her modesty. It’s a rare qual-ity to fi nd in this day and age.”

But most people, however, saw an intelligent woman with a love of fun and life — something that is hard to put down on paper.

Legacy“Sally was the driving force and pas-sion that helped carry out the legacy of the generation that came before her. She led with integrity advancing the company’s position while caring deeply about her fellow workers, the customer, community, and environ-ment,” says Langdon.

“The East Penn family is dedicated to sustaining and growing the company just as Sally would have wanted. Our conviction is to effectively manage, preserve and protect what we have built together. She was an inspiration to us all and she will be deeply missed.”

Sally’s death came as a complete sur-prise. She was hit by a pickup truck early in the morning while jogging.

She is survived by her children, Tim-othy, Daniel, Katelyn and Matthew and her life partner, Victor Rodriguez as well as her parents, DeLight and Helen Breidegam and brother Daniel.

Sally was just 52.

PNM Prosperity Energy Storage Project: Steve Willard, Sally Miksiewicz, and John Wood


PEOPLE NEWS

Tom Granville has stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Axion Power, for what the fi rm calls “a signifi cant health problem”. David DiGiacin-to became the chief execu-tive on July 1 and chairman of the board. DiGiacinto was appointed to the board in a newly created position this February.

Granville, who has nur-tured the fi rm from its ini-tial troubled days as C&T Technology/Mega-C, be-came the fi rst chairman of Axion, in 2003. He remains on the board of directors and has signed a new three year employment contract to be special assistant and liaison to DiGiacinto. He says he will continue to work from the fi rm’s offi ces in New Castle, Pennsylva-nia.

The fi rm has issued re-as-surances that business will continue as normal.

DiGiacinto said, “We all wish Tom well in resolving his unexpected health is-sues. I am looking forward to continuing to work with him. Our vision for the company has not changed, nor have our short term and long term objectives.”

Granville said, “I have complete trust in Dave DiGiacinto, an individual

with a strong and diverse business background, lead-ership skills, and the high moral character to lead this company into the future. It became very apparent in the last several weeks, leading up to this transi-tion, that Dave is a natural choice to take this company to the next level.

DiGiacinto is also man-aging director for the Col-man Group with which he has an independent affi liate consulting agreement. He has run his own business consultancy, Bethany En-terprises since 2012, and advised several industrial companies in western Penn-sylvania.

From 2009 to 2012, he was with National Pretzel Company, where he man-aged an organization of 750 people as it transitioned to become part of the ConA-gra Foods group. While he was there, the fi rm doubled its EBITDA (earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization).

Before that DiGiacinto worked at Minrad Interna-tional, a NYSE listed phar-maceutical and medical de-vice company. While there he helped to secure new fi nancing of $40 million and was primarily respon-sible for sales revenue dou-

bling. The company merged with Piramal Healthcare, a transaction that was com-pleted in February 2009.

DiGiacinto was a sen-ior managing director for Spencer Trask Ventures from 2000 to 2008, where he co-managed a portfolio of 10 technology-based ear-ly stage and start-up com-panies. During his time at

Spencer Trask, some of the portfolio companies went public, some were enlarged by acquisitions, and several were given additional fi -nancing.

DiGiacinto was with Pfi zer from 1982 to 2000, in its Specialty Chemical/Food Science Division and its Consumer Health Care Group. He eventually grew from his marketing and business development po-sitions, to a full P&L re-sponsibility for Pfi zer Latin America and, later, the Worldwide Brewery and Dairy Division.

Axion announced in March the appointment of James Smith as a consult-ant to the company and the resignation of its chief fi nancial offi cer, Stephen Graham, who joined Axion last October.

Axion’s Granville steps down for health reasons, David DiGiacinto becomes chairman and CEO

“I have complete trust in Dave DiGiacinto, an individual with a strong and diverse business background, leadership skills, and the high moral character to lead this company into the future.” — Granville

Nesscap Energy, the ultracapacitor devel-oper, has appointed George Kreigler III as a senior adviser to its board of directors with a specifi c mandate to advise on cor-porate strategy and business development as well as to support Nesscap’s fundrais-ing efforts.

Kreigler was chief operating offi cer of Maxwell Technologies, the capacitor fi rm, from August 2009 until April 2012.

Before that he was senior vice president of operations at Maxwell. He has more than 30 years of technology operations management experience, including su-pervision of multiple large-scale offshore manufacturing facilities.

Before joining Maxwell, Kreigler was a senior vice president and general man-ager of storage systems at Quantum Corp.

Kreigler joins Nesscap board as adviser

Tom Granville (left) steps down and David DiGiacinto steps in as chairman and CEO


PEOPLE NEWS

Digatron Power Electronics has promoted Kevin Camp-bell to chief executive of its Aachen, Germany based company.

Campbell was formerly vice president of interna-tional business develop-ment. He joined Digatron Firing Circuits, an affi liate company in the US, in Oc-tober 2012. He had been groomed for the top posi-tion since his recruitment.

A Scot by birth, and an electronic and electrical engineer by background, his career in the battery industry has meant he has lived in the UK, the US and Australia. Before Digatron, he was business develop-ment manager for ECOtal-ity, a fi rm involved in the clean electric transporta-tion sector supplying EV charging infrastructure and fast charge technology to the airline and material handling industry.

Rolf Beckers, the founder and owner of the company, remains group chairman. Last year Beckers celebrat-ed a double distinction: 45 years since forming Digatron

as well as his 65th birthday.Campbell will remain at

Digatron’s headquarters in Aachen, Germany.

Digatron Power Electron-ics has been busy expand-ing and implementing new partnerships throughout the Digatron group. “This includes: continuation of the joint venture with TBS (UK) in China; opening a new manufacturing facility through a joint venture with Ador Powertron in India to create Ador Digatron; secur-ing the Chinese representa-tion of Källström Engineer-ing; strengthening the team Inbatec relationship with turnkey acid recirculation formation solutions; and the expansion and restructuring of its US operations,” says a Digatron offi cial.

“We are also launching an industry fi rst product range with energy saving battery test equipment.”

Digatron Power Elec-tronics is an international group of companies with engineering, manufacturing and service facilities located in Germany, the US, China and India.

Terry Hartman, global sales direc-tor at Bitrode, the US battery testing machine manufacturer, is to move to Farmer Mold in mid-July as a director of sales and market-ing. Farmer Mold, based in Florida, makes specialist machines for lead acid battery manufacturing.

Hartman, who spent nine years in the US Navy before joining Bitrode in 2001, worked his way up from a service technician to director level. From 2012 onwards he has worked exclusively in the Asia-Pacifi c region.

Hartman, who will continue to use St Louis in Missouri as a base, says he is excited as he will have a roving brief with no specifi c geographic mission.

That said, he says, he leaves Bitrode with fond memories. “I’m very appreciative to my Bitrode

family for allowing me the oppor-tunity be a part of their team for so many years. I’ll treasure fond memories of my colleagues.

“But I’m also excited to be able to work for Jim Gilmour [the chief executive at Farmer Mold] who I’ve known and respected for

years, and the people at Farmer Mold. Jim’s customer core values and expectations for his people are high and are the reason for the successes of the company. It’s motivating and energizing to be a part of something great.”

Asked about moving from ad-vanced battery testing machinery to lead acid Hartman says “As in-dustrial survey after survey shows the demand for lead acid batteries continues to grow.

`”Energy storage isn’t confi ned to one chemistry,” he says.

“Farmer Mold is tapping into a new wave of international custom-ers, particularly from developing nations, for the lead acid indus-try,” says Jim Gilmour. “Terry’s appointment will help us reach out to these new and exciting mar-kets.”

Digatron appoints Campbell as CEO

Hartman moves to Farmer Mold

Kevin Campbell (left) with Digatron founder Rolf Beckers and Firing Circuits founder John Mills

Nexeon, the UK silicon anode technology devel-oper of lithium batteries, has hired three senior re-searchers from Sony Cor-poration to be based in their offi ces in the UK.

Kenta Yamamoto, Ken-go Ichimiya and Akifumi Nakamura have been re-sponsible for major bat-tery developments in the last few years, and bring with them many years’ experience of fundamen-

tal research and advanced development leading to commercialization of nov-el battery designs.

Yamamoto was previ-ously with the Primary Battery Division of Sony, and has worked on both anode and Mg-ion cath-ode systems. Ichimiya has worked on polymer bat-tery technology at Sony, Akifumi Nakamura has worked on silicon anodes and cell optimization.

Nexeon hires Sony three


PEOPLE NEWS

Tim Ellis, chief technology offi cer of RSR Corpora-tion, was elected as the new ALABC chairman in April. Paul Kolisnyk of Teck Met-als became the new chair of

its committee for public af-fairs and marketing.

The appointments were made at the group’s annual meeting, held on the side-lines of BCI’s 126th Annual Convention in San Diego.

At the previous steering committee meeting in Sin-gapore last September, El-lis was chosen to step in as interim chairman to replace long-time ALABC cham-pion David Prengaman.

Ellis has an extensive sci-entifi c and technological background and more than 15 years of active partici-pation in ALABC meetings and management.

Ellis confi rmed that he

is working with ALABC president David Wilson and ALABC programme manager Boris Monahov to develop a new strategic plan that will continue the work of previous ALABC programmes but also main-tain a focus on the research and development work of the consortium.

Kolisnyk was brought into an interim position at the start of the year to lead the PAM committee after former chairman John Likarish of Doe Run an-nounced he would be step-ping down at that time.

As the current associa-tion liaison for Teck and a

long-time supporter of AL-ABC marketing initiatives, Kolisnyk was considered a strong candidate for the PAM chairmanship and has been (along with ILA exec-utive director Andy Bush) a leading advocate of strate-gic planning for the consor-tium’s marketing and com-munications activities.

Following election of the chairmen, ALABC market-ing and communications manager Chip Bremer pro-vided an update on PAM activities, including the development of a strategic plan for ALABC’s market-ing and communications activities.

ALABC formalizes appointment of Ellis as chairman, Kolisnyk as PAM chair

Eberhard Meissner and Boris Monahov were winners of possibly the most prestigious award in the lead acid battery industry — the Gaston Planté medal, given out every three years at the LABAT conference held in Albena, Bul-garia.

“In a special ceremony we award the medal to a prominent scientist for his signifi cant contribution to the lead-acid battery science and technology,” said Detchko Pavlov, the conference organizer and dis-tinguished academic.

“The selection is made on a two-step procedure. First, members of our international advisory commit-tee send their rating of the three most distinguished scientists who should compete for this award. Second, the nominating Planté medal committee summarizes all proposals, nominates the three highest ranked candidates for this award and raises the winner.”

This year, however, four scientists (out of a total of 28 proposed) were been ranked highest by the members of the two international committees. As there were two third-ranked candidates with equal

number of rating points, both of them were nominated.

The four nominees for the 2014 Gaston Planté Medal were: Boris Monahov, ALABC/ILZRO from the US; Eberhard Meissner, Johnson Controls Power Solutions EMEA, Germany; Geno Papazov, IEES, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria; and Jun Furukawa, The Furukawa Battery Co, Japan.

This year there was a tie and Monahov and Meissner were joint winners. The only time this had happened before was in 2011 when

Lan Lam and Ken Peters were in a similar tie.

Monahov — who is profi led in the next issue of this magazine — gave a moving as well as humorous speech on the historical reasons that drew the world’s battery industry to this particular stretch of the Black Sea coast.

Meissner gave a similarly excep-tional presentation on lessons that he had learnt over the years from dealing with new battery concepts. In a nutshell, trust evidence that is provable and repeatable, he said.

Monahov, Meissner joint winners of LABAT’s Gaston Planté medal

Tim Ellis, new ALABC chairman

This June’s Gaston Planté awards ceremony in front of a packed auditorium in the Black Sea resort of Albena

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PEOPLE NEWS

Seifi Ghasemi stepped down as Rock-wood Holdings’ chief executive on June 30, to become chairman and pres-ident of Air Products & Chemicals.

Robert Zatta became acting chief ex-ecutive on July 1, in addition to his job as chief fi nancial offi cer.

Zatta has been senior vice president and chief fi nancial offi cer of Rock-wood since April 2001. Ghasemi re-mains chairman of Rockwood’s board of directors until the end of the year. After that he becomes a board director.

Thomas Riordan, senior vice presi-dent, law & administration and cor-porate secretary, has become executive vice president and chief administrative offi cer.

Steffen Haber, president of Rock-wood Lithium and Joris Merckx, presi-dent of Chemetall Surface Treatment, will continue in their current jobs, and will report to Zatta.

“The Rockwood board of directors will initiate a search process to identify a permanent CEO, which will include

Bob Zatta and other candidates,” says a company offi cial.

Before Rockwood Zatta spent 12 years with the Campbell Soup Com-pany, where he held various fi nancial management positions, including his last position as vice president respon-sible for corporate development and strategic planning.

Riordan has been senior vice presi-dent, law & administration of Rock-wood since 2000. Before that, he was vice president, law & administration of Laporte (Rockwood’s predecessor) since 1992 and joined Laporte in 1989. Riordan worked for UOP from 1975 to 1989 where he held various posi-tions, including chief litigation counsel.

“Rockwood continues on a solid path for future growth in its core busi-nesses,” said Zatta. “Having recently completed our acquisition of the 49% ownership interest in Talison Lithium, Rockwood is now the premier diver-sifi ed provider of lithium products to our global customers.”

Rockwood announces seniorexecutive changes as Ghasemi steps down as chief executive

Skeleton Technologies Group, the European ultracapacitor developer, has appointed James Mc-Dougall as a non-executive director with a focus on global business develop-ment.

McDougall is chief executive for Younicos, the German energy storage company. He joined the fi rm in April.

Before that he was chief executive at ReVolt where he worked at commercial-izing a breakthrough zinc-air battery.

“McDougall is a bat-tery industry veteran and entrepreneur with experi-ence in commercializing new technologies,” the

fi rm said. “During the last 20 years his career focus has been developing and executing growth strategies for companies and their disruptive technologies in the global consumer elec-tronics and enterprise and fi nancial security network markets.

Before that he worked at Solicore, a producer of thin, fl exible, lithium polymer batteries featuring a proprietary solid polymer electrolyte.

In his last assignment, as executive vice president of sales and business develop-ment, he led the company’s transition to commerciali-zation by securing several global distribution and

purchase contracts.Before that, McDougall

was a consultant to Dow Chemical for the spin out and formation of Aveso Displays, a pioneer in printed electronic displays. Subsequently, he led the business development efforts of Aveso Displays as vice president of global sales.

Before he was director of marketing and licensing at Valence Technology, and responsible for corporate marketing and licensing of its proprietary lithium polymer battery and mate-rial technology.

McDougall began his career at International Components Corporation,

a battery charger technol-ogy fi rm. At ICC, he held a variety of executive positions including manag-ing director of the power supply division where he was responsible for world-wide sales, marketing and operations.

Skeleton appoints Younicos’ JimMcDougall as a non-executive director

Seifi Ghasemi is to become chair-man and president of Air Products & Chemicals

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PEOPLE NEWS

ViZn Energy Systems, a large-scale energy storage fi rm, has appointed Ron Van Dell as its new presi-dent and chief executive offi cer.

“With over 30 years of experience in both the in-ternational and US mar-kets, Van Dell has led com-panies across the spectrum from start-ups to businesses that net billions in sales,” the fi rm said. “His expertise also covers a broad range of industries including semi-conductors, power, com-munications, computing, industrial control, electrical distribution and clean tech.

“With systems already in the fi eld for testing, ViZn’s patented technology and

its zinc redox fl ow bat-tery is positioned to break the cost/benefi t threshold that is limiting widespread adoption of grid-scale en-ergy storage.”

As chief executive of So-larBridge Technologies, Van Dell headed the de-velopment and launch of a microinverter for AC Solar Modules. He also worked as chief executive at Prima-rion (sold to Infi neon), chief executive at Legerity (spin off of Communication Di-vision of AMD), and gen-eral manager for Dell Com-puter’s Dimension Line of Business.

He held previous inter-national management posi-tions in the US and in Eu-

rope at Groupe Schneider, Square D Company and General Electric.

ZBB Energy Corporation, a developer of renewable en-ergy power platforms, an-nounced in May that Brad Hansen has been appointed president and chief operating offi cer of the fi rm. He also joins the board of directors.

Hansen replaces Charles Stankiewicz who was chief operating offi cer and a company director. Stankie-wicz will assist in the tran-sition of his COO duties to Hansen.

Hansen was until De-cember 2011 previously chief executive of Anhui Meineng Energy, a Chi-nese joint venture fi rm with ZBB, where he was in charge of Meineng’s organ-ization and development. In 2010, Hansen founded PowerSav, a boutique pri-vate equity fund targeting China government policy supported markets. He re-mains a managing partner of PowerSav.

Hansen has international renewable energy indus-try experience having held various executive positions

with Applied Materials, from 1989 to 2010. While at AMAT, Hansen led glob-al sales and site operation organizations for its solar product line. Before that he was corporate vice presi-dent for new business and products. Hansen directed the acquisition and integra-tion activities for AMAT’s strategic Applied Films Corporation acquisition.

Hansen was issued in-ducement stock options to buy a total of 360,000 shares of company com-mon stock and an award of inducement restricted stock units upon the achievement of certain performance

vesting conditions.Hansen will report to Eric

Apfelbach, chief executive of ZBB. Hansen’s responsi-bilities include all manufac-turing, R&D, engineering, human resources and sales and marketing.

The fi nance and business development will report to Apfelbach.

Hansen’s responsibilities also include the continued management of Meineng. This will bring the two com-panies together making more effi cient use of resources at both companies.

Ioxus, the supercap manu-facturer appointed Van Andrews as senior vice president of global sales and marketing in early July. Andrews joins Ioxus from Maxwell Technologies where he was responsible for the global sales of ultra-capacitors as well as strate-gic marketing and commu-nications.

Andrews has previously held senior positions with US Robotics, Toshiba Amer-ica Information Systems and Gateway Computers. He said he was looking forward to expand Ioxus’ sales in Asia and Europe.

In April Ioxus also an-nounced a further sales ap-pointment with the recruit-ment of Wolfram Krueger as vice president of European sales. Krueger joined from Maxwell Technologies, where he was European di-rector of sales and Market-ing.

Krueger has three decades of sales experience having previously held senior posi-tions at Nesscap, Mitsumi Electronics, Rohm Semicon-ductor, Hitachi, Intel and Texas Instruments.

“I am excited to start a new chapter in my profes-sional career,” said Krueger. “Ioxus has superior technol-ogy and the strongest set of fi nancial backers compared to any other company in the energy storage space.”

Ron Van Dell joins ViZn Energy Systems as chief executive

Bradley Hansen appointed COO and president of ZBB Energy Corp

Ioxus appoints senior sales fi gures

When I started out with my fi rst company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. Later I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible.

Technology leadership is not defi ned by patents — which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor — but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. — Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Motors

Quote of the summer

Ron Van Dell, new president and CEO, ViZn Energy Systems

Active storage systems utilize energy storage constantly, requiring batteries that can charge and discharge continuously.

Active storage is fundamental to initiatives involving energy efficiency and the integration of renewable energy,which underpin the global drive for greener energy use. Active storage can deliver grid ancillary services, mitigate variability in renewable energy generation, and increase the efficiency of fossil fuel–based generators in off-grid systems. Active storage for micro-hybrid and start–stop vehicles has similar needs, requiring the management of hi l h i il d i i h fehicles has similar needs req iring the management ofvariability in timeframes from sub-seconds to hours.

A hybridization of VRLA battery and ultracapacitor technology has created a device with breakthrough performance. UltraBattery® adds high charge acceptance and the ability to operate continuously in a Partial State of Charge (PSoC), delivering power handling beyond conventional VRLA batteries. UltraBattery® challenges the active storage capabilities of even the most advanced lithium chemistries, while retaining the benefits of VRLA batteries: reliability, relative safety, sealed state and recyclability.

Testing of the active storage performance of UltraBattery®

by Sandia National Laboratories showed dramatically improved utility PSoC cycle-life of up to a factor of 10. Testing of its performance in hybrid electric vehicles by Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium achievedmore than 100,000 miles on a single battery pack without significant degradation.

Over a lifetime of PSoC operation, UltraBattery®

technology can deliver solutions up to two-thirds cheaper per kWh than conventional VRLA batteries. Applied to renewable energy storage applications in a PSoC regime,it can outperform the efficiency of conventional VRLA batteries used in a top-of-charge regime for the same applications by up to 20%.

UltraBattery® can also deliver both active and backup capabilities simultaneously, providing compelling economics supporting the needs of the active application while retaining at all times sufficient backup capability to respond immediately to any energy reserve need.

It’s all in the ChemistryUltraBattery® combines battery and ultracapacitor chemistry in a common electrolyte in a manner that creates extraordinary charge acceptance capabilities.

UltraBattery® Charge Conventional VRLA Charge

10-Second Pulse Power Capability (Small-Format 12V UltraBattery Module)

Charge Acceptance

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Notwithstanding UltraBattery®’s exceptional active storage performance, its comparative safety and recyclability alone stand to tip the scales away from rival chemistries such as lithium.

UltraBattery® is already on the market, with proven credentials in renewable power-smoothing, grid regulation and peak shaving.

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Valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries are known for their reliability and relative safety, and for being maintenance-free (sealed) and recyclable. They are the default for large “Backup Storage” systems. A new hybrid VRLA technology now stands also to becomethe default choice for “Active Storage” systems.

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NEWS

Johnson Controls has signed a new long-term automotive battery supply agreement with SAIC Mo-tor Corporation a further indication of Johnson Con-trols’ intention to expand further in China. Johnson will provide its absorbent glass mat batteries for SAIC Motor’s Start-Stop vehicles.

Luke Lu, vice president and general manager of Original Equipment China, Johnson Controls Power Solutions. “As the global leader in automotive bat-teries, we are well posi-tioned to help the Chinese automotive industry grow by offering a spectrum of solutions to meet increas-

ingly strict fuel effi ciency regulations.”

Johnson has produced nearly 20 million AGM bat-teries since 2007. By 2020, the fi rm says 175 million vehicles worldwide will in-clude start-stop technology. Already in Europe, more than half of new vehicles built feature Start-Stop, it

says. Johnson Controls is investing in AGM technol-ogy globally to increase pro-duction capacity for North America, Europe and China.

Compared with a con-ventional combustion en-gine, Start-Stop can provide an estimated 5%-8% fuel savings but to successfully power additional starts and stops, the system requires a more robust battery such as an AGM battery.

Johnson Controls entered the Chinese automotive supply market with batter-ies in 2005 and employs more than 26,000 people in China. Johnson Controls is building a new corporate headquarters in Shanghai.

JCI signs auto supply agreement with China’s SAIC Motor Corp in further boost to AGM battery sales

LG Chem plans China battery plantLG Chem has signed a pre-liminary agreement to build an electric-car battery fac-tory in China by next year and says it plans to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the plant by 2020, with an annual pro-duction capacity of batter-ies for more than 100,000 electric vehicles when com-pleted by the end of 2015, the South Korean company said in a statement.

LG Chem said it would set up a joint venture next month with two state-run companies — Nanjing Ji-jin Technology Incubation Special Park Construction Development and Nanjing New Industrial Investment

Group — to operate the plant.

The Korean company said it would own half of the joint venture, while the other half would be uneven-ly divided between the two Chinese fi rms, which would also invest an unspecifi ed amount in the project. LG Chem declined to unveil the total amount of investment by all parties.

The company said it ex-pects a total of Won1 tril-lion ($1 billion) in revenue from the plant for fi ve years from 2016.

The plant will be LG Chem’s third overseas bat-tery plant. The company has a battery plant in Korea

that can produce 200,000 units a year, and a plant in Michigan in the US. LG Chem also has a factory in Nanjing, making small bat-teries for smartphones and other mobile devices.

EnerDel, a supplier of lithi-um-ion batteries, said mid-June that it will furnish and deliver eight PP320-689-LP Vigor+ Low-Profi le Energy Storage Systems to the City and County of Honolulu, for installation into OTS diesel-hybrid buses.

An EnerDel demonstra-tion pack has operated in regular passenger service for several months on the tropical island of Oahu. The additional eight packs are targeted for delivery

in Q3 this year and will initiate ESS upgrades for the OTS fl eet, giving new life to the transit author-ity’s New Flyer 40 foot Low Floor Diesel (Cum-mins ISL) Allison H40 EP Hybrid coaches. EnerDel released the PP320-689-LP Vigor+ in May 2014 for commercial use. The purpose-built Vigor+ of-fers Public Transit Author-ities a cost effective direct replacement alternative to OEM solutions.

EnerDel to supply battery packs for Oahu Transit Services

BYD win huge electric fl eet order

BYD Company has received a record order for 2,000 long-range, battery-electric transit buses and 1,000 long-range, pure-electric cars in a deal that was signed with the Mayor of Hangzhou, Hongming Zhang. It is one of the world’s larg-est all-electric fl eets ever ordered.

Redfl ow supplies zinc bromine fl ow batteries to SMS RedFlow has signed a supply agreement with Philippines based SMS Global Technologies that could lead to further orders for its zinc bromine fl ow batteries.

An initial order has been placed for two batteries to enable SMS to develop a fl ow battery storage solu-tion for off-grid telecom-munication applications in the Philippines.

This is being carried out in conjunction with its customer, Globe Telecom. A fi eld trial started in May.

Ambri gets ‘C’ round funding

Ambri , a Massachusetts start-up company, said at the end of April it had raised a $35 mil-lion series ‘C’ round to fund the production of prototype batteries from an existing factory and fi nance construction of a commercial-scale plant. The company intends to test prototypes in the fi eld this year and produce full-size batteries for paying customers by 2016.

The company’s small-scale commercial proto-types, which are about a cubic metre in size, will be installed at a few locations, including a wind farm in Hawaii and a military base in Cape Cod powered partially by stored renewable energy.

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NEWS

Hitachi Chemical said in April that is has developed next-generation lead acid battery technologies that improve capacity and dura-bility for vehicles with idling stop-start systems (ISSs).

Hitachi Chemical plans to begin selling products with increased capacity from au-tumn 2014 and products with increased durability from spring 2015 to auto-mobile manufacturers.

The Saitama Works of Shin-Kobe Electric Machin-ery a manufacturing sub-sidiary of Hitachi Chemi-cal, has been proceeding to prepare a mass production system for these products.

According to the fi rm the key points of the new bat-

teries are its “high capacity and high durability tech-nology.

By making the cell ac-tive material in electrodes porous and increasing the contact area with electro-lyte, a 5% capacity-increase is achieved. This increases engine startup performance and is compatible with in-creased electricity load on the automobile.

A special type of non-wo-ven material with a conven-tional separator, suppresses the electrode degradation phenomenon (stratifi ca-tion) that occurs because of differences in the con-centration of the electro-lyte in the upper and lower portion of the electrodes,

achieving a 200% increase in battery durability.

In April 2013, the Hitachi Chemical Group merged the R&D and sales de-partments of SKEM with Hitachi Chemical and, has been engaging in R&D uti-lizing rich material technol-ogies and advanced evalu-ation technologies, and global marketing activities in the battery business.

“To further increase our superiority in the automo-bile lead acid battery market, the Hitachi Chemical Group will accelerate its develop-ment of batteries leveraging organic chemical technol-ogy and provide excellent products that meet customer needs,” says the fi rm.

“The market for ISSs, which are used in many automobiles to improve fuel effi ciency and reduce CO2 fl eet output, has been expanding rapidly in Japan and other nations through-out the world,” said the fi rm.

“Lead acid batteries for automobiles with ISSs are expected to continually increase capacity, durabil-ity and high-speed charge acceptance performance to further improve fuel ef-fi ciency.

“From 2010, the Hitachi Chemical Group has been selling lead acid batteries for ISS automobiles, and these have been greatly ac-cepted by customers.”

Next gen lead acid batteries for ISS

Corvus gets approval for marine Li-ion battery banksCorvus Energy of Canada said in June that it had re-ceived approval from three major classifi cation socie-ties — DNV GL, Lloyd’s Register, and American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) — for its lithium-ion poly-mer battery banks as used in several hybrid and all-electric ship propulsion projects.

The battery banks have already been successfully employed in the conver-sions to the Scandlines fer-ries and Eidesvik’s Viking Ladyoffshore supply ves-sel, as well as having been specifi ed for the new-build Norwegian electrically-powered ferry Folgefonn. The technology is intended to reduce or eliminate in-effi cient low-load engine operation, supply reserve power and cut emissions in harbour, but also to serve as a main propulsion power source.

“To obtain the approvals, our system underwent a va-riety of tests by independ-ent accredited laboratories to replicate the extreme environmental conditions

the system may encounter in a commercial marine ap-plication,” says a company spokesperson.

Corvus says the system has been built to handle the extreme duty conditions encountered in a commer-cial marine engine room, and is up to 10 times more powerful than lead-acid batteries, and signifi cantly more powerful than cur-rently available lithium al-ternatives.

The company says the system can operate from -40°C to +60°C, withstand shocks of 30G, and contin-uous vibration of 8G.

“Customers have been impressed by the robust quality exhibited by our product and the techni-cal expertise of our engi-neers,” said Chris Kruger, vice president engineering, Corvus Energy. “DNV GL, Lloyd’s and ABS approval will provide industry-wide confi dence in the next gen-eration of batteries.”

“Through the extensive testing and DNV Type Ap-proval, the lithium ion-bat-tery power system shows it is comprehensive and ro-bust, and truly worthy to be the fi rst one type approved by DNV GL,” said DNV

GL’s Nick Roper, manager of district Pacifi c, and mari-time North America.

“Lloyd’s Register is pleased to provide Type Ap-proval for Corvus Energy’s Lithium polymer battery,” said Bud Streeter, vice presi-dent of Lloyd’s Register North America and marine manager for Canada.

“As an unbiased, third-party organisation, we verify that Corvus Energy’s AT6500 module conforms to the producer’s specifi ca-tion, to national and interna-tional standards, and that an appropriate level of product safety is achieved.”

South Korea’s LG Chem has secured orders to supply electric vehicle batteries to China’s SAIC Motor Corp and Qoros, according to a Reuters report in June.

LG Chem did not dis-close details of the deals, but said the contracts would increase the total number of its Chinese

customers to four, which have ordered batteries for more than 100,000 EV vehicles and would lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue once production begins.

LG Chem, which has factories in the US and Korea, also plans to build a joint venture in China in the second half

of this year to produce EV batteries to cope with growing demand in the region.

“We are in the fi nal process of deciding our JV partner in China and once the decision is made, we plan to pick the site after discus-sions,” LG Chem said recently in a statement.

LG Chem to supply electric car batteries to SAIC, Qoros


NEWS

The impact on the perfor-mance and cost of vehicles, plus an effect on targets for fuel effi ciency and reduced CO2 emissions, if estab-lished battery applications were to be replaced with alternative technologies would be huge. This is ac-cording to a major study, A Review of Battery Tech-nologies for Automotive Applications, published by Europe’s automotive and battery industries.

The International Lead Association has welcomed a new study by Europe’s au-tomotive and battery indus-try which concludes that lead-based batteries will, by necessity, remain the most widespread energy storage system in automotive appli-cations for the foreseeable future.

The study comes at a time when concerned groups such as the ILA and EUROBAT are working on extending the exemption for lead-based batteries within the EU End of Life Vehicle Directive’s wider ban on lead in light-duty vehicles, due for review in 2015.

The ILA’s managing direc-tor, Andy Bush, says: “We be-lieve that the conclusions of the study will considerably strengthen the case for the continued use of lead-based batteries in automobiles as a reliable, cost effective, safe, and fully recyclable energy storage solution.”

“Regulatory decisions to phase out established bat-tery technologies would im-pact negatively on overall vehicle per-formance and cost,” says a EUROBAT offi cial. “The study reaches this conclu-sion through a detailed analysis of the technical requirements placed on the battery in three different classes of con-ventional, hybrid and electric vehicles, together with an explanation of which technologies are able to fulfi l them

Johann-Friedrich Dempwolff, EU-ROBAT chairman said: “Currently all battery technologies have specifi c performance profi les that serve a well defi ned purpose in automotive appli-cations and continue to have an irre-placeable role in reducing CO2 emis-sions from transport.

“In particular, this report demon-

strates the necessity of main-taining the exemption for lead-based batteries within the EU End of Life Vehicle Directive’s wider ban on lead in light-duty vehicles. The EU’s legislative and reg-ulatory framework should guarantee a fair and technol-ogy-neutral competition be-tween battery technologies.”

The study concludes that 12V lead-based batteries are the only battery technology tested for the mass market that satisfi es the technical requirements of conven-tional vehicles (including start-stop and basic micro-hybrid vehicles) and that it is not possible to replace one battery technology by another without impacting the overall performance and vehicle cost.

It also confi rmed that lead-based batteries are es-sential in providing energy storage solutions, not just for conventional, start-stop and micro-hybrid vehicles, but also for plug-in hybrid and full electric vehicles working alongside other battery technologies.

The report also advocates that where substitution be-tween battery technologies is possible, this should be left to the manufacturers of applications, so they can choose the most suited bat-teries for their products.

The EU’s legislative and regulatory framework should also guarantee a fair and technology-neutral competition between bat-tery technologies.

The study used the input of EU-ROBAT, representing Europe’s au-tomotive battery industry, the Eu-ropean Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), the automobile manufacturers’ associations of Japan (JAMA) and South Korea (KAMA), as well as contributions from the Inter-national Lead Association.

Report on battery technologies forautomotives advances case for furtherEU exemption of lead based batteries

“In particular, this report demonstrates the necessity of maintaining the

exemption for lead-based batteries within the EU End of Life Vehicle Directive’s

wider ban on lead in light-duty vehicles. The EU’s legislative and regulatory

framework should guarantee a fair and technology-neutral competition between

battery technologies.” — Johann-Friedrich Dempwolff

INTERNATIONAL THERMAL SYSTEMS

www.internationalthermalsystems.com email: sales@itsl lcusa.com© 2012 INTERNATIONAL THERMAL SYSTEMS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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NEWS

Axion Power Interna-tional, the developer of lead-carbon energy stor-age systems, has received a follow-on purchase order for four more PowerCube energy storage systems from its strategic partner, a NJ-based solar installer for commercial and residential markets. The PowerCubes will provide storage for energy created by a com-mercial solar panel system

and service the frequency regulation market on the PJM grid.

The purchase order for around $1,100,000 in-cludes batteries, racks, wir-ing, a data communication system and the electron-ics coordination needed to outfi t and install the Pow-erCubes.

Each of the PowerCubes will be tied to solar arrays that produce between 500

kW and 700 kW of power and the PowerCubes will each provide 500 kW (both 500 kW up and 500 kW down) for frequency regu-lation.

Axion’s onsite 500kw PowerCube has been con-nected into the PJM grid utility network, the US’s largest power transmission organization serving more than 58 million people in all or parts of 13 states, for

more than 2-1/2 years. Set up as a demand response and frequency regulation asset, the company devel-oped and tweaked a work-ing model in a real world setting using the Power-Cube’s ability to participate 24/7 (although Axion’s model shows the ideal re-turn at less than this) in the PJM frequency regulation market, said Axion Power chairman Tom Granville.

Axion Power receives $1.1m follow-on order for PowerCube storage systems

ABB fl ywheels to stabilize grid for Alaskan islandABB, the power technol-ogy group, has received an order to deliver two PowerStore units — us-ing fl ywheel technology to store energy — as part of a microgrids solution to sta-bilize the power grid and increase renewable energy on Kodiak Island in Alaska.

ABB’s Microgrids Busi-ness worked with Kodiak Electric Association to de-velop and deliver the mi-crogrid solution. KEA, a

rural electric cooperative which generates and dis-tributes electrical power in Kodiak, Alaska, uses hydro, wind, battery energy stor-age, and diesel generation sets to produce power for the island.

The ABB PowerStore units will provide voltage and frequency support for a new crane to be installed at Kodiak Island’s port fa-cility. They can also extend the life of the battery sys-

tems by up to six years, and provide renewables integra-tion by helping to manage the intermittencies from

a 9MW wind farm on the island. Longer battery life will improve sustainability of KEA’s power system.

Snohomish County Pub-lic Utility District in the US state of Washington announced at the end of April that Mitsubishi Inter-national Corporation will provide the fi rst battery deployed in the MESA-1 energy storage project. The 1MW, 500 kWh battery storage system will be in-stalled later this year.

“The MESA-1 installa-tion will be the fi rst energy storage system built on the Modular Energy Storage Architecture (MESA), an innovative approach to en-ergy storage based on open, non-proprietary industry standards,” said Mitsubi-shi.

The battery modules con-tain battery cells manufac-

tured by Lithium Energy Japan, a joint venture be-tween GS Yuasa Interna-tional and Mitsubishi Cor-poration.

1Energy Systems, located in nearby Seattle will supply advanced MESA-compliant system control software and integrate the complete energy storage system.

The lithium-ion battery equipment will be installed into a 40-foot ISO shipping container. This modular system design allows for multiple containers to be combined into larger sys-tems so customers can size energy storage systems for their specifi c needs without incurring the additional en-gineering costs of custom designed systems.

MESA-1 energy storage in Washington state advances

Babcock & Wilcox acquire MEGTEC

Babcock & Wilcox an-nounced on June 23 that its subsidiary, Babcock & Wilcox Power Gen-eration Group, had completed the acquisition of MEGTEC, a US-headquartered industrial processes provider, based on an enterprise value of $155 million, subject to adjustments.

MEGTEC will oper-ate as a subsidiary of B&W PGG under the trade name of Babcock & Wilcox MEGTEC. Its management team will continue with the company, and the com-pany will continue to be headquartered in De Pere, Wisconsin.

B&W PGG president Randall Data said:“We expect a smooth transi-tion and integration process with no busi-ness disruption. B&W MEGTEC’s customers will continue to receive the same outstanding level of service to which they’re accustomed.”

B&W MEGTEC em-ploys approximately 600 people in the US, Cana-da, France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, the UK, China, India and Australia. The company designs, engineers, manufactures and services air pollution control systems and coat-ing and drying equipment for the industrial sector.

Nexeon completes commissioning of manufacturing facility

For the record, Nex-eon, a battery materials and licensing company developing silicon anodes for the next generation of lithium-ion battery completed in April the construction and com-missioning of a process development and manu-facturing facility at its headquarters in Oxford-shire, UK.

Nexeon says the plant is capable of produc-ing over 20 tonnes of product a year, and can handle a wide range of materials and reagents.


NEWS

Ford Motor Company and Samsung SDI, an affi liate of Samsung Group, announced in June the results of their research on different levels of hybrid technology that, they said, could one day be produced in high volume on non-hybrid vehicles for greater fuel savings.

The result of a 10-year research effort, the dual-battery system combines a lithium-ion battery with a 12-volt lead-acid battery that could enable regen-erative braking technology in non-hybrid vehicles for greater fuel savings.

“We are currently expand-ing our auto start-stop tech-nology across 70% of our lineup, and this dual-battery system has the potential to bring even more levels of hybridization to our vehi-cles for greater energy sav-ings across the board,” said Ted Miller, senior manager, Energy Storage Strategy and Research, Ford Motor Company.

“Although still in research, this type of battery could provide a near-term solu-tion for greater reduction of carbon dioxide.”

Ford and Samsung SDI also are researching a long-

er-term ultra-lightweight lithium-ion battery that they say could one day render traditional lead-acid batter-ies obsolete..

“Lithium-ion batteries are typically used in consumer electronics because they are lighter and more energy-dense than other types of batteries, which also make them ideal for the vehicle,” said Mike O’Sullivan, vice president, Automotive Bat-tery Systems for Samsung SDI North America.

“Battery technology is advancing rapidly and lith-ium-ion could one day com-pletely replace traditional 12-volt lead-acid batteries, providing better fuel effi -ciency for drivers.”

Lithium-ion batteries cur-rently used in Ford’s elec-trifi ed vehicles are 25% to 30% smaller than previous hybrid batteries made of nickel-metal-hydride, and offer approximately three times the power per cell.

“The ultra-lightweight battery concept offers a weight reduction of up to 40%, or 12 pounds (5kg),” says Ford. “Combining the battery with other weight reduction solutions, such as the Ford Lightweight Con-cept vehicle, could lead to additional savings in size and weight of the overall ve-hicle, as well as increased ef-fi ciencies and performance.”

In 2014 the company says it invested $135 million in

design, engineering and pro-duction of key battery com-ponents, and doubled its battery testing capabilities. Ford accelerated its battery durability testing, with test batteries now accumulating the equivalent of 150,000 miles of use and 10 years’ life in roughly 10 months in a laboratory setting.

Ford says it has directly supported several energy storage companies in Cali-fornia in their technology development through the United States Advanced Battery Consortium and it supports energy storage re-search at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Uni-versity of California, Berke-ley, and Stanford.

Dual lead-lithium battery research by Ford, Samsung

General Motors and the University of Michigan said in May they would extend their collabora-tive automotive research efforts until 2017.

“Launched in 1998, Collaborative Research Laboratories at the Uni-versity of Michigan have led to signifi cant commer-cial and academic success

for students, the university and the automaker,” ac-cording to GM. “In 2011, it yielded a unique process to ultrasonically weld battery tabs together that played a role in enabling the Chevrolet Volt team to offer an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty on its lithium-ion battery system.”

The new Automotive CRL creates an organiza-tional umbrella structure and initially will focus on research into engine systems and advanced manufacturing. In addi-tion, GM and the Univer-sity of Michigan have an existing, separate CRL that concentrates on smart material developments.

GM, University of Michigan extend research programme

Energizer Holdings, an-nounced at the end of April that it planned to separate the company’s Household Products division (which includes its battery brands) and Personal Care divisions into two independent, pub-licly traded companies.

“The separation is planned as a tax-free spin-off to the company’s shareholders and should be completed in the second half of the 2015 fi scal year. The separation could create two independ-ent public companies with distinct brands, categories and corporate strategies,” says the fi rm.

“Household Products, with batteries and portable lighting products, is expected to generate strong margins and signifi cant cashfl ows, The Household Products division reported annual revenue of approximately $1.9 billion in the trailing 12 month period ended March 31, 2014.”

“Over the last three years, we have taken a number of important steps to enhance shareholder value, including executing a multi-year cost reduction plan, improving working capital, and initiat-ing a dividend,” said Ward Klein, the chief executive.

“Separating the Household Products and Personal Care divisions is the next logical step to unlock greater value for Energizer shareholders. Importantly, as we move through the separation pro-cess, the company’s working capital and cost reduction efforts will continue without interruption, and we expect to achieve the full savings projected.”

Patrick Mulcahy, chairman of the Energizer Holdings board, is set to become exec-utive chairman of the board of the standalone House-hold Products, division. Alan Hoskins, chief executive of

Energizer Household Prod-ucts, will become chief ex-ecutive of standalone House-hold Products.

The company said it plans to provide further details about the board and man-agement teams of the sepa-rate companies at a later date.

The company has retained Goldman, Sachs as fi nan-cial adviser and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Bryan Cave as legal counsel to advise on the separation process.

The separation is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Corporate restructuring at Energizer


NEWS

Princeton Power Systems, the energy technology de-veloper and Aquion En-ergy, a manufacturer of aqueous hybrid ion bat-

tery systems for stationary energy storage applica-tions, announced plans in June to build the largest aqueous hybrid ion bat-tery to date.

The companies will col-laborate on a project to showcase the Princeton Power Systems DRI-10 in a fully functioning micro-grid at Aquion’s Systems Integration Laboratory. The project, which will be commissioned at the labo-ratory this summer, will contain 14 of Aquion’s M-Line modules (270kWh nameplate) being charged and discharged by a DRI-10 in both grid interactive and islanding modes.

The system will run a va-riety of protocols emulat-ing real world microgrid conditions.

Princeton Power Sys-tems’ UL1741 listed DRI-10 features an E-quad power fl ow design com-bined with split-phase

electrical connections and islanding capability — making this inverter suit-able for applications such as hybrid solar systems, wind with storage, electric vehicle charging and com-mercial backup.

“The DRI-10 bidirec-tional 4-port inverter (2x DC and 2x AC) is a relia-ble, effi cient, cost-effective and fl exible solution for many advanced energy ap-plications,” says Princeton Power.

Aquion Energy’s M100 module is a 19.2 kilowatt-hour system composed of 12 Aquion S-Line battery stacks in a parallel con-fi guration. The module comes equipped with an optional voltage, current and temperature sensing control board that can be integrated with standard power conditioning sys-tems. “The M-Line mod-ules deliver long cycle life, deep depth of discharge

and high effi ciency, mak-ing it an ideal choice for stationary, long-duration, daily cycling applications including off-grid and mi-crogrids, energy manage-ment and grid-scale ser-vices,” says Aquion.

Darren Hammell, co-founder of Princeton Pow-er says: “We are confi dent that the combination of our DRI-10 and Aquion’s AHI storage system will serve as a powerful plat-form to demonstrate a commercially available and robust microgrid so-lution.”

Ted Wiley, vice president at Aquion Energy says: “We selected the DRI-10 because of its proven ca-pability and functionality in renewable powered mi-crogrids both on and off the grid. Aquion has sev-eral similar microgrid sys-tems planned for deploy-ment around the world in the coming quarters.”

Princeton and Aquion Energy to build largest ever AHI battery system

GS Yuasa plans 1MW-output system backed by lithium ion batteriesGS Yuasa Corporation plans to install a 1 MW output mega solar sys-tem in idle land within the premises of the Gunma Plant (Isesaki City, Gunma Prefecture), which is one of GS Yuasa’s production bases. Construction starts in July and the battery manufacturer hopes for it to start operations in Janu-ary 2015. The plant will be backed up with a bank of lithium ion batteries.

This will be its second mega solar system, the fi rst was the Iwaki Yuasa Pho-tovoltaic Power Plant in Iwaki City, Fukushima Pre-fecture, which started op-erations in June 2013.

The new system will sell the electricity it generates to the Tokyo Electric Pow-

er Company, utilizing the Feed-in Tariff System for Renewable Energy. It will also act as an emergency power source supplying electricity to the plant dur-ing power outage.

Total annual output of Iwaki Yuasa Photovoltaic Power Plant, which started operations in June 2013, exceeded the initial esti-mate of 1,100 MWh,

“Along with contribut-ing to the safety and secu-rity of local communities and solving power short-ages through construction and operation of mega so-lar systems, GS Yuasa will improve the technological capability and implement new product development in the renewable energy re-lated business such as pow-

er conditioners and high capacity lithium-ion batter-ies,” the fi rm said.

“GS Yuasa Group will continue to promote the development and usage of power conditioners and storage batteries to con-tribute to society’s ability to fl exibly respond to ev-er-changing power supply conditions.

GS Yuasa Group has been a pioneer in the de-velopment of sophisticated power conditioners which change direct current from photovoltaic panels into alternating current at a voltage of the proper level and characteristics, smoothing the sinusoidal AC wave form, to enable load equipment to function properly.

EaglePicher Technologies announced in mid-April that it will receive a $3 mil-lion award from the US’ Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy to further develop their catalytic en-ergy storage technology.

EaglePicher will focus its research on improving scal-ability for its sodium-beta battery by developing an inexpensive stacked design to improve integration in renewable and grid storage applications.

“The original ARPA-E effort, ‘Planar Na-Beta Batteries for Renewable Integration and Grid Ap-plications,’” successfully demonstrated the concept of using thin BASE (beta-Al2O3 solid state elec-trolyte) for reduced cell impedance and increased discharge rates while oper-ating at reduced tempera-tures,” says the fi rm.

“Battery models and market studies conducted for the project have shown that the new concept should meet multiple needs of the grid storage market. This follow-on project leverages EaglePicher’s original re-search with new technology being developed by another ARPA-E awardee, Material Systems and Research Inc.

“The advanced design will demonstrate the new modular, scalable concept at the end of the 18 month project in 450Whr cells.”

EaglePicher receives grant for sodium-beta battery for grid storage


NEWS

NEC Energy Solutions, a manufacturer of advanced energy storage systems, has completed commissioning of six new GSS (grid stor-age solutions) sites in the UK for Northern Power-grid. In total, the systems have nearly 2.9MW of power and 5.7MWh of energy storage capacity, and were installed in sub-stations in both urban and rural locations as part of the Customer-Led Network Revolution.

The CLNR is a three-year smart grid project in the UK funded in part through the Offi ce of the Gas and Electricity Mar-kets’ (Ofgem) Low Carbon Networks Fund.

The largest, a 2.5MW, 5MWh GSS in Darlington, is located in an urban in-dustrial area, while one of the smallest, a 50kW GSS, is located in a residential area in Wooler, a small town in the northern part of England.

“Part of the challenge of installing energy stor-

age in these areas was the wide diversity in the vari-ous sites,” said Ian Lloyd, CLNR technology man-ager at Northern Power-grid. “We needed battery systems that could fi t into a range of electricity dis-tribution substations, so it was important to have a very fl exible battery design to accommodate our very different locations.”

Energy storage is a key component of the CLNR

smart grid project, and will be used to help integrate more solar and wind en-ergy into the UK’s electric-ity network, as well as sup-porting other low-carbon technologies.

To fi t the needs of the pro-ject at four of the six sites, NEC Energy Solutions sup-plied lithium-ion based grid battery systems packaged in a variety of enclosures including standard 40-foot containers and smaller cus-

tomized enclosures. The last two locations re-

quired energy storage sys-tems installed directly into pre-existing buildings, and serve to demonstrate the fl exibility of NEC Energy Solutions’ modular and scalable designs.

NEC Energy Solutions, says it is an industry leader in advanced energy storage, with more than 110MW operating on the grid worldwide.

NEC commissions 5.7MWh of UK grid energy storage installations, seeks adaptability for variations in location

Further grid testing with fi rst lithium-titanate batteryToshiba Corporation plans to provide a 2MW ESS (en-ergy storage system) in Sep-tember near Wolverhampton in the UK to support grid management. As part of this Toshiba will install a 1MWh SCiB battery in a primary substation battery which, it says, will be the country’s fi rst lithium-titanate battery.

Large-scale ESS are in-creasingly seen as a versa-tile solution in managing electricity supply. Installed in wind and photovoltaic generation systems, ESS can help to overcome intermit-tent output and frequency fl uctuations, as well as per-forming peak power buffer-

ing, and when connected to the grid they can support grid stability and reinforce-ment.

This role in grid manage-ment will be investigated in the UK, in the Grid Connect-ed Energy Storage Research Demonstrator project. This is led by the University of Sheffi eld, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with support from both industrial and academ-ic partners.

The ESS will be connected to the 11kV grid at Western Power Distribution’s Wil-lenhall primary substation in the West Midlands. When

the project starts operation this November, it will allow testing at realistic levels, and allow assessment of the tech-nical and economic potential of ESS in the grid.

“Toshiba’s SCiB is a highly innovative lithium-titanate based secondary battery,” says the fi rm.

“It is distinguished by its long-life and excellent per-formance: fast charging and discharging in a wide range of temperature conditions; capability to withstand over 10,000 charge-discharge cy-cles; and high level reliabil-ity and operational safety, particularly in terms of low risk of fi re, a danger associ-

ated with other lithium-ion batteries.

“ESS based on Toshiba’s SCiB provide an excellent solution where high per-formance and long life are required, for example in the provision of effi cient and effective frequency regula-tion.”

Toshiba is promoting bat-tery-based ESS globally as a support for stable power networks, supplying several projects in Japan and around the world, and has already received orders for com-mercial systems in Italy and Japan, where it has supplied batteries for a 40MW ESS — among the world’s largest.

NEC Corporation an-nounced in May that it had completed the ac-quisition of A123 Energy Solutions, the grid energy business of A123 Systems from China’s Wanxiang Group. A123 Energy So-lutions will now operate as NEC Energy Solu-tions.

As part of this ac-quisition, NECES and Wanxiang will create a joint venture to develop

the grid energy storage and commercial systems business in China.

Moreover, NEC will seek to expand new global business through the creation of next gen-eration energy solutions linked to Information Communication Technol-ogies (ICT) and energy storage systems.

NEC Energy Solutions will manufacture and continue the launch of

Nanophosphate ALM Se-ries Lead Acid Replace-ment Batteries.

These batteries de-liver lighter weight, higher power and longer calendar and cycle life as compared with lead acid for a number of applications, including telecommunications, data centres, medical and UPS systems.

The acquisition was for around $100 million.

NEC closes A123 acquisition


NEWS

General Motors is to invest $449 million to upgrade manufacturing processes at its Detroit-Hamtramck As-sembly and Brownstown Battery Assembly plants.

The investment is the larg-est to date at both facilities and includes $384 million at Detroit-Hamtramck for new body shop tooling, equipment, and additional plant upgrades to build the next generation Chev-rolet Volt and two future products. This brings GM’s total investment at Detroit-Hamtramck to more than $1 billion over the last fi ve years.

GM’s $65 million invest-ment at its Brownstown plant will support the next generation of lithium-ion battery production and fu-ture battery systems.

Since 2009, GM has an-nounced more than $5.4 billion in US facility invest-ment for vehicle technolo-gies. This includes more

than $2.8 billion invested in Michigan-based facilities alone.

The Detroit-Hamtram-ck Assembly Plant is the world’s only automotive plant that mass-produces extended-range electric ve-hicles — including the Volt, Cadillac ELR and Opel Am-pera — for markets in 33 countries.

Detroit-Hamtramck also builds the Chevrolet Malibu and Impala sedans and is home to a 264,000-square-foot photovoltaic solar ar-ray that can generate up to

516 kilowatts of electricity, or enough to charge 150 electric vehicles per day.

Brownstown Battery As-sembly’s 479,000-square-foot, landfi ll-free facility south of Detroit produces the lithium-ion battery packs for GM’s extended-range electric vehicles.

It started mass production in October 2010 and is the fi rst high-volume manufac-turing site in the US oper-ated by a major automaker for automotive lithium-ion battery production, accord-ing to a GM spokesperson.

The site was made possible with the help of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding through the US Department of Energy.

Separately, General Mo-tors announced later on that it planned to bring all its electric vehicle battery building capabilities in-house with production of battery systems for the 2015 Chevrolet Spark EV at its

battery assembly plant in Brownstown, Michigan.

“Using our in-house en-gineering and manufactur-ing expertise enabled us to deliver a battery system that is more effi cient and lighter than the 2014 Spark EV without sacrifi cing range,” said Larry Nitz, executive director of GM global trans-mission and electrifi cation engineering.

“Our successful working relationship with LG Chem has allowed us to deliver a new battery system for the Spark EV that helps us to better leverage our econo-mies of scale.”

A newly designed battery system features an overall storage capacity of 19kWh and uses 192 lithium ion cells.

The battery system weight of 474lb is 86 pounds light-er than the system in the 2014 Spark EV. The Spark EV battery is built on a dedicated production line at Brownstown, which also manufactures complete bat-tery packs for the Chevrolet Volt, Opel Ampera and Ca-dillac ELR.

Changes in battery design will not affect the Spark’s MPGe, or gasoline equiva-lent, performance compared to the 2014 model. Range will remain at an EPA-rated 82 miles and MPGe will re-main at 119.

“Priced at $19,995 with full federal incentives, the Spark EV is one of the most effi cient — and afford-able — all-electric vehicles available. Currently on sale in California and Oregon, the 2015 Spark EV features segment-leading technology including Siri Eyes Free, 4G LTE and DC Fast Charg-ing,” says a GM spokesper-son.

Shot in the arm for lithium as GM invests $449 million for next generation electric cars

Electrovaya provides battery packs to Dongfeng Motors, breaks into mining industryElectrovaya announced in April that it has delivered its next generation of pro-totype battery packs to Dongfeng Motors in China. DFM, the Chinese car man-ufacturer is working on a major electric vehicle pro-gram, which includes two electric vehicle platforms.

Electrovaya is supplying its Lithium Ion SuperPoly-mer 2.0 battery, which consists of high energy den-sity cells, and battery man-agement system along with sub-assemblies of mechani-cal, thermal, electrical and electronics.

Due to improvements in the cell manufacturing

process, this battery has about 20% increased ca-pacity and performance over Electrovaya’s previous DFM prototypes. The bat-tery uses Electrovaya’s pro-prietary unique non-toxic manufacturing process.

“DFM is one of China’s largest automakers.” says Joseph Chao, Electrovaya’s consultant for the Chinese electric vehicle market. “This is a critical contract for both groups. DFM pres-ently manufacturers over 3.5 million vehicles in Chi-na and its electric vehicle programme has the poten-tial to become one of the major players in the Chi-

nese and global markets.”Separately, Electrovaya

announced in April that it had received its fi rst energy storage purchase order us-ing its lithium ion super-polymer batteries from the mining industry. This is for C$750,000 ($690,000) and the storage system will be delivered this year.

Mining projects around the world are usually locat-ed in remote sites and com-monly use diesel generators as the power source. These generators often consume large amounts of fuel, and in some cases fuel costs can be as high as 30% of the operating cost of a mine.

“Priced at $19,995 with full US incen-tives, the Spark EV is one of the most effi cient — and affordable — all-electric vehicles available”

Clean fractions No cross contamination Electrolyte recovery No top-up water Compact design Stainless steel construction Range: 2.5 tonne/h to over 20 tonne/h Competitively priced

A IN ULAB BREAKING AND SEPARATION!REVOLUTION

www.dross-engineering.com

See us on stand 50 at 14ELBC

See us at booth 88


NEWS

US energy secretary Ernest Moniz announced on June 18 the award of $100 million for Energy Frontier Re-search Centers to accelerate what it called “the scientifi c breakthroughs needed to build the 21st-century en-ergy economy”.

The awards are the second round of funding for EFRCs and the research supported by this initiative will enable fundamental advances in energy pro-duction, storage, and use.

“Today, we are mobilizing some of our most talented scientists to join forces and pursue the discoveries and breakthroughs that will lay the foun-dation for our nation’s energy future,” Moniz said. “The funding we’re an-

nouncing today will help fuel scien-tifi c and technological innovation.”

The 32 projects receiving fund-ing were competitively selected from more than 200 proposals. Ten of these projects are new while the rest re-ceived renewed funding based on their achievements to date and the quality of their proposals for future research.

Twenty-three of the projects receiv-ing funding are headed by universities, eight are led by the Energy Depart-ment’s National Laboratories and one project is run by a non-profi t organi-zation.

Awards range from $2 million to $4 million per year per centre for up to four fi scal years, subject to a progress

review in year two. The DOE plans to open the EFRC programme to new applications every two years.

Since their establishment, the EFRCs have produced 5,400 peer-reviewed scientifi c publications and hundreds of inventions at various stages of the patent process. EFRC research has also benefi ted a number of large and small fi rms, including start-up companies.

The centres selected for the second round of funding will help lay the sci-entifi c groundwork for fundamental advances in solar energy, electrical en-ergy storage, carbon capture and se-questration, materials and chemistry by design, biosciences, and extreme environments.

New EFRC funding awards announced

Lead Institution

California Institute of Technology

University of California, Riverside

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Argonne National Laboratory

Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

University of Maryland, College Park

Los Alamos National Laboratory

SUNY Binghamton

SUNY Stony Brook

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

EFRC Name

Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI)

Spins and Heat in Nanoscale Electronic Systems (SHINES)

Center for Next Generation of Materials by Design: Incorporating Metastability (CNGMD)

Center for Electrochemical Energy Science (CEES-II)

Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science (CBES)

Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research (ANSER) Center

Center for Excitonics (CE)

Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC)

Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage (NEES II)

Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP)

NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES)

Center for Mesoscale Transport Properties (m2M)

Center for the Computational Design of Functional Layered Materials (CDFLM)

Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation (CLSF)

Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport (FIRST) Center

Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution (EDDE)Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy

Security (CFSES)

Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis (CME)

EFRC Objective

Tailor the morphology, complex dielectric structure, and electronic properties of matter so as to sculpt the fl ow of sunlight and heat, enabling light conversion to electrical energy with unprecedented effi ciency.

Explore the interplay of spin, charge, and heat to control the transport of spin and energy to achieve much higher energy effi ciencies in nanoscale electronic devices.

Transform the design and synthesis of materials for solar energy conversion and solid state lighting using high throughput computation and data mining.

Understand electrochemically-driven reactivity in electrifi ed oxide materials, fi lms and interfaces using lithium ion battery chemistry.

Develop artifi cial materials, inspired by biological systems, that can change the way we convert and use energy.

Revolutionize our understanding of the molecules, materials, and physical phenomena necessary to create dramatically more effi cient technologies for solar fuels and electricity production.

Develop new materials and structures that use excitons to increase the effi ciency of solar photovolatic cells and high brightness solid state lighting devices.

Design materials for effi cient direct heat-to electricity energy conversion technologies.

Provide the scientifi c insights and design principles needed to realize a new generation of powerful and long lasting batteries based on nanostructures.

Harness the unique properties of quantum-confi ned semiconductors to realize the next generation of low-cost, high-effi ciency solar photoconversion systems.

Understand the transformations that occur in an electrode composite structure throughout the lifetime of the functioning battery in order to achieve close to theoretical capacities in intercalation systems and enable new battery chemistries.

Understand ion and electron transport and electron transfer properties over multiple length scales and across interfaces to enable the design of higher performing, longer life, and safer energy storage systems.

Employ computation and theory to design modifi ed layered materials with desired functionalities, to grow and experimentally characterize them, and to test their effi cacy for clean-energy applications.

Develop a detailed nano- to meso-scale understanding of plant cell wall structure and its mechanism of assembly to provide a basis for improved methods of converting biomass into fuels.

Develop fundamental understanding and validated, predictive models of the unique nanoscale environment at fl uid-solid interfaces that will enable transformative advances in electrical energy storage and electrocatalysis.

Develop a fundamental understanding of energy dissipation mechanisms to control defect evolution in structural alloys in a radiation environment.

Understand and control emergent behavior arising from coupled physics and chemistry in heterogeneous geomaterials, particularly during the time and length scales for geologic carbon dioxide storage.

Develop a fundamental understanding of proton transfer reactions that will lead to transformational changes in our ability to design molecular electrocatalysts for interconversion of electricity and fuels.

State

CA

CA

CO

IL

IL

IL

MA

MA

MD

NM

NY

NY

PA

PA

TN

TN

TX

WA

EFRC Director

Atwater, Harry

Shi, Jing

Tumas, William

Fenter, Paul

Stupp, Samuel

Wasielewski, Michael

Baldo, Marc

Chen, Gang

Rubloff, Gary

Klimov, Victor

Whittingham, M. Stanley

Takeuchi, Esther

Perdew, John

Cosgrove, Daniel

Wesolowski, David

Zhang, Yanwen

Lake, Larry

Bullock, R. Morris


Bitrode forms partnership in Indonesia

Bitrode has formed a strategic partnership with Jakarta-based Inter Pasifi c Cemerlang to provide testing services that can bring advanced energy storage solutions to Indonesian-based businesses.

“Bitrode recognizes the importance of providing local sales and service to existing and potential customers,” said John Grimm, director of sales and marketing for Bitrode. “IPC’s technical sales and service experts are equipped to handle the growing energy storage industry in Indonesia.” Since 1989 IPC has been supplying custom measuring and testing instruments to the electrical power and related in-dustries.

BYD reveals ‘forklift battery for life’

BYD Europe unveiled at CeMAT, the huge international logistics fair in May, a range of forklifts featuring a battery technology that it claims “means customers need never buy a new battery again”.

BYD’s new battery uses lithium iron phosphate and re-quires less time and energy to charge than traditional lead-acid batteries and offers an extended total battery life that, BYD claims for the fi rst time ever, the truck battery needs never be replaced.

Typical charging time for a lithium iron phosphate bat-tery is just one to two hours. But a 10 minute top up time extends working up to 45 minutes.

BYD says the annual operating and battery amortiza-tion cost savings when using its battery in a single-shift, fi ve-day-a–week lift truck operation could exceed €1,500 ($1,950) a year.

ZPower secures $10 million more

ZPower announced at the end of May it had raised $10 million in additional funding from existing investors, bringing the company’s total to $110 million committed by investors. The funds will be used to accelerate the adoption of ZPower silver-zinc rechargeable batteries, used by leading hearing aid manufacturers.

The batteries were recently launched by Starkey Hearing Technologies for use in the VFusion Rechargeable Battery System.

“ZPower’s technology has given me a new lease on life,” said Howard Schultz, lead investor and hearing aid wearer. “When I place my hearing aids in the charger each night and put them on in the morning, I’m confi dent the batteries will last all day. No longer do I have to worry about car-rying spare batteries and having to replace them at inop-portune times. With ZPower batteries I can now charge my hearing aids just like my mobile phone.”

ZPower is hoping to expand into markets beyond au-diology. Longer lasting microbatteries are crucial for the new wave of portable electronics and wearable computers. “Our silver-zinc technology has a signifi cant energy den-sity advantage over lithium-ion microbatteries,” says Ross Dueber, ZPower chief executive.

ZPower batteries are the fi rst new rechargeable battery technology for portable electronics to be launched since lithium-ion was introduced in the 1990s. The US company is fi nanced entirely by private investors.

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Renault signs MOU with LG Chem for EV batteries

Car maker Renault has signed a memorandum of understanding in May with LG Chem to jointly develop high density batteries that will power its next-generation zero emission cars.

The French automaker, which con-trols Renault-Nissan Alliance and South Korea’s Renault Samsung Mo-tors, said the agreement lays the foun-dation for its next-generation EVs to be powered by lithium ion batteries made by LG Chem, already an estab-lished player in the vehicle power stor-age sector. “The batteries will give cars longer endurance and reduce range concerns that have restricted growth of the global EV market,” says Renault.

Renault currently markets the Twizy, Zoe, Fluence ZE and Kangoo Van ZE electric cars. Counting Nissan’s Leaf, the world’s fourth-largest automo-tive alliance had sold 100,000 EV as of July 2013. In South Korea, Renault Samsung sells the SM3 Z.E. that is based on the Fluence.

B3CG Interconnect join forces with EnerDel for Quebec school bus program

EnerDel, the lithium-ion battery fi rm in April agreed with B3CG Interconnect a manufacturer of electromechanical components to develop and manufacture traction batteries for Lion Bus, Canadian school bus producer.

The electric power-train will be equipped with some 100kWh of lithi-um-ion batteries which should give it an expected range of more than 50 miles, suffi cient to travel a typical school bus route. The main battery components, including EnerDel’s newest high-density Moxie+ modules and Secure+ Battery Management System, will be built by EnerDel. The fi nal battery and wiring harness assembly will be completed by B3CG in Quebec.

The Quebec provincial government recently awarded Lion Bus a project to develop an all-electric school bus. This project, is part of the Transportation Electrifi cation Strategy promoted by the Canadian government, which aims to introduce 10,000 all-electric vehicles on Quebec roads by 2017.

Audi and partner FAW cooperate on plug-in hybrid for China

Audi and its Chinese joint-venture partner FAW are to launch a plug-in hybrid car for the Chinese market. The Audi A6 e-tron will be based on the long-wheelbase version of the Audi A6, which is already produced in China, and will be specially developed for the most important market of the German premium manufacturer.

The full-size sedan with a 50-kilom-eter range when operating solely un-der battery power is to be produced within the joint venture by FAW-Volk-swagen in Changchun in northern China.

Zhang Pijie, president of FAW-Volk-swagen said: “Audi and FAW have been cooperating closely for more than 25 years. Together, we have built up the premium segment in China.

“Now we are cooperating on the next generation of automobiles. The two types of drive system of the plug-in hybrid technology offer customers emission-free driving with electric drive and unlimited range with the additional combustion engine.”

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Montana Tech eyes European electric car battery plant

Austrian investor Michael Tojner’s Montana Tech Components group announced in April that it had plans to set up a major plant in Europe to make batteries for electric cars and has launched talks with German carmakers.

“Should the plan bear fruit, it could lead to a bourse listing for its Germa-ny-based Varta car battery business,” a spokesperson said. The company al-ready works with Volkswagen on de-veloping batteries for electric cars.

The group said it could start serial production of electric car batteries by 2017.

LiFeBATT new supplier for American Mine Research

LiFeBATT, a supplier of lithium-ion battery cells headquartered is to supply American Mine Research, with 20Ahr cells based on LiFePO4 to power the underground system that provides communication and location information to miners.

The initial contract with AMR calls for 4000 cells per mine. The LiFeB-ATT cells underwent nearly a full year of testing before they could be incor-porated into AMR’s system. The cells are labelled to certify that they have met various international safety stand-ards and further certifi ed under the UN 3840 designation as safe to ship by air cargo. The product carries the highest ‘C’ – Rated Safe Lithium-ion cell designation on the market today.

LG Chem signs Ube Maxell licence agreement

LG Chem has signed a patent licence agreement with Ube Maxell for separator fi lm technology owned by LG Chem. Ube Maxell is a joint venture between Ube Industries and Hitachi Maxell in the fi eld of coated separator fi lms for lithium-ion batteries.

Ube Maxell acquires the patent use rights from LG Chem for ceramic coating of separator substrates, a key component of lithium-ion batteries.

Ube Maxell was formed in February 2011 by Ube Industries (51%) and Hi-tachi Maxell (49%). The company en-gages in the manufacturing and sales of high-performance coated separator fi lms for lithium-ion batteries used in

hybrid and electric vehicles and indus-trial applications.

The patent granted to Ube Maxell is for LG Chem’s safety reinforced separator technology, which uses a ce-ramic coating on separator substrates to enhance the thermal deformation resistance and mechanical strength of separators. This in turn prevents short-circuits inside lithium-ion batteries to ensure lithium-ion battery safety.

Details of the agreement between LG Chem and Ube Maxell have not been disclosed.

Sinopoly in strategic agreement with Smith Electric

Sinopoly Battery, a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles has entered into a collective agreement with Smith Electric Vehicles, a all-electric vehicle manufacturer.

This involves a strategic cooperation with SEV and an exclusive battery supply contract and an electric vehicle component supply OEM memoran-dum of understanding to strengthen the long-term development of the group in the international market.

As one of the largest commercial all-electric vehicle manufacturers in the world, SEV has a history of over 80 years. It has invested approximately $100 million in the research and de-velopment of EV projects since 2009. The all-electric vehicles manufactured by SEV have been used commercially by its customers for many years.

SEV has production and R&D bases in the UK and the US and customers inAmerica, Europe and Asia. SEV, in-tends to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ Stock Market.

Sinopoly will be a strategic share-holder to support the listing of SEV. This includes a fi nancial arrangement — a conditional subscription of Series AA convertible promissory notes, Se-ries ‘E’ preferred stock and common stockof post-listing of SEV in the amounts of $2 million, $10 million and $30 million, respectively.

Upon completion of the collective agreement with SEV, Sinopoly will become an exclusive power battery supplier, an EV parts and components preferred supplier of SEV and will be the single largest shareholder of SEV. The power batteries used for all-EVs produced by SEV in the future will be procured exclusively by Sinopoly and SEV will also use Sinopoly’s electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Hang-

zhou as its preferred OEM supplier for their EV frame as well as other parts and components.

Kandi Technologies signs supply contract with Lishen Battery

Kandi Technologies Group announced at the end of April that Zhejiang Kandi Vehicles, its wholly-owned subsidiary in China, had signed a supply contract with Lishen Battery System, China’s largest producer of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, for a one-year supply, a minimum of 25,000 cases, of 80V/70AH lithium-ion batteries starting in May 2014. The contract is valued roughly at Rmb360 million ($58.5 million) when the purchase orders have been fulfi lled.

California close to approving $415 million for home energy storage for renewables

California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program was about to be re-authorized by state governor Jerry Brown as Batteries International went to press. It will continue to provide $83 million per year (through to 2019) for behind-the-meter generation technologies including wind, fuel cells and energy storage.

The SGIP rebate is increasingly be-ing used for energy storage applica-tions. It has a mandate to add 200MW of energy storage behind the meter by 2020.

In 2012, the SGIP incentive devoted to energy storage was for just two sys-tems totalling 2MW.

Polypore in long-term lithium separator supply agreement with Panasonic

Polypore International announced in May that its Celgard subsidiary and Panasonic Automotive and Industrial Systems Division had entered into a long-term supply agreement under which Panasonic will buy Celgard brand separators to be used in its large-format electric drive vehicle lithium-ion batteries. This agreement includes guaranteed purchase and supply volume requirements and a fi ve-year term.

“After working closely together with Panasonic for many years, we are pleased to formalize our partnership with them. This provides certainty of


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supply to meet our customers’ needs in this growing application space,” says Robert Toth, chief executive of Poly-pore.

Rockwood takes 49% stake in Talison Lithium

Rockwood Holdings completed the acquisition of the ownership interest to create a joint venture with Sichuan Tianqi Lithium Industries at the end of May. It gives Rockwood a 49% ownership interest in Talison Lithium. Rockwood says it funded the purchase price of $475 million from cash on hand.

“Completing the acquisition of 49% in Talison is a signifi cant strategic step as we move forward to position Rock-wood Lithium as the premier provider of lithium products to our global cus-tomers. We are now uniquely situated with signifi cant and diverse lithium re-sources in multiple continents, includ-ing South America, North America and now Australia. This will assure our customers that we have the abil-ity to meet their fast-growing needs,” said Seifi Ghasemi, chief executive of Rockwood.

Talison mines and processes lithi-um-bearing mineral spodumene at its operations in Western Australia and is an important fi gure in the Chinese lithium concentrates market.

Talison produces two categories of lithium concentrates: technical-grade lithium concentrates and a high-yield-ing chemical-grade lithium concen-trate which is used to produce lithium chemicals which form the basis for manufacture of, among other applica-tions, lithium-ion batteries for laptop computers, mobile phones, electric bi-cycles and electric vehicles.

Sichuan Tianqi Lithium Industries is China’s leading lithium company, with a market cap of some $1.8bn and is 36% owned by Chengdu Tianqi In-dustry Group. Tianqi is the world’s largest lithium producer. It owns 51% of Talison and is also the sole distribu-tor of technical-grade lithium concen-trate for Talison in China.

MHI to sell lithium-ion rechargeable battery business

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries closed an agreement in April with Delta Electronics, a leading manufacturer of electronic devices in Taiwan, under which MHI will sell Delta its

business assets, including machinery, in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. As a result MHI will shift its management resources into operations in energy storage system products employing lithium-ion rechargeable batteries.

Delta Electronics is the core en-terprise of the Taiwan-based Delta Group. The company undertakes op-erations encompassing a diverse line-up of electronic products including power and thermal management so-lutions, and as an enterprise of global scale it has approximately 200 facili-ties worldwide including production, sales and R&D functions.

“Leveraging the new agreement, going forward MHI and Delta Elec-tronics also plan to join forces in pursuing further development of the lithium-ion rechargeable battery business, including ESS products,” said a MHI statement.

“At the same time, MHI will con-tinue to work toward the realization of an ever more energy-effi cient, low-carbon society through expanded adoption of stationary large-capaci-ty ESS’s, electric buses and the like.”

A123 Systems acquires technology from Leyden Energy

A123 Systems, the lithium-ion battery manufacturer, has acquired intellectual property and technical staff from Leyden Energy. These include lithium titanate and non-fl ammable electrolyte developments were acquired for an undisclosed amount. As part of this, key technical staff of Leyden Energy are to join A123 Systems’ R&D organization.

Leyden is the recent recipient of funding from United States Ad-vanced Battery Consortium (US-ABC), an organization that includes Chrysler, Ford and General Mo-tors. “Under that program, Leyden achieved outstanding progress on development of its technology for micro-hybrid applications in the automotive market,” according to an offi cial statement. “In particular, the inherent lithium titanate proper-ties of long cycle life and exceptional power capability were extended to operate over a substantially wider temperature range.

The acquisition of Leyden’s tech-nology in this fi eld complements the lithium iron phosphate materi-als portfolio that A123 has already commercialized.

Manz secures li-ion battery machinery deal

Manz, the German battery machine manufacturer, received in June its largest single order of li-ion battery machinery comprising a fully integrated production line, according to a press report.

Proterra raises $40 million

Battery-electric bus manufacturer Proterra has raised more than $30 million in additional funding for its technology. Kleiner Perkins and GM Ventures led the fi nancing with further funding from other existing investors.

Another $10 million in funding is to close shortly bringing the total for the fi nancing to $40 million. Edison Energy and Constellation Technology Ventures, the venture capital arm of Exelon, have re-invested. Tao Invest, Vision Ridge Partners and Hennessey Capital were set, in June, to join with Mitsui and 88 Green Ventures.

Michael Smith, Constellation vice president and head of Constellation Technology Ventures, will join Pro-terra’s Board.

Areva JV targets renewable market

Areva has formed a joint venture with Smart Energies subsidiary Ceth2 and the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe) to manufacture proton exchange membrane electrolysers to produce hydrogen from water and electricity.

The electrolysers may also supply service hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles or supply natural gas networks.

Areva, Ceth2 and Ademe will hold equal interests in the joint venture, which will be based in France and have an engineering and production site.

UniEnergy Technologies announces availability of Uni.System vanadium fl ow battery

UniEnergy Technologies, a manufac-turer of large-scale energy storage systems using vanadium fl ow batteries has announced the commercial avail-ability of the Uni.System grid-scale en-ergy storage system.

The system is modular, factory-inte-


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grated (including power conversion), and, says the company, “plug and play,” consisting of fi ve 20 foot stand-ard containers requiring a concrete pad and interconnection that provide 500kW of power for four hours, with power up to 600kW and energy up to 2.2MWh.

“Utilizing a new generation of vana-dium electrolyte initially developed at Pacifi c Northwest National Laborato-ry supported by the US Department of Energy’s Grid Storage Program, with double the energy density and much broader operating temperature range, the Uni.System is a breakthrough product,” said UET president & CEO Gary Yang.

“In addition to all the advantages of traditional vanadium redox fl ow bat-teries, such as superior safety, unlim-ited cycle life, long duration, and full use of the battery from 0% to 100% state of charge, the Uni.System is fully containerized including for the fi rst time at grid-scale integrated electro-lyte tanks, fi eld-proven large-scale stacks, and optimized controls and power electronics.”

MonBat to sell recycling plant

Bulgarian car battery producer Mon-Bat plans to sell its battery recycling plant in Serbia, according to remarks made by the chairman of the com-pany’s board of directors Atanas at a shareholding meeting at the end of June.

Alstom-Saft agree draft contract with EDF

The consortium formed by Alstom-Saft consortium in 2013 to bid for work with the EDF group to supply an initial energy storage system using a container of lithium-ion batteries, has agreed a draft contract.

Alstom’s MaxSine eStorage solu-tion, connected to Saft’s Intensium Max 20M storage system, will be in-stalled on EDF R&D’s experimental so-called ‘Concept Grid’, dedicated to the development of grids and smart electrical systems. Located on the EDF site of Les Renardières south of Paris. Tihs is the fi rst installation of its kind in France. The storage system and the power converter will be delivered in late 2014.

The battery storage system will pro-vide frequency regulation whereby it can either release energy into the grid,

or store it in a few hundred millisec-onds, thus controlling the frequency of the network. The experiments by EDF R&D will evaluate the ability of such a system to regulate the frequency, and particularly the adjustment potential of the primary reserve.

As part of this contract, Alstom and Saft provide the complete 1 MW/30min energy storage and con-version system. Saft will supply its Intensium Max 20 foot lithium-ion battery container, while Alstom will install its MaxSine eStorage solution.

“The battery energy storage system is part of the ‘Nouvelle France Indus-trielle’ project, a scheme launched by the French government in 2013,” says Patrick Plas, senior vice-president, Smart Grid & HVDC at Alstom Grid.

Alstom and Saft have already col-laborated on the smart grid demon-stration project Nice Grid (in Nice,

France), installing in late 2013, a 1MW battery energy storage system to address the risk of grid instability in the event of a massive infl ux of inter-mittent solar energy.

Finland plans renewable energy storage

Finland has launched a €7 million ($9 million) project to develop storage sys-tems for wind and solar energy.

The Neo-Carbon Energy scheme is a partnership by VTT Technical Re-search Centre of Finland, Lappeenran-ta University of Technology and the Finland Futures Research Centre at the University of Turku. Neo-Carbon Energy is being backed by the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, which has granted funding of €5 million for 2014-2016.

The National Recycling Rate Study, commissioned by Battery Council In-ternational, has been completed for 2009–2013 and concluded that the recycling rate of lead available from lead-acid batteries in the US is 99%.

When compared to the National Recycling Rate Study performed for 2004–2008, the 2009–2013 study saw a three percentage point increase in the overall recycling rate. This positive change will prove benefi cial for lead-acid batteries as global energy storage continues to become an increasingly prevalent topic.

“This study shows that lead-acid bat-teries can pass the unwritten specifi ca-tions of an increasingly environmen-tally conscious culture,” says Mark Thorsby, executive vice-president of

Battery Council International. “As the most highly recyclable lead commod-ity in the world, lead-acid batteries continue to solidify their place in the global energy storage marketplace”

The national recycling rate (R) was calculated by dividing the total pounds of battery lead recycled (LR) by the to-tal pounds of battery lead available for recycling (LA) in the US.

R = (LR/LA) x 100

New battery shipments, new battery exports, imports and exports of vehi-cles/products containing battery and imports and exports of scrap and used batteries were all included in calculat-ing the total pounds of lead available for recycling.


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According to a recent report from Navigant Research, the worldwide market val-ue for energy storage for microgrids will grow from $662 million annually in 2014 to nearly $4.2 billion in 2024.

“Rapid expansion of the microgrid market over the next 10 years will drive increased demand for en-ergy storage associated with these systems,” says Anissa Dehamna, senior research analyst with Navigant Re-search. “Energy storage systems can also allow par-ticipation in deregulated ancillary service markets, further improving the eco-nomics of the overall sys-tem.”

The strongest market for energy storage for micro-grids, according to the re-port, Energy Storage for Mi-crogrids, will be the grid-tied customer-owned microgrid segment in North America, which is supported by ro-bust growth in microgrids and favorable regulatory developments.

Technology adoption in this region is balanced be-tween all technologies, with an emphasis on lithium ion batteries, which are an-ticipated to represent up to 40% market share in North America by 2024.

Although most micro-grids are technically ret-rofi t projects, microgrids have begun to move into the mainstream, according to other reports by Navi-gant Research. Around the world, new vendors con-tinue to enter this space with new projects and ap-proaches.

These systems, which can operate in isolation from the wider power grid, are well suited for remote communi-ties in the developing world, where regional and national power grids are often weak or non-existent.

Navigant says there are now more than 388 remote microgrid projects in opera-tion, under development, or proposed worldwide — al-most as many as all other segments combined.

In terms of capacity, how-ever, the market is now led by the community/utility segment, with a total capac-ity of 1,111MW as of the fi rst quarter of 2014.

-“While remote micro-grids are proliferating rap-idly, they tend to be quite small, often below 100 kil-owatts in size,” says Peter Asmus, principal research analyst with Navigant Re-search. “Community and utility microgrids, which in-clude projects being devel-oped by the grid operators themselves, can be as large as 60MW or even 100MW per system.”

Nearly half of the micro-grid projects included in the report are located in North America, which remains the

global leader in terms of to-tal microgrid capacity. The report shows a much more robust microgrid market than in 2009, when Navi-gant Research fi rst began following the sector.

North America will likely continue to be the dominant region through 2020. “The pace of microgrid deploy-ments has accelerated rap-idly around the world, in a variety of application seg-ments,” says Asmus.

“In the US the increasing frequency of severe weather is prompting utilities to re-consider their opposition to customer-owned microgrids that can disconnect from the larger grid and continue to function, allowing critical mission functions to stay up and running.”

The Asia Pacifi c region, however, will likely emerge as the global leader for mi-crogrid deployments by 2030 or 2035, due to the immense need for power

for growing populations not served by traditional grid infrastructure. Nearly 2,800MW of microgrid ca-pacity will be installed in Asia Pacifi c from 2014 to 2020, the report estimates.

Navigant Research says it has identifi ed 4,393MW of total microgrid capacity throughout the world, up from 4,148MW in the pre-vious update, released in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The report, Microgrid Deployment Tracker 2Q14, tracks data on known grid-tied and remote microgrid projects in the proposal, planning, and deployed stages, including details on the various technologies employed in individual pro-jects.

The other report also covers various microgrid segments: commercial/in-dustrial, community/utility, institutional/campus, mili-tary, remote systems, and direct current systems.

Remote microgrids continue to be the most numerous category of microgrid projects

A new report by research-ers IDTechEx warns that the rapid rate of improvement in supercapacitors could pose an eventual threat to future lithium ion battery sales. The report Electrochemical Dou-ble Layer Capacitors: Super-capacitors 2014-2024 pre-dicts the global market to be some $6.5 billion by 2024.

Nanotune Technologies’ CEO Kuang Tsei Huang has demonstrated superca-pacitors with 35Wh/kg, say-ing that 500Wh/kg may be achievable, this is two to four times the energy density of the best Li-ion batteries,.

Yunasko, the supercap developer, and others have demonstrated 35Wh/kg, with intermediate products, matching lead-acid and NiCd batteries. Maxwell Technolo-gies expects tripling current

energy density with pure su-percapacitors. Graphene su-percapacitor developers are targeting 200Wh/kg.

Peter Harrop, chairman of IDTechEx says: “supercapac-itors need not match lithium-ion battery energy density to replace much of that battery market.

“They have replaced maybe 1% of that market already with only one hun-dredth of the energy den-sity because they last longer than, for example, the bus that they help power. They are safer and have 10 times the power density.

“They have replaced Li-ion batteries in most Chinese buses, despite greater up-front price. Supercapacitor sales are under 3% of lithi-um-ion battery sales today, partly replacing them and

partly doing things batteries can never do.

“Supercapacitor sales will be over 10% of Li-ion sales in 10 years as they grab more Li-ion business despite such batteries improving by a fac-tor of two in energy density. For that, production super-capacitors or supercabatter-ies (notably lithium-ion ca-pacitors) must reach around 40 Wh/kg with all other pa-rameters acceptable, possibly even conceding some power density and life but being greener.

“If that happens, few will dispute that in the next dec-ade at around 100 Wh/kg with acceptable other pa-rameters, supercapacitors or supercabatteries could grab 50% of the lithium-ion mar-ket reaching tens of billions of dollars in yearly sales.”

Supercaps to win against Li-ion batteries

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Ioxus, the ultracapacitor fi rm, has opened a second manufacturing facility in Oneonta, New York. The 22,000 sq ft plant, located close to Ioxus’ headquar-ters, will create increased capacity for both electrode manufacturing and mod-ule assembly to meet rap-idly increasing demands for Ioxus products worldwide.

“Opening our second plant in Oneonta is the culmina-tion of a busy four months for the company. So far in 2014 we announced Flex-Gen Power and The Long Island Rail Road as new cus-tomers, launched the iMOD X-Series™ and received $21 million in series ‘C’ fund-ing,” said Mark McGough, CEO, Ioxus. “We are seeing Ioxus ultracaps designed into a broad array of prod-ucts including buses, trains, cars, heavy machinery, solar panels and other industrial equipment. The expansion of our manufacturing fa-cilities allows us to meet the supply requirements of major new customers in these applications. World-wide, Ioxus now utilizes over 100,000 square feet of manufacturing capability in four locations.”

Ioxus’ new site will in-crease the number of US employees to 150.

Separately, Ioxus an-nounced in April the com-pletion of its series ‘C’ funding with receipt of $21 million from investors.

IFC, an arm of the World Bank Group, and the largest global development institu-tion focused exclusively on the private sector, together with the Westly Group, a venture capital fi rm based in Menlo Park, California, led the fi nancing.

The company says that it plans to use the funds to ex-pand its operation in Asia,

with a focus on China.“One of IFC’s strategic

priorities is to address cli-mate change and promote the use and manufacturing of environmental technolo-

gies in emerging markets,” said Nikunj Jinsi, global head of venture capital, IFC. “Ioxus’ ultracapaci-tor technology, team and business model is a strong

fi t with our aim to support companies poised to have an impact on real time is-sues such as pollution pre-vention in developing coun-tries.”

Ioxus opens second plant and gets series ‘C’ funding

Nano-sized ruthenium oxide, graphene foam could be key to boost supercap performance say University of California researchers Researchers at the Univer-sity of California, River-side — writing in an ar-ticle for the press (mostly reproduced here) — say they have developed a novel nanometer scale ruthenium oxide anchored nanocarbon graphene foam architecture that improves the performance of supercapacitors.

The researchers found that supercapacitors based on transition metal oxide modifi ed nanocarbon graphene foam electrode could work safely in aque-ous electrolyte and deliver two times more energy and power compared to super-capacitors available today.

The foam electrode was successfully cycled over 8,000 times with no fad-ing in performance. The fi ndings were outlined in a paper, Hydrous Ruthe-nium Oxide Nanoparticles Anchored to Graphene and Carbon Nanotube Hybrid Foam for Super-capacitors, in the journal Nature Scientifi c Reports.

The paper was written by graduate student Wei Wang; Cengiz Ozkan, a mechanical engineering professor at University of California Riverside’s Bourns College of Engi-neering; Mihrimah Ozkan, an electrical engineer-ing professor; Fran-cisco Zaera, a chemistry professor; Ilkeun Lee, a

researcher in Zaera’s lab; and graduate students including Shirui Guo, Kazi Ahmed and Zachary Favors.

“Besides high energy and power density, the designed graphene foam electrode system also dem-onstrates a facile and scal-able binder-free technique for preparing high energy supercapacitor electrodes,” Wang said. “These promis-ing properties mean that this design could be ideal for future energy storage applications.”

A team led by Cengiz Ozkan and Mihri Ozkan are working to develop and commercialize nano-structured materials for high energy density super-capacitors.

“High capacitance, or the ability to store an electrical charge, is critical to achieve higher energy density. Meanwhile, to achieve a higher power

density it is critical to have a large electrochemically accessible surface area, high electrical conductiv-ity, short ion diffusion pathways and excellent interfacial integrity. Nano-structured active materials provide a mean to these ends,” says a university spokesperson.

“Supercapacitors have garnered substantial at-tention in recent years because of their ultra-high charge and discharge rate, excellent stability, long cycle life and very high power density.

These characteristics are desirable for many applications including electric vehicles and port-able electronics. However, supercapacitors may only serve as standalone power sources in systems that require power delivery for less than 10 seconds because of their relatively low specifi c energy.”

Mihrimah Ozkan, Cengiz Ozkan and Zachary Favors


PRODUCT NEWS

HighWater Innovations’ low aspect ratio battery de-sign has been granted a US patent.

The GO Battery — Geo-metrically Optimized — advanced lead acid battery design, features a compact three inch diameter, low-aspect ratio, with a cooling core down the centre. The design allows extremely low internal cell resist-ance and signifi cantly more power effi ciency.

“Prototypes are nearing

1000W/kg,” says the inven-tor, George Brilmyer, “and a clear development path is in place for upwards of 1500W/kg. At these levels, the design will be competi-tive with current nickel and lithium chemistries at a substantially lower cost. In addition, the battery is over 98% recyclable mak-ing it the greenest technol-ogy available!”

Brilmyer, says “We are extremely pleased about the patent being granted

as we believe it validates our work. Our goal is to make hybrid electric vehi-cles more affordable and therefore more plentiful. This cannot help make a positive impact on our en-vironment.

“Meaningful growth in the hybrid vehicle market is in reducing the cost of the vehicle’s battery pack to make it more affordable and offer a pay-back on the battery based on actual fuel savings. At prices of $3.50

for gasoline in US, the bat-tery is expected to payback its cost in a little over two years — well within the life of the vehicle. No other battery technology can do this.”

HighWater’s business model is to develop tech-nology and then license or sell the technology or join with a partner for further development.

HighWater gets patent for GO battery

GO Battery Inventor George Brilmyer, below.

Saft, the European ad-vanced technology bat-tery manufacturer, has launched its new Seanergy range of lithium-ion bat-tery modules developed to offer the advantages of Li-ion Super-Iron Phosphate (SLFP) chemistry in a in-tegrated solution designed specifi cally for civil marine propulsion installations.

The new range includes a variety of energy and pow-er modules that offer the fl exibility and adaptabil-ity to create, cost-effective battery systems to power full-electric and hybrid electric applications for a variety of vessels including work boats, ferries, off-shore support, cruise-liners and cargo ships.

“The key advantages of Saft SLFP cell technology for marine applications are its increased safety, its light weight and compact size, high effi ciency, long calendar and cycling life, fast-charging capability and high power output — both continuous and in pulses and the ability to deliver high voltages — up to 1000V,” says a Saft spokesperson.

Saft launches Seanergy range of lithium ion modules for marine use

Maxwell Technologies, a developer and manu-facturer of ultracapaci-tors, has increased its product range with the latest ultracapacitor cell. The new 2.85V, 3400 farad ultracapacitor cell increases the range of available specifi c power and stored energy in the industry-standard 60 mm cylindrical ‘K2’ form factor.

Maxwell Technolo-gies also introduces the DuraBlue Shock and

Vibration Technology, the newest innovation in ultracapacitor reliability and performance.

“Products with Dura-Blue technology are tested to some of the most demanding envi-ronmental requirements for transportation, increasing vibrational resistance by some three times and shock immu-nity by four times when compared with ultra-capacitor-based com-petitive offerings,” says

a company offi cial, and, “making it the world’s most ruggedized cell.

“Our DuraBlue Ad-vanced Shock and Vibra-tion Technology com-bines its patented dry electrode formation and manufacturing process with a proprietary cell structure design to meet the demanding shock and vibration requirements of the growing number of power-hungry applica-tions in global transpor-tation markets.”

Maxwell expands ultracapacitor range


PRODUCT NEWS

Yuasa has introduced new lithium ion battery modules for industrial applications that incorporate multiple LIM series battery cells along with a battery moni-toring unit (ACS) and a temperature sensor.

The LIM series are aimed at a wide range of appli-cations including energy storage, traction motors and regenerative energy re-cycling.

The ACS monitoring unit measures temperature and voltage of the cells and outputs a signal to an ex-ternal device enabling users to monitor the condition of the battery accurately. The ACS also performs cell balancing and can detect abnormal operating condi-tions such as high or low voltage.

“The LIM series lithium ion batteries offer a num-ber of enhanced features compared with previous generation products,” says the fi rm.

“These include lithium transition metal oxide as the positive active mate-rial and carbon as the negative active material, increased energy density in comparison with lead-acid, nickel-cadmium and nickel-hydrogen batteries, completely sealed structure, outstanding cyclic charac-teristics signifi cantly above lead-acid performance, high charging effi ciency to save energy, no memory effect eliminating the need for complete discharge or for spare batteries and bet-ter rapid charge/discharge (high power) characteris-tics.”

The industrial batteries are designed to work with a battery management sys-tem (LIBM) which features a LCD touch panel show-ing battery voltage, current, temperature and cell volt-ages, SOC (state-of-charge) and any abnormalities in

real time. In the event of an abnormal condition oc-curring, the LIBM cuts off current automatically to protect the battery.

Li-ion cells deliver a sig-nifi cant increase in power density compared to con-ventional lead-acid, nickel cadmium and nickel metal hydride batteries enabling the same power to be pro-vided from smaller installa-tions. At 25°C, the new Yu-asa LIM50E cells provide a typical 1hr rate capacity of 50Ah from a cell measuring 171mm x 44mm x 113mm and weighing just 1.7kg.

Nominal voltage is 3.7V with operating voltage range from 2.75V to 4.1V.

The fully-sealed stainless steel and PET insulated casing ensures no gas is re-leased under normal opera-tion and the LIM50E cells can be installed and used in any orientation.

Other specifi cations in-clude a maximum continu-ous discharge current of 300A, up to 2000 cycles to 80% of initial capacity, impedance of 0.55mohm (measured at 1kHz) and operating temperature range of -25°C to +60°C

for storage, charge and dis-charge conditions. Terminal types are M8 male thread with torque from 9Nm to 13Nm.

Design life is 10 years and applications include UPS and standby power in industrial, telecommunica-tions and computer data-centres, next-generation transportation systems that rely on regeneration sys-tems and large energy stor-age systems for solar and wind power installations long with other large port-able power applications, says the company.

GS Yuasa Battery said it would launch its ECO.R Hybrid Series lead-acid auxiliary bat-tery for hybrid vehicles manufactured by Toyota Motor Corporation on July 1. Hybrid vehicles are installed with two types of batteries, one is a driving battery and the other is an auxiliary bat-tery. A nickel metal hy-dride battery or lithium

ion battery is used as the main driving battery and a lead acid battery is used as auxiliary. A lead acid auxiliary bat-tery is important in that it is used when starting up the hybrid system in such vehicles.

Toyota’s hybrid models – Prius, Aqua and Corolla — use GS Yuasa’s lead acid auxiliary battery. These

auxiliary batteries need to be changed regu-larly, similar to that of lead acid batteries for ordinary vehicles. “The ECO.R Hybrid Series lead acid auxiliary bat-tery would allow users to once again choose GS Yuasa’s lead-acid batter-ies. As a differentiator,” says Yuasa, “this is a valve regulated lead-acid storage battery.”

Texas Instruments has in-troduced scalable, multi-cell battery monitors that it says improves battery pack safety and reduces design time of 12V to 48V lith-ium-ion and lithium-iron phosphate batteries used in e-bikes, power tools and energy storage systems.

“The bq76920, bq76930 and bq76940 circuits effi -ciently protect and control 3- to 15-cell batteries when charging or operating in harsh environment condi-tions,” says Texas.

The advanced monitors incorporate cell-balancing drivers, regulated output

supplies and other unique features to reduce external component count and pro-vide heightened protection against overvoltage, un-dervoltage and overcurrent conditions.

Simplifying battery de-sign and optimizing board space, the bq76920 sup-ports 3- to 5-series cells or typical 18-V packs; the bq76930 manages up to 10-series cells or 36-V packs; and bq76940 moni-tors up to 15 cells or typical 48-V batteries.

The bq76920, bq76930 and bq76940 multi-cell battery monitors are avail-

able in volume production through TI and its world-wide network of authorized distributors. The bq76920 comes in a 20-pin, 4.4-mm by 6.5mm TSSOP pack-age with a suggested re-sale price of $1.50 each in 1,000-unit quantities; the bq76930 comes in a 30-pin, 4.4-mm by 7.8mm TSSOP package with a suggested resale price of $2.75 each in 1,000-unit quantities; and the bq76940 comes in a 44-pin, 4.4-mm by 11.3mm TSSOP package with a sug-gested resale price of $3.95 each in 1,000-unit quanti-ties.

Yuasa releases high performance new lithium ion batteries for industrial applications

GS Yuasa offers VRLA battery for Toyota hybrids

Texas Instruments introduces multi-cell battery monitors for 12V to 48V industrial lithium ion batteries


PRODUCT NEWS

Ioxus, the ultracapaci-tor fi rm, has launched its iMOD X-series, a new se-ries of module systems for a common, single-piece ex-truded housing for applica-tion across all of its axial ultracapacitors. The iMOD X-Series allows for every cell to be in thermal con-tact with the outside of the housing, therefore allowing for even heating and cool-ing, as well as a reduced heat generation.

“The iMOD X-Series simplifi es system design and installation for the end-users of multiple ap-plications including hybrid buses, rail services, automo-tive systems, wind turbine pitch control, and backup power/UPS,” says Ioxus. “By doing so, the iMOD X-Series product line re-duces the effort required to design module-to-module termination and monitor-ing connections, as well as simplifi es the mounting ar-rangements.”

The fi rm says that dvanced features of the iMOD X-Series include:• End-to-end cell laser

welding. This reduces the number of bus bars, which in turn lowers cost and module equivalent series resistance while increasing system perfor-mance and power deliv-ery capability.

• Voltage balancing. The iMOD X-series offers true voltage balancing to extend the life of each cell, unlike other ultra-

capacitor manufacturers that offer basic voltage clamping.

• Front facing terminals. This allows for the use of simple bus bars that clean up system layout and eliminates cables that crisscross in the sys-tem, enabling easy, safe maintenance and instal-lation.

• Structural thermal bridg-es. This maximizes and balances thermal trans-fer from the cells to the housing while adding mechanical structure and robustness.

• Customizable end plates. This allows for virtually any mounting confi gu-

ration with easy instal-lation and maintenance, most notably standard rack mountable dou-ble modules versus the standard single module multi-surface mounts.

• Simple sealing: iMOD X-Series requires only two seal points compared to competitors’ fi ve for a product of equal size/rat-ing.According to Ioxus cus-

tomer Dynex Semiconduc-tor, the company selected the iMOD X-Series prod-uct for its compact con-struction and the inherently lower mounting costs for long strings of capacitors.

“Having little prior expe-

rience with ultracapacitor suppliers and the products available, we conducted head-to-head testing be-tween the Ioxus 3000 Farad cells and those from other suppliers,” says Bill McGhie, power assembly control systems senior man-ager, Dynex Semiconductor.

“Following signifi cant levels of long-term cycling performance testing, Ioxus ultracapacitors demon-strated the lowest drift in ESR and capacitance com-pared to the competition. As a result, Dynex has been able to reduce the complete system footprint by 50% by choosing Ioxus over oth-er available products.”

EnerSys has expanded its Odyssey Performance Se-ries battery product offering to include the Group 34R battery, suitable for con-sumer passenger and com-mercial vans, custom and classic cars and SUVs. The Odyssey Performance Series 34R-790 battery features a reversed terminal layout, but includes all of the same specifi cations as its counter-part, the Odyssey Perfor-mance Series 34-790.

Delivering more overall power and longer service life than conventional batteries, the Odyssey Performance Series 34R-790 battery fea-tures 792 cold cranking

amps and 114 reserve ca-pacity minutes. Engineered with TPPL (thin plate pure lead) technology and an AGM (absorbed glass mat) construction, Odyssey Per-formance Series batteries provide rugged construc-tion for high reliability and performance, according to EnerSys.

“A key benefi t of Odyssey Performance Series batteries is that they can be installed in almost any position. The 34R-790 provides yet an-other option for mounting fl exibility thanks to its re-verse terminal layout,” says Dave McMullen, director of commercial marketing for

specialty and UPS markets at EnerSys.

The Odyssey Performance Series 34R-790 battery fea-tures a three- to 10-year service life and two-year storage life at 77°F/25°C, It is vibration-resistant, clas-sifi ed as “non-spillable” by the US Department of Transportation and includes a limited four-year full re-placement warranty.

The Odyssey Performance Series 34R-790 battery cor-responds to Battery Council International Group 34R, and also comes standard with a height adapter to fi t BCI Group 24F and Group 27F applications.

Ioxus releases new iMOD X series

EnerSys adds 34R TPPL battery To Odyssey Performance series

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Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

That was the way one energy commentator described moves

by the German parliament in June to cut subsidies on renewable energy tar-iffs.

Yet, just a month before, headlines across Europe blazoned the news that renewable energy had — for a brief afternoon in May — provided three-quarters of Germany’s electrical supply.

The push-pull in Germany’s ap-proach to balancing the introduction of PV and wind power into the grid and its cost is just part of a wider de-bate that is running across Europe.

It’s now less about integrating re-

newables into the grid — May’s re-cord levels in Germany show that this can be achieved — the focus is now shifting to its cost and energy storage on an industrial scale.

The transition to a smarter, more fl exible, grid, increasingly dominated by wind and solar generation, is a bal-ancing act, it requires scaling back of existing generation capacity, as more renewables are added.

And this is where energy storage — at least in theory — should bridge the gap.

But as with the German govern-ment’s desire to cut subsidies — and so reduce the price of electricity to its citizens — energy storage has to

be commercially viable if it’s to move from theory to fact.

Putting huge amounts of energy into expensive industrial-scale bat-teries (that aren’t 100% effi cient and lose energy between charging and dis-charging) has to be made cost effec-tive.

According to the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change there are over 250 energy storage projects in operation in Europe, with nearly €1 billion ($136 nillion) of EU funding, and more to be approved shortly.

Battery banks are cropping up like mushrooms on all parts of the high, medium and low voltage networks. But, in most cases, storage is being used to tackle one specifi c issue or problem on the grid.

In Italy for example, where Terna is procuring 75MW of batteries, the trans-mission system operator (TSO) is in-vesting in the technology to address the most immediate challenges, identifi ed in separate grid defence and development plans presented to the regulator.

Greensmith has now qualifi ed 12 battery types to in-tegrate with its software platform which span different lithium batteries, including those from Samsung SDI, as well as alternative chemistries like zinc bromide fl ow and aqueous ion

COVER STORY: THE EUROPEAN GRID COMES OF AGE

Large scale energy storage moves to the fore in Europe asmomentum for change gathers

Turning theory into reality. That’s

the next step for Europe where

future grid developments have been

characterized by energy storage pilots

rather than bankable investments.

But, as Sara Verbruggen reports, the

technology’s full commercial potential

is starting to appear.



In Germany, the state-funded bank, KfW, has been running a subsidy scheme since 2013 to incentivize new solar PV installations and also stor-age, at the domestic and small-scale commercial level.

Other countries, such as the UK and Spain, are also commissioning storage pilots on the grid. The size may not be huge — the UK has just 12MW of en-ergy storage projects of at least 1MW in size — that are either operational or are in planning.

Drivers in Europe Olivier Vallée from Paris-headquar-tered cleantech analyst Natureo Fi-nance, which has been tracking over 120 grid-scale energy storage projects — 500KWh or larger — worldwide, says that in Europe, renewable energy integration has been the main driver.

In the US it’s another story — its older, less well interconnected grid has meant that frequency regulation has been the focus. More recently, in Europe there is a shift to frequency regulation, while the US is increasing-ly focused on renewables integration, according to Vallée.

Storage investments will need to do different things and have several in-come streams if these assets are to be commercially viable without subsidy.

In Europe, most demonstrators and pilots have focused on testing the vari-ous functions of grid-integrated bat-teries.

One example is a 1MW lithium ion battery that has been connected to the low and medium voltage grid in the city of Dietikon in Switzerland since March 2012.

The plant, operated by Swiss utility EKZ, has been designed to carry out frequency regulation, peak shaving, voltage regulation and uninterruptible power supply.

Commerciality concernsEnergy storage projects that aim from the outset to demonstrate real com-mercial business cases are fewer in number. However, this is changing. US-headquartered independent power producer (IPP) AES Corporation plans to build a 100MW lithium ion battery plant in Northern Ireland, where the company already operates power sta-tions.

The Kilroot storage facility will be used to integrate more wind into the local grid, reducing the need to cur-tail this form of green energy so the amount of traditional, dispatchable power reserves usually needed to com-

pensate for the spiky unpredictable fl ows of wind-generated power can be gradually cut back.

Both the north and the south of Ire-land plan to have 40% of the island’s electricity consumption met by re-newables by 2020, which means that by the end of the decade up to 3.3GW of additional wind capacity will be in-stalled.

Today the percentage is already high compared to many grids in Europe

Companies such as Younicos and Greensmith are challenging the traditional utility approach to storage, which has tended to view the technology as a sticking plaster on the network

If emerging industries have rising stars, then in the grid-scale energy storage industry, these are software start-ups Younicos, based in Berlin, and Maryland-headquartered Greensmith.

These companies are often described as battery-agnostic, in the sense that their business depends on their energy management system software platforms being compatible with different types of chemistries.

As an example of an integrator, Younicos’ technology occupies the point between the direct current source — the batteries — and the grid, which is alternative current. The software ensures that the batteries do what they should be doing at any given time while optimizing their performance.

Companies such as Younicos and Greensmith are challenging the traditional utility approach to storage, which has tended to view the technology as a sticking plaster on the network.

“Younicos software is the best in the market, it knows how

Samsung’s cells work, how to get the best from each one in the system, in accordance with what the system is programmed to do, bridging the energy storage system and the grid itself,” says Frank Baumann, Samsung SDI Europe’s sales director for energy storage.

In addition to lithium ion Younicos uses two other main chemistries, vanadium redox fl ow and sodium sulphide, though in future alternative storage technologies are not ruled out as the market becomes more established.

Greensmith has now qualifi ed 12 battery types to integrate with its software platform which span different lithium batteries, including those from Samsung SDI, as well as alternative chemistries like zinc bromide fl ow and aqueous ion.

According to John Jung, chief executive of Greensmith, the company makes regular site visits to the factories of its battery suppliers to carry out checks on cells as well as battery management systems as part of the company’s rigorous qualifi cation process.

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and grid operators Eirgrid and System Operator Northern Ireland (SONI) are forced to address challenges that larger systems have yet to encounter. AES’ investment shows that in certain cases large-scale storage on the grid does not need to be subsidized.

The IPP already has 100MW of batteries connected to the grid in West Virginia and Ohio for the TSO PJM Interconnection, which act as ef-fi cient alternatives to peaking plants providing frequency regulation, an ancillary service in the wholesale power market.

The value of storageIn Northern Ireland AES’ Kilroot pro-ject is coinciding with changes to the grid and grid codes, where new re-newable energy capacity will have to provide frequency regulation services, so AES could potentially supply this service to wind power generators in future.

Andrew Jones, managing direc-tor at S&C Electric Europe, believes there will be a growth in the number of companies that set up IPP arrange-ments for storage and some of the fi rst companies that will deploy the tech-nology will be renewables developers.

Because of network unbundling that came with the privatization of Eu-rope’s electricity markets in the late 1990s, distribution and generation are separate and current rules prevent network operators from owning stor-age, which can be both distribution or generation assets.

In the UK, for instance, historically storage was deemed to compete with generation so it is generally classed as such an asset.

In the case of a 6MW (10MWh) storage project in the UK, which S&C Electric Europe is building for the dis-tribution system operator (DSO) UK Power Networks, at a primary substa-tion in Leighton Buzzard on the out-skirts of London, the plant has to sell energy into the market for the invest-ment to generate revenues.

This requires a supply licence, so Smartest Energy, which is the UK’s leading buyer of energy produced by independent and renewable energy generators, is the licensed supplier.

Identifying revenue streamsTo justify £13.2 million (€16.5 mil-lion) in funding from Ofgem, under the Low Carbon Network Fund (LCNF), the partners have identifi ed several revenue streams for the battery array in Leighton Buzzard. “Right now, this

market trial is unique as it will be the fi rst, globally, to test what value can actually be achieved on a commercial basis and this could be key to market design changes,” says Jones.

These services will include load shifting and frequency regulation. The batteries will also stabilize the grid by providing more fl exibility for renewa-

bles. The location of the system should also yield savings of £6 million (€7.5 million) by deferring capital invest-ment required for more traditional network reinforcements that involve digging and laying new cables over many miles and new transformers.

The system could achieve a return on investment within seven years.

Trying to predict the fortunes of an emerging industry is a fool’s game. But what is becoming clear is that the highest rewards may be reserved for those with their eye on global opportunities in grid storage

Engineers installing lithium ion batteries in a 5MW (5MWh) energy storage system in Schwerin for German electricity producer Wemag, which Younicos is supplying as a turnkey installation. Credit: Younicos

The same installation for Wemag during construction. The project has been supported with €1.3 million from the Federal Ministry for the Environment. Credit: Younicos



One recent example is GNB Industrial Power, a subsidiary of Exide Technologies, which has been working with German solar developer Belectric on an energy storage system for integrating renewables into the grid.

The energy storage system, with a capacity of nearly 2MWh, is being trialled in Alt Daber in Brandenburg. The project is an example of a customer-focused application for energy storage, according to Martin Sinz, director of product management, advanced applications and renewable energy markets at GNB Industrial Power.

The company developed

the battery to meet Belectric’s requirements, to achieve a long service life, low cycle costs and high performance. The battery uses a new type of charging and reactivation process that can increase the life of lead-acid batteries in stationary applications. This has been achieved by refi ning the electrodes, says Sinz who adds that the battery’s performance is not down to the addition of carbon.

The storage system, which Belectric refers to as an energy buffer unit, has been installed by an existing solar power plant in Alt Daber will supply about 550 homes with electricity overnight.

The energy buffer unit could be used as part of hybrid power plants as well as for integration of renewables into the regulated energy market to meet the same requirements as conventional power plants currently do as the batteries can handle higher variations in load.

As well as having an eye on providing grid services with the energy buffer unit, Belectric is targeting hybrid power plants, where solar panels are combined with a battery storage system and a diesel-, gas- or hydro-powered unit.

Ecoult’s, an advanced lead acid battery technology, has been gathering data as part of a demonstration project for the Public Service Company of New Mexico to smooth solar into the grid.

The system consists of a 0.5MW smoothing battery using the UltraBattery and a 0.25MW (0.99 MWh) peak shifting battery using other advanced lead acid batteries, with both types of cells made by Ecoult’s parent company East Penn Manufacturing. The project shows how energy shifting and smoothing on the grid can alter the profi le of grid-scale renewables.

UltraBattery smoothing was applied to the output of a 500kW solar PV array, where tests had measured ramp rates of 136kW a second as solar energy was lost to cloud cover.

In the US, in Vermont, Enersys has been running a demonstrator of its battery storage system aimed at showing utilities that large lead acid battery storage installations are stable, safe and reliable.

The OptiGrid can be used for a range of applications, including renewables integration, peak shaving, time shifting and arbitrage. The storage unit is connected to a factory belonging to Dynapower, which makes inverters and is a partner of Enersys.

The valve regulated lead acid battery bank provides power for the facility in times of high demand so that Dynapower does not have to shut down production or pay high charges for peak time electricity consumption.

LEAD ACID TECHNOLOGY FOR RENEWABLES INTEGRATION

Globally, the renewable energy industry is recognizing that grid integration as one of the main constraints on the continued growth of wind and solar PV energy in the long term. The lead acid battery industry is helping to address this challenge, while opening up new markets for the technology.



“However, the challenge is we have a free market and storage is at the mercy of the market in terms of how profi table it can be, whereas govern-ment or municipal-owned utilities are fi nding it easier to install storage as they see the whole benefi t and not the broken value chain as we are dealing with it,” says Jones.

This is the case in Italy, where the TSO, Terna, is in the middle of procur-ing its 75MW of storage (see separate feature).

Out of this NGK, in Japan, is pro-viding sodium sulphur batteries for all 35MW of Terna’s energy-intensive storage, which will be connected to high voltage lines to reduce conges-tion and open up the grid to absorb more wind-generated electricity, in-stead of shedding hundreds of GWhs through curtailment.

The remaining 40MW for power-intensive applications will be installed on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, to provide quick bursts of power to overcome loss of inertia in these small grids. The 40MW will be installed in two phases, the fi rst as part of a stor-age lab to pilot the various battery and storage technologies, which in-clude lithium ion and sodium nickel chloride chemistries.

The remaining 24MW, installed in the second phase, will be deployed in these two types of batteries on the is-lands.

Terna will operate all 75MW of the storage assets.

This is different to what is taking place in California where the regula-tor’s storage target 1.3GW by 2020 obliges the state’s large public utilities to procure services from suppliers, as well as operate their own assets. The California Public Utilities Commis-sion’s mandate was crafted in such a way to help establish a market where different business models, including third party ownership, can potentially thrive.

The role of integratorTerna’s approach, which is also hap-pening across Europe in other storage pilots, refl ects how utilities have tra-ditionally done things. According to Jones, “Utilities are comfortable with

going out and buying the transform-ers, cables and other components to build grid assets, and take on the risk.”

But even though batteries have oc-casionally been used on the grid, en-ergy storage is proving to be a differ-ent beast. This is why companies such as S&C Electric, ABB and Siemens, all with decades of experience of supply-ing power infrastructure components for grids are jostling with each other to do the integration.

These types of companies have the track records and the balance sheets to take on the risk of multi-million euro projects and are also familiar to utilities.

ABB, which is supplying Italian DSO Enel Distribuzione with a 2MW energy storage system on Sicily, has historically done energy storage on a project-by-project basis. “That was until 2009 when renewables really began to take off and stimulus fund-ing became available in Europe, and also the US, to fi nance pilots and pro-jects,” says Stephen Clifford, who is in charge of global marketing and busi-ness development within ABB’s smart grids business.

The company then decided to for-malize its energy storage activities and the 2MW project with Swiss utility EKZ, completed in 2012, was one of the fi rst one of these. “Although the system was developed by EKZ as a pi-lot, this is a commercial system from us. We’ve also done some projects in the US,’ says Clifford.

ABB supplies both turnkey energy storage systems, such as for EKZ and Enel Distribuzione, as well as power conversion system equipment to cus-tomers.

Similarly, for AEG Power Solutions grid-scale energy storage presents a two-fold opportunity. The company is a supplier of hardware components such as power conversion system equipment but is also increasingly fo-cused on becoming an integrator of energy storage systems.

To date, AEG Power Solutions has provided a turnkey battery storage system for an off-grid project in Mali, in Africa. Orders for the company’s storage converter, Protect.SC, for use in large battery energy storage systems

are also increasing, it says. One of these is for a vanadium re-

dox fl ow battery installation in north-ern Germany, with Vanadis Power, where the storage plant will be used to bank locally generated wind power. The other project is in Spain in a stor-age system using lead acid batteries. Both projects are in the MW range. The energy storage systems will main-ly be used for frequency regulation, peak load shifting and other current management functions.

Typically these integrators buy bat-teries, often lithium ion, from manu-facturers, which include companies such as LG Chem, Samsung SDI and Saft.

The acquisition trailHowever, as with any disruptive tech-nology, the energy storage industry is attracting players from other industries as momentum gathers pace. Recently, Japanese technology company NEC leapfrogged to the top in providing grid-scale storage, through a $100 million acquisition — from Wanxiang Group — of A123 Energy Solutions, the non-automotive lithium ion bat-tery and system integration division of A123.

The company has installed more than 110MW of its lithium ion stor-age systems around the world. The new subsidiary, NEC Energy Solu-tions, will continue to supply energy storage using A123 Systems’ nano-phosphate lithium ion cells and pro-vide support for existing installations. In addition, NEC’s own lithium ion technology will also be available for use in the new company’s grid-scale storage projects.

“Full system integration, by taking the lead on projects, as in providing turnkey project services, is key. We are not only a battery provider. As the energy storage market develops and the company increases its customer base, designing systems based on the customer’s needs will be important for success,” says Ciro Scognamiglio, NEC business analyst.

But for some other companies, their strategy is dependent on not moving too far up the value chain. Samsung SDI, for the foreseeable future any-way, is interested in supplying battery systems for different storage markets and not doing the integration, prefer-ring to work with companies such as S&C Electric.

Italian industrial battery maker Fi-amm, which developed and started producing sodium nickel chloride —

“We don’t want to only provide energy storage but provide the intelligence needed to manage these technologies, to optimize their functioning within the regulatory framework”



‘salt’ — batteries originally for tel-ecoms customers as an alternative to lead acid, has won tenders with utili-ties, including Terna, to supply large-scale on-grid as well as off-grid stor-age projects.

“With energy storage we are moving from supplying a battery to a system, but we don’t want to escalate up the value chain. We want to stay out of the way of our customers,” says Nico-la Cosciani, chief executive of Fiamm Energy Storage Solutions, in reference to the energy management system por-tion of an energy storage installation.

Some power conversion system sup-pliers, like S&C provide the energy management system, as does NEC. “What is very important is the man-agement of the technology. We don’t want to only provide energy storage but provide the intelligence needed to manage these technologies, to optimize their functioning within the regula-tory framework,” says Scognamiglio.

In the case of Terna, the TSO is doing the energy management system side, integrating the various storage instal-lations into its grid system. The energy management system, which is based on software controls, instructs — and coordinates — the battery system in its operation, based upon the require-ments of the grid and other loads, such as renewable energy plants, that are also connected.

One company specializing in energy management system is software start-up Younicos, headquartered in Ber-lin. In north-east Germany Younicos is supplying a 5MW (5MWh) energy storage system in Schwerin for the green electricity producer Wemag. The company is delivering the battery in-stallation as a turnkey project, which uses lithium ion batteries from Sam-sung SDI.

From pilot to profi tThe battery array can store or release up to 5MW to stabilize the grid in West Mecklenburg, where there are lots of wind turbines, to provide the equivalent power of a conventional 50MW fossil fuel fi red turbine, creat-ing further grid capacity for electricity generated by renewables.

Even though the project is a pilot, funded with a €1.3 million from Ger-many’s environment ministry, the unit will compete on the primary control market and generate a profi t. To do this requires a pre-qualifi cation by the grid operator at 50 Hertz trans-mission. Testing is being followed by commercialization by early autumn

this year.Younicos’ background is in renewa-

bles and the company found from early work on small island grids that adding some storage — even just a few minutes of it — will enable 60% of an island’s electricity to come from renewables such as wind and solar, whereas without some form of storage

this amount is around 15% before the island grid becomes unstable.

The company investigated and tested different energy storage technologies, including various battery chemistries, fl ywheels and supercapacitors, before settling on lithium ion as the best for short term storage requirements, typically in the minutes or hours, on a daily basis.

Philip Hiersemenzel, a Younicos of-fi cial, says: “Back in 2006 there was not that much available information on lithium ion batteries for stationary storage as the biggest market was con-sumer electronics.

“For stationary storage, because lithium ion is expensive, the batteries have to be able to operate for a long time before needing replacing. Younic-os found that Samsung had some of the best cells on the market and con-tacted the company.”

The last few years have been spent on developing the company’s software to be able to fi nd the battery’s sweet-spot. “How you treat batteries makes a big difference to their lifetimes,” says Hiersemenzel.

For UK Power Networks’ energy storage project on the Leighton Buz-zard primary substation, S&C Electric Europe is lead supplier, with Samsung SDI supplying lithium ion batteries. However, it is Younicos’ software technology that will react to price sig-nals and optimize the performance of Samsung’s batteries.

The software also guarantees avail-ability, charging and discharging as required and maximizes lifetime by maintaining the batteries at their opti-

Jones at S&C Electric Europe believes there will be growth in the companies that set up IPP arrangements for storage. Some of the fi rst companies to deploy the technology will be renewables developers

The Kilroot power station in Northern Ireland, owned by AES Corporation, is also the proposed location for a 100MW lithium ion storage plant that AES will build and operate to integrate more wind into the local grid. Credit: AES Corporation



mum state-of-charge, to ensure a long lifetime, thus helping to bring down the asset’s overall operational expend-iture (OpEx) costs.

“S&C has its own software for man-aging batteries for grid-scale station-ary storage applications, but as the Leighton Buzzard project has to prove multiple business cases Younicos is one of a few start-ups, focused on software, which was able to deliver a platform that can make batteries carry out such a multiplicity of services and functions. “This refl ects the complex-ity of the full extent of what is being asked of the battery bank in this par-ticular project,” says Jones.

But Younicos has ambitions to be more than a software provider to the industry. The company’s project with Wemag is important to show the com-pany also acts as integrator, which seems to be the most dynamic portion of the grid-scale energy storage indus-try at present.

Acquiring the assets and staff of Xtreme Power, which fi led for bank-ruptcy this year, will help Younicos

get a foot in the door of the market stateside.

“Xtreme can be thought of as a US cousin of Younicos. Historically both companies considered battery manu-facturing as part of their energy stor-age business,” says Hiersemenzel. The German company is in the process of merging each business’ different tech-nologies and will be picking up with Xtreme Power’s utility and power cus-tomers, which include companies such as Duke Energy and GE.

“The US market is very promising, as it is potentially very big — even in terms of frequency response demand and California mandates alone. It will grow rapidly and we are now in a good position,” he says.

Supply chain in a state of fl uxTrying to predict the fortunes of an emerging industry is a fool’s game. But what is becoming clear is that the highest rewards may be reserved for those with their eye on global oppor-tunities in grid storage, as illustrated by acquisitions by NEC and Younicos,

and AES’ big battery project in North-ern Ireland.

Terna, too, is getting in on the ac-tion with plans to spin off a company that will provide services based on the TSO’s accumulated experience of how energy storage can exist as grid assets, especially in terms of ensuring a func-tioning grid as penetration of inter-mittent renewables increases.

To date, Terna’s procurement pro-gramme makes Italy one of the larg-est markets for energy storage, in the near-term, and this has attracted the interest of many grid operators from around the world, particularly from California, South Korea, Japan, Aus-tralia, Switzerland, Hawaii, Chile, Spain and the UK.

Even though such a company would be a competitor to the likes of S&C and ABB, according to Jones, such a com-pany would play well in the industry.

“As part of one of the leading TSOs it would, therefore, help make energy storage more credible and that is what this industry needs going forward,” he says.

See us at booth 88

COVER STORY: PROFILE, THE ITALIAN GRID


Two countries united by a common language.

It’s an odd phrase. But one that de-fi nes modern day Italy. To the north, an energetic industrialized centre for manufacturing. Think Milan, Turin. But in the more rural south, a less de-veloped pace prevails.

In terms of the grid: in the north it’s a sophisticated, extensively intercon-nected network. But further south in the agricultural central and southern parts of the long, narrow country, the grid is far less well developed.

The trouble is that it’s in the south where the growth of renewables has been strongest — particularly for wind power in provinces such as Puglia.

The result is that the high voltage cables and connections, which serve as the transmission grid’s backbone, are under strain. Getting wind power from the south, where demand is low, up to the north, has been a headache for Terna, the country’s transmission network operator.

“2010 was a crunch point for Terna. Congestion was a massive problem, with 500GWh of wind curtailed in that year,” says Carolina Anna Tor-tora, head of innovation and devel-opment in power intensive energy storage, at the transmission system operator (TSO).

To introduce fl exibility into this sys-tem for the region, Terna is procuring 35MW of energy-intensive batteries, under its 2011 Grid Development plan. This will avoid the loss of hun-dreds of GWh of wind energy, provid-ing economic savings as wind plant generators have to be paid for energy produced even if it cannot go into the grid.

Under its 2012 Grid Safety and De-fence plan, Europe’s largest TSO and the sixth largest in the world, is buy-ing 40MW of power-intensive energy

storage, which is being installed on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, to com-pensate for the loss of inertia in these smaller mainland-connected grids and provide services such as frequency regulation.

Terna’s investment in 75MW of en-ergy storage, which is in the region of €300 million ($400 million), is in re-sponse to government-level interven-tion, as opposed to a change in market mechanisms, which has occurred in the wholesale power markets in the US.

In the US TSOs, such as PJM Inter-connection, pay more for fast response storage to provide some frequency regulation, an ancillary grid service.

However, both Terna as well as dis-tribution system operators, are able to achieve a 2% additional return on storage over and above the current 6% for network assets, refl ecting the cost and risk associated with these types of technology investments.

Terna is obliged to provide the regu-lator, Autorità per l’energia elettrica il gas e il sistema idrico (Italy’s gas and energy authority), with performance data and analysis every six months and on an annual basis.

The TSO will also be assessing each installation’s performance based on how the energy storage systems oper-ate in the grid, delivering various ser-vices, in terms of speed of response, life cycle and other criteria.

Battery technologies and suppliersJapan’s NGK, announced in 2013, is supplying 35MW (252MWh) of so-dium sulphur batteries to reduce local congestion on Italy’s high voltage grid, as well as increase primary, and also tertiary, reserves and provide voltage support.

By the end of this year, the batter-ies will be installed and operational

These projects in Italy, though pilots, are important — they’ll enable utilities and the regulator to see how storage provides different functions and potential ancillary services, such as frequency regulation, which could generate revenues in future

Italy’s utilities are increasingly turning to energy storage as a way of managing the regional challenges of a grid where renewable supply is at one of the end of the country while demand is at the other. Sara VerBruggen reports.

Energy storage offers way to unify renewable power gap in Italy’s north-south divide

A 2MW (2MWh) energy storage system, supplied by NEC, which will be installed at Enel Distribuzione’s Chiaravalle primary substation in Calabria. Credit: Enel Distribuzione



on two 150kV lines, in three separate locations in the region of Campania, in southern Italy; 12MW in Beneven-to province, 12MW in Flumeri and 10.8MW in Scampitella, which are both in Avellino province.

For its 40MW of power-intensive de-mands, Terna has, so far, chosen lithi-um ion as well as sodium nickel chlo-ride batteries from various suppliers. Saft is supplying 2MW (2MWh) of lithium ion, Samsung 2MW (2MWh), in a consortium that includes energy storage software controls provider Younicos, BYD 2MW (2MWh), Toshi-ba 2MW (2MWh) and LG Chem 1 MW (0.5MWh), with Siemens build-ing the energy storage system. Fiamm is supplying 2.4MW (8.3MWh) and GE 1MW (2MWh) of sodium nickel chloride batteries.

The batteries are being installed on Codrongianos, in Sassari province on Sardinia and in Ciminna and Casu-zze, both in Palermo on Sicily, in two phases.

NGK was selected by Terna, based on its global installations which amounted to some 200MW, refl ect-ing the company’s experience and ref-erences. In comparison, at the time, technologies such as lithium ion had a much smaller installed base, mainly in pilots and demonstrations.

“These companies were chosen as part of a worldwide tender, based on whether the technical specifi cations were high enough to meet with our demands,” says Tortora.

“But, as part of requirements set out by the economic development min-istry and the energy and gas author-ity, Terna must test out different tech-nologies, to reduce the single supplier risk and gain experience by gathering knowledge on the state-of-the-art elec-trochemical storage.”

Terna is in the process of procuring the remaining 28MW of energy stor-age for its power-intensive needs. In its tenders the TSO specifi ed a maxi-

mum of 4MW of fl ow batteries as well as lithium supercapacitors. How-ever, most of the storage under Terna’s Grid Safety and Defence plan will be lithium ion, followed by sodium nickel chloride batteries.

Calculating ROIBecause different end services are po-tentially possible with batteries the whole process of calculating the return on investment is complex, based on the battery’s energy capacity, speed of response, effi ciency, its ability to per-form as primary or secondary reserve and so on.

For wind curtailment, specifi cally, the return on investment is proving elusive to calculate. “There are many different variables that can affect this ultimate outcome, such as battery ca-pacity, grid developments and factor-

ing in works deferral and so on,” says Tortora.

Terna is modelling return on invest-ment with the regulator and also Mc-Kinsey.

The nearest comparison on invest-ment returns might be solar PV tech-nology. “PV is not as complicated as energy storage, as it only generates en-ergy,” she says. “However, PV panels have been very expensive and policy measures and subsidies have helped bring down the cost by stimulating market demand. Batteries are capital-intensive. But, like PV, their opera-tional costs may not be as high as with other technologies.”

According to the Italian National Renewable Action Plan (NREAP) by 2020 some 8GW of PV will have to be installed. At the end of 2013 PV gen-eration produced over 17GW. “This

As a partner in the EU-funded Grid 4EU project, Enel Distribuzione will also be installing an energy storage system, approximately 1MWh, in Forlì-Cesena, in the Emilia Romagna region. The demonstrator will increase the medium voltage network’s hosting capacity for distributed energy resources, by introducing active control and demand response of generators on the medium voltage network. The existing grid is designed for power fl owing in one direction.

The connection of lots of distributed energy resources to the grid can affect power quality, create imbalances between load and generation and can lead to grid congestion as well.

Forlì-Cesena is a rural area, but with a high penetration of renewable energy production, including about 40MW of capacity split over some 24 producers, but power consumption is also low. The whole Grid 4EU project runs until January 2016. Companies working with Enel on the demonstrator include Siemens as well as Cisco.

Acea Distribuzione a local DSO that operates the distribution network in Rome is also commissioning two small storage systems, both lithium ion battery based, from NEC. These installations are at secondary substation in the capital city, one inside, which interfaces with the grid at low voltage and the other

outdoor, which interfaces with the grid at medium voltage.

The main functionality of the LV 90kWh system is for back-up, to reduce or avoid electric outages, depending on the length of interruptions, to the end user when damage on the medium voltage cable, where the secondary substation is connected, occurs. The system discharges the battery to avoid outages or to reduce, or downgrade, longer interruptions.

In Italy, as with some other countries in Europe, utilities face fi nancial penalties if outages are too frequent or too long, the point being to reduce interruptions and power cuts.

The main functionality of the other medium voltage 45kWh storage system, outside, is for renewables integration. The batteries will stabilise electricity fed onto the grid by a nearby PV power plant to increase hosting capacity and improve overall power quality.

STORAGE IN THE PIPELINE



amount of renewables — more than double set by our targets — means new fl exibility is needed to ensure the electricity market functions and without resorting to measures such as curtailment,” says Ciro Scognamilio, a business analyst in NEC’s smart en-ergy solution division, within the com-pany’s Europe and Middle East and Africa business.

Italy has become one of Europe’s leading test-beds for energy storage, with both the TSO and various distri-bution system operators (DSOs), pro-curing batteries to test the various pos-sible functions of the technology on different portions of the overall trans-mission and distribution network.

Storage on the distribution networkEnel Distribuzione, which operates the majority of the Italian electricity distri-bution network, is also installing stor-age, in addition to rolling out smart meters and trialling other smart grid technologies.

Earlier this year, the distribution system operator ordered a 2MW (2MWh) energy storage system, sup-plied by NEC, which will be installed at its Chiaravalle primary substation in Calabria, a southern region in the ‘toe’ of Italy’s boot.

The batteries will be used by Enel Distribuzione to test a potential new dispatching service for DSOs with the national grid. “The system will be used to control the fl ow of electricity from Enel’s substations, using electricity de-mand forecasts, which are sent to Ter-na, though during the trial the TSO’s role will be simulated by computer software,” says Donata Susca, head of networks development at Enel.

The system does this by storing sur-plus energy produced by renewable energy generators, releasing stored energy when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. The batter-ies will enable local consumption of stored surplus energy. Rapid varia-tions in capacity due to sudden wind gusts or clouds will be softened. This

energy storage system will reduce the variability of energy transmitting be-tween the distribution and transmis-sion portions of the grid in areas such as Chiaravalle, where there is a large installed base of renewables.

Due to the increase in distributed generation, in particular PV power plants, many primary substations are seeing a reverse fl ow from medium voltage to high voltage lines, causing a high variability in the energy exchange profi le at the primary substation.

“This means several issues, for in-stance the increase of prices on the an-cillary services market,” says Scogna-milio.

Performance evaluationThe Chiaravalle storage system will test a range of functionalities and ser-vices, including peak shaving, power balancing, power quality, voltage reg-ulation and frequency regulation.

“After the fi rst year of operation we should have all the elements to evalu-ate performance over all the four sea-sons, which are critical for renewable energy plants. The fi rst operational results should already be available by the end of 2014,” says Susca.

The NEC project was awarded as part of a larger tender for batteries by Enel Distribuzione. SAET is supply-ing a 2MW system for Campi Salen-tina, in Puglia, and ABB is supplying a 2MW of batteries on the Contrada Dirillo distribution substation in Ra-gusa, on Sicily. The plant, which will use lithium ion batteries made by Ital-ian battery maker FAAM, should start operations this summer.

The main aims of Enel Distribuzione’s Chiaravelle and Contrada Dirillo pro-jects are similar, to optimize renewable generation from solar and wind sources as well as soften the intermittent and unstable generation profi le inherent in wind and solar, harmonizing fl ows of

“After the fi rst year of operation we should have all the elements to evaluate performance over all the four seasons, which are critical for renewable energy plants. The fi rst operational results should already be available by the end of 2014”

Italy’s plans — fi rst revealed by news agencies in June — to cut subsidies for solar power producers looks set to alienate grid investors and, amid a tangle of possible court battles, causing a political storm. This is in reaction to an initiative by prime minister Matteo Renzi who is trying cut power bills by 10% to households and small businesses.

The moves, which still have to be formally tabled to parliament, could potentially save up to €400 million. The bulk of the savings would come from spreading subsidies to solar power producers over a longer time frame, probably from 20 to 24 years. The government says its solar industry has enjoyed one of Europe’s most generous incentive schemes.

This, it says, has been paid for by consumers’ electric bills. Despite the prospective cut, overall Italian consumers will cost taxpayers as much as €200 billion over the next 20 years, says one media commentator.

The new rules apply to solar plants of over 200kW, This will hurt some 8,600 operators which receive about 60% of subsidies.

“Italy’s PV market took off at the end of 2010 when new rules sent production subsidies up from €750

million in 2010 to €3.8 billion in 2011 and €6.7 billion in 2013,” said the commentator. “In the past fi ve years, over €50 billion has gone into Italy’s renewable energy industry. Italy has around 17GW of solar capacity.”

A potential headache for the government is litigation. Retroactive regulatory change by Rome could contravene Italian law and the EU’s Energy Charter Treaty.

In 2013 Spain tried to do the same with renewable tariffs. The result (perhaps predictably) was a wave of multi-billion euro compensation claims by investors. The same is likely to happen for Italy with unhappy investors lobbying national and international courts for arbitration. A political dimension is also likely to add pressure from foreign governments seeking redress for their investors.

TROUBLE ON THE HORIZON



renewable energy into the grid.Enel Distribuzione’s existing energy

storage installations include a 0.7MW (0.5MWh) lithium ion battery stor-age plant in Isernia, in the south-east region of Molise. The system, built by Siemens, has been running since 2011. The batteries combine genera-tion from distributed energy resources with reliable and safe management of the system.

The project is part of Enel’s wider use of smart grid technologies connected to the Carpinone substation in Molise. These include devices for estimating electricity generated from renewable

resources, sensors for monitoring grid volumes, interaction with electricity generators to provide advanced regula-tion of input fl ows, recharging stations for electric vehicles, and equipment installed in homes to allow roughly 8,000 households, which are con-nected to the Carpinone substation, to monitor their consumption.

These projects in Italy, though pilots, are important because they will enable utilities and also the regulator to be able to see how storage provides dif-ferent functions and potential ancillary services, such as frequency regulation, which could generate future revenues.

Existing regulatory frameworks in Europe do not play to the different advantages of energy storage — the technology can be both a distribution and a generation asset — making it challenging to gauge the real eco-nomic value, or return on investment of storage.

For example, an accurate energy exchange profi le, which Enel Dis-tribuzione’s energy storage system will provide to the TSO, could potentially incentivize utilities to invest in stor-age as the only way to ensure power forecasts accurately match real-time generation.

Edison Electric Institute said last year that it had identifi ed 150 transmission projects valued at $51.1 billion that are planned for the US by 2023. Some 76% of these support the integration of renewables,. Edison expects transmission investment in 2014-15 to remain signifi cantly ahead of where it was in 2011.

Natureo Finance is tracking over 120 large-scale grid-tied energy storage projects globally that are 500kWh or above.

The EU has funded almost €1 billion for energy storage projects on the continent, while Germany’s government-led self-consumption subsidy for storage linked to solar PV could be worth an estimated €80 million a year.

Market forecasts vary too. However, a recent report by IHS forecasts the grid-connected

energy storage market to exceed 40GW globally by 2022 and another long-term forecast by Navigant projects revenues from the global utility-scale storage market to exceed $2.5 billion by 2023, from an industry worth $164 million in 2014.

Drivers include advances in electrochemistry that are enabling grid management through batteries, which until recent years would have been inconceivable due to safety, cost, durability and effi ciency concerns.

According to IHS’ prediction, between 2012 and 2017 the US will be the largest region for grid-connected energy storage, accounting for 43% of installations during that time. The analyst estimates that only 340MW of systems were installed between 2012 and 2013, and these are

predominately demonstration projects. However, installations should rapidly grow to more than 6GW in 2017.

Regional demandIn the US grid-connected storage installations are driven by pay for performance rates for provision of frequency regulation services. In the commercial market, the drivers for storage in the US include high demand charges. Storage procurement targets in a growing number of states, led by California, will drive grid-scale storage in the next few years.

Other global regions that are beginning to see signifi cant deployment of grid-connected energy storage, include Germany and Italy, in Europe, while in Japan, increasing penetration of renewables, especially solar photovoltaics as well as growing peak demand are creating ripe conditions for storage.

Technology trendsNatureo Finance has found that for power-based storage technologies there was strong subsidized growth in 2011, followed by a pause in 2012 and weakness in 2013. Over this period sodium sulphur and fl ywheels waned while lithium ion began to strongly emerge, with a focus on fl ow battery technologies too.

In terms of technology trends for energy-based storage technologies sodium sulphur has largest installed base by far. But, in recent years this technology has seen little growth, creating opportunities for alternatives like lithium ion and fl ow batteries.

STORAGE BY NUMBERS

Exact numbers vary on the number of energy storage projects around the world, but in October 2013 the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) international energy storage database had surpassed 420 documented grid-connected energy storage projects worldwide.

ATL, a Chinese lithium battery start-up fi rm 15 years ago, has become a manufacturing giant. It has many lessons to teach the energy storage industry. Mike Halls reports from ATL’s offi ces in Ningde, south China.

Next generation lithium: from electronic components to the smart grids of the future

ATL has grown from a handful of employees based in Hong Kong in 1999 to a lithium polymer battery giant. In 2012 the fi rm had an annual output capacity of 500 million units, including pouch cells, cylindrical cells and prismatic can cells. It now has a staff of around 22,000


PROFILE: ATL

PROFILE: ATL


Disconcertingly straightfor-ward.

That’s your fi rst impres-sion when you meet Robin

Zeng president and CEO of ATL and Mike Chang, the chairman. For an in-dustry inclined to talk itself up at every opportunity — at least in the lithium side of the business — Zeng and Chang are open about their successes, candid about their failures and ambitious as to where they see ATL developing.

They are also very much at ease with each other, both laughing and joking as they refl ect on the twists and turns of what could arguably be called one of China’s great success stories. The fact that they’re equally comfortable talk-ing in Mandarin or English adds an-other dimension to their thoughts.

But perhaps most importantly they’ve a fascinating story to tell.

The ATL story begins with its forma-tion — the letters stand for Amperex Technology Limited — as a small start-up in 1999.

Since then it has grown from a hand-ful of employees based in Hong Kong to a lithium polymer battery giant. Its pouch battery cell production is, de-pending on how you calculate these things, either the second or third largest in the world. In 2012 the fi rm said it had an annual output capacity of 500 million units, including pouch cells, cy-lindrical cells and prismatic can cells. It now has a staff of around 22,000.

While China has grown at an annual compound growth rate of around 9% a year for the past decade or more, ATL has rocketed ahead expanding at some 40% year-on-year.

This extraordinary growth story has been fuelled from a number of direc-tions — initiatives by the Chinese gov-ernment for the country to take a lead in export manufacturing, the unprec-edented growth in worldwide sales of small electronic devices (from iphones to tablets and much more) and the abil-ity of the fi rm’s management team to ride the boom in these products.

ATL’s business is founded on three in-terlocked fi elds of business, says Chang.

ATL has a network of associate research collaborations with the CAS Institute of Physics, the China University of Mining and Technology, the Universitas Amoiensis at Xiamen University, Beijing University, China’s Industrial Technology Research Institute, the Jiangxi Normal University, the Tsinghua University and with the US’ Argonne National Laboratory and through Bob Galyen, the fi rm’s chief technology offi cer, access to the top ranks of the US’ SAE automotive executives.

ATL also works with the China Research Institute and has recently been working with Erickson on 48V batteries as well as conducting work in Australia with renewable energy companies.

ATL’s development has been based on deploying this research and this led to the fi rm’s move into EV batteries.

In 2008 ATL launched its fi rst foray into the EV sector building a factory in Ningde, some 700km south of Shanghai, dedicated to creating the largest electric vehicles lithium-ion battery producing base of the world.

The site is huge — 551,472m2 — with options given by the local prefecture to extend the plant as far as the hills in the distance. The initial work area for when the fi rst fi ve production lines were up and running, as per the site operating ceremony in June 2012, was about 50,000m2.

Connections to the Chinese highway network are being built and ATL looks set to become one of the major employer fi rms within the region. The overall cost of the present development is likely to be around $1 billion.

It’s diffi cult to give a grasp of the size of the factory and its extraordinary growth story without talking visions of a battery city, complete with its own two police sub-stations, hospital, 24 hour a day canteens and tower blocks of fl ats for the workers. The main admin offi ces back on to four huge factory buildings — two of which have been built in the last two years and of which two more are being planned for construction imminently.

ATL has plans — dependent on setting up local partners to co-locate to the plant — to double the entire facility within the next fi ve years. The scope of the fi rm’s plan is extraordinary.

Hundreds of electric vehicles or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles have been produced by top-tier automakers with ATL battery packs. “Together, we’ve accumulated over 10 million kilometres of real live driving experience over the past years,” says a company spokesperson. “And that experience has enabled ATL to position itself as one of the top contenders to capture the future growth of the EV battery market — both in China and around the world.”

POWER AND ENERGY DENSITY: NEXT STEPS

While China has grown at an annual compound growth rate of around 9% a year for the past decade or more, ATL has rock-eted ahead expanding at some 40% year-on-year

Connections to the Chinese highway network are being built and ATL looks set to become one of the major employer fi rms within the region

PROFILE: ATL


The fi rst is its battery supply to consumer electronics such as mobile phones and tablets, the second is its in-novative work as a battery developer working with electric vehicles and the last are its now pioneering and deeply ambitious work in moving into energy storage at the microgrid (and beyond) level.

Historically, the fi rm and its coun-terpart arm CATL (Contemporary ATL) started with their work as a bat-tery supplier for consumer electronics. They then have worked their way into electric vehicles where they have also become a major player and are now developing a suite of products for their grid work.

Early winsBoth Zeng and Chang, who’ve been with the fi rm for most of its existence, date part of the success of the company to its early licence contract with Va-lence Technology, negotiated in 2001. This provided it with the worldwide rights to produce and distribute lithium ion batteries, using Valence’s intellec-tual property for cobalt and manganese cathode materials.

In May 2002, the company started to manufacture batteries for cell phones, PDAs, portable DVDs, notebook PCs, earphones and smart card applications. ATL’s lithium ion polymer batteries were later used in the portable DVD market and the fi rm was reckoned to have ranked as number one in world market share by 2007.

The following year ATL’s batteries en-tered the MP3/MP4 market.

The end client was Apple. Or that’s what a long history of market rumours — and even Apple’s 10-K fi lings with the US Securities and Exchange Com-mission — seem to suggest.

Zeng and Chang are happy to con-fi rm that the batteries are made for a US-based computer company but are adamant that they cannot — and will not — disclose which fi rm it is. An ex-tensive site visit across the fi rm’s facili-ties in Ningde, in south China, showed nothing to prove the Apple link apart from extensive internet rumours gleaned in London.

But the fact of the matter is that it couldn’t have been a better fi t than a Chinese fi rm looking to produce high-end batteries — and to develop these

batteries further — with the most ad-venturous brand on the plant.

“We learnt an extraordinary number of lessons from this partnership,” says Chang, who has spent most of his life in advanced technology businesses. “Per-haps the most was the idea of continual improvement — how to offer a better and yet better deal for the client, while still maintaining profi tability.

“In one sense this isn’t new, but it also fi tted into the overall way that the fi rm operates. We insist that Chinese culture infuses the way that we operate as a company. We’re not being over-theoret-ical but it’s to do with both the atten-tion we pay to detail that has character-ized our country over the years as well as having a larger sense of what we do and how we should do business.”

At the heart of this was the most basic of business principles — how to justify manufacturing costs (and to do so lo-cally). The result was what they called the 301 program, how to achieve a 30% process and 30% equipment re-duction. The shut down time due to product model change-over of the au-tomated line has to be less than one hour.

“We knew that many of the business subsidies wouldn’t last — these kind of things never make long-term sense — so we were actually dealing with the fundamental differentiator between ourselves and many other mass-vol-ume manufacturers,” says Chang. “We wanted to keep the quality up, or even better, but reduce the price. We weren’t looking at cutting the cost of labour but better and more effi cient automation.”

In the event the 301 program worked. With characteristic enthusiasm the two looked at seeing if they could do anoth-er 301 program on what was left. “We called it the 601 program,” says Chang.

“But in the event we could only get it down to 501,” laughs Zeng. “There

“We knew that many of the business subsidies wouldn’t last — these kind of things never make long-term sense — so we were actually dealing with the fundamental differentiator between ourselves and many other mass-volume manufacturers” — Mike Chang

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PROFILE: ATL


Bob Galyen: “Our standards are international ones. An engineer at BMW or General Motors wouldn’t fi nd anything out of place. The same intellectual rigour is in place”

The result was what they called the 301 programme, how to achieve a 30% process and 30% equip-ment reduction. The shut down time due to product model change-over of the automated line has to be less than one hour

The next step forward for ATL is advancing from the electrical vehicle markets to the greater scale and the different challenges of the electrical energy storage markets. In 2011 it won the bid on the fi rst China state grid project for wind and photovoltaic energy storage systems. That year it installed some 20MW hours of battery cells into the grid. The fi gure for 2014 is going to be around 190 MWh and 2015 to continue growing up to 560MWh just in China alone.

“The grid is our next big challenge,” says Zeng. “And the ESS side of the business is going to be huge given the worldwide shift to renewable energy sources in the coming decade. Smart grids are going to be the next big thing in energy storage.” Outside the main offi ce complex in Ningde is a container with a 1 MW/2 MWh energy storage system. This has been operating since 2011. Containerization highlights the modular system that ATL can offer

ATL’s enthusiasm has also got a national dimension. “We

have a commitment to being environmentally concerned — it’s part of what we do and how we approach things,” says a company spokesperson. In this its green policies neatly tie in with the central government’s determination to tackle air pollution which has caused immense diffi culties in China’s largest cities and damage to its citizens.

“China has moved from an agrarian economy to the manufacturing workhouse for the world — and the wealth that provides — in just a generation,” one China economist told Batteries International. “Having made those advances, the next step is to consolidate its development by bringing environmental standards closer to those of the west. The problem for the government is that central government dictates get diluted by regional authorities.

“The move into renewables may still be uncoordinated — they’re still building coal-fi red power plants every few days — but it is happening.”

THE NEXT BIG CHALLENGE: THE GRID

Jason Tang: “When you are build-ing lithium ion car batteries for fi rms such as BMW, the quality and durability has to be second to none. And that requires constant testing and retesting”

PROFILE: ATL


are constraints, such as the price of ma-terials, for example, that are walls one can’t break through. But these kinds of evaluations are useful in other ways at showing you not just a cheaper way to work, but a better way of doing so.”

Indeed every aspect of its opera-tions — from safety to security to op-erational integrity — is regimented and, perhaps more importantly, intelligently respected. “This is a world class facto-

ry,” says Bob Galyen, chief technology offi cer and one of the pioneering fi gures in General Motors’ EV1 project . “Our standards are international ones. An engineer at BMW or General Motors wouldn’t fi nd anything out of place. The same intellectual rigour is there.”

Zeng adds another proviso as to their approach — the need for partnership. “Our goal is to be a tier one supplier for some of the top OEMs in the world.

Partnership has two faces — strategic alliances with those that can advance our technology skills and range and the ability to partner those fi rms that need this provision.”

From the technology point of view ATL over the years has publicly an-nounced strategic relationships with fi rms such as 3M (for the licence of intellectual property for nickel-man-ganese-cobalt cathode materials in lithium ion batteries) and Altair Na-notechnologies which has been pio-neering, for instance, nano-structured lithium titanate spinel oxide (Li4Ti5O12, LTO) electrode materials that replace the graphite electrode materials found in anodes of current lithiumi-ion bat-teries.

Pushing out the boundariesPerhaps one of the distinguishing marks of ATL through the years has been that it has carefully eschewed any kind of low cost, low price model of doing business. While, for example, the standard lithium battery guarantee was for two years, ATL pushed for provid-ing a four year warranty — all the more important when Apple and its competi-tors started to introduce embedded bat-teries.

Safety was a constant theme too, the fi rm made sure, as Zeng puts it “that if our batteries die, at least they’ll do so quietly”. Failure to recognize that risk caused a gaping hole in Sony’s profi ts in 2007 when it had to recall as many as 20 million — some estimates put it higher — laptops that contained its faulty batteries. (And a lesson that doesn’t seem to have been learned to this day following Sony’s recall of fur-ther laptops this April.)

Attention to detail was also accompa-nied by both good fortune and sound fi nances.

Realising that lithium polymer bat-teries were going to become the next generation of lithium ion, ATL sought further venture capital funding — the so-called series ‘B’ round. Typically, this is where development is complete, technology risk is removed, and early revenue streams may be taking shape.

ATL’s aim was a simple one: capital-ize on the fact that its new polymer bat-teries were thinner and more fl exible than traditional ones. They also offered consumers an energy density some 20% higher than its competitors.

The smaller size and greater power requirements would immediately make them suitable for the rapidly evolving markets for mobile phones, PDAs, digi-tal cameras and camcorders, portable

“We learnt an extraordinary number of lessons from this partnership. Perhaps the most was the idea of continual improvement — how to offer a better and yet better deal for the client, while still maintaining profi tability” — Mike Chang

“We can’t be blindsided by new technology. Look at what happened to IBM where the business model was turned around by the arrival of Windows and Microsoft’s operating system. It’s sensible to be cautious” — Robin Zeng

PROFILE: ATL


DVDs, notebook computers, and Blue-tooth devices. Greater working capital would allow ATL to quickly increase its manufacturing capacity.

This further $30 million — $22.5 mil-lion came from private equity fi rm, The Carlyle Group, one of the fi rm’s initial seed capital investors and $7.5 million from 3i — helped the fi rm grow. The money was released in June 2003 and almost exactly two years later ATL was sold lock, stock and barrel to Japan’s TDK Corporation for $100 million. In addition to his duties as president and chief executive offi cer of ATL. Zeng is also general manager of the Energy De-vices Business Group at TDK.

At the time of the sale, ATL employed some 3,000 employees, was headquar-tered in Hong Kong and had a manu-facturing plant in Dongguan in the People’s Republic. It had net assets of around $50 million.

R&D at the coreOne of the key features of ATL over the recent years has been its emphasis on research and development. “We can’t be blindsided by new technology,” says Zeng, who also acts as dean for the re-search institute that is attached to the fi rm. “Look at what happened to IBM where the business model was turned around by the arrival of Windows and Microsoft’s operating system. It’s sensi-ble to be cautious.”

The fi rm is committed to its R&D team which it says now numbers around some 500 employees, it allo-cates 6% of its revenue to this budget — a percentage that Chang wants to lift to 8% which he regards as a better norm. That said, when comparing the number of staff with, say, Argonne, the US National Laboratory, ATL is ahead of the pack.

“We’ve got something like 100 doc-torates working for us,” says Zeng,

who has also a Phd in Condensed Mat-ter Physics from Institute of Physics, CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences). Chang earned his doctorate in electri-cal engineering from the University of Notre Dame in, Indiana, USA.

“And around 300 masters degrees under everyone’s boots too. We focus on cell material science, cell/modular design and battery pack and system in-tegration.”

In terms of intellectual property ATL says it has applied for around 700 local patents of which 300 have been issued. In the US some 30 have been applied for and fi ve issued.

Although Zeng and Chang each have academic backgrounds that would make them comfortable in research in-stitutes around the world, they believe that hands-on R&D on the manufac-turing line is part of the way forward. “Our research is inversely propor-tional to common sense!” says Chang. “Sometimes, for instance, we’re more interested in the how of the manufac-turing line rather than the why.”

This is refl ected in the emphasis the fi rm puts on simulation and model-ling as to development. “Every manu-facturing process must have a simula-tion,” says Zeng. And this is applied to everything from molecular models of ion transfers within crystalline struc-tures to earthquake simulations of its own factories.

Investment in R&D doesn’t come cheap. Jason Tang, new head of re-search and testing, is proud of the vast warehouse that has been constructed

“The grid is our next big challenge. And the ESS side of the business is going to be huge given the worldwide shift to renewable energy sources in the coming decade. Smart grids are going to be the next big thing in energy storage” — Robin Zeng

Aerial view of ATL’s facilities in Ningde. Two years ago two of the four factories didn’t exist, nor much of the residential accommodation

PROFILE: ATL


where battery testing will take place. “It’s just a shell now,” he pointing out the fi rst machine installations. “But this will be a hive of activity in a couple of months’ time. When you are building lithium ion car batteries for fi rms such as BMW the quality and durability has

to be second to none. And that requires constant testing and retesting.”

In December BMW Brilliance launched its Zinoro 1E into the Chi-nese market.

Although it’s not the fi rst electric ve-hicle to be sold in China, BMW says it’s

the fi rst luxury ‘Electric Sports Activity Vehicle’ sold as a brand in the country.

ATL makes the complete battery pack — a modular three part design that has the odd characteristic of be-ing completely functional but whose steel casing design oddly lacks the fl exibility and lightness of weight seen in other EVs.

BMW, whose reputation for testing rigour and high engineering standards is close to unsurpassed in the automo-tive business, maintains a permanent, fl oating, cohort of staff constantly checking that every step of the battery manufacturing process is undertaken as scheduled.

“They wouldn’t work with us, if they had the slightest thought that we weren’t up to the job,” says Galyen.

Perhaps the best example of the suc-cess that ATL has achieved — and exemplifi es the strides it is making in developing yet better lithium batteries — is shown in the attached chart which maps out where the fi rm has come from and where it seeks to go. The impact of the graphic description would be all the more striking if both scales did not have to have exponential bases.

In December BMW Brilliance launched its Zinoro 1E into the Chinese market. Although it’s not the fi rst electric vehicle to be sold in China, BMW says it’s the fi rst luxury ‘Electric Sports Activity Vehicle’ sold as a brand in the country — ATL makes the complete battery pack

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3

ATL-CATL & CHINA: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE


Bob, before the why’s, the

wherefores! The move to

China — how did it happen?

It all started when I met Robin Zeng at a Shenzhen conference in December 2011. Robin asked me to dinner to meet “some” of his engineering managers.

To be precise there was 56 of them. He wanted them to have some external exposure to the automotive industry.

Little did I know that it would turn into a job offer by the April!

At that time, I was president of the battery division of Magna E-Car and based in Michigan. I wasn’t looking for a new job but the idea of working in China with one of the fastest growing battery companies in the world appealed to me. It appeared that all those years of training in the battery and automotive sector would pay off in a job offer as the CTO of the company.

Robin invited me to come to Ningde in June — it’s about 700 kilometres south of Shanghai—to tour the plant and offered a formal

contract. By July the move was complete and a new chapter in my life had started.

What were the main factors

that made you move to ATL

after your meetings with Robin

in California?

Robin’s job offer made me think how I wanted to fi nish my career before retirement. After investigating Amperex Technology Limited, I found that its year-on-year growth rate, the vast customer base it has in consumer electronics and the forward planning into the transportation and energy storage market sectors, really appealed to me.

It looked to be a great place to make a difference — and that’s something I wanted to do — albeit half way around the world from my family. Clearly it was a tough decision to leave them behind for a fi ve year contract but my children and their spouses provided great moral support.

Over the years my career has been blessed with great mentors. During discussions with many of my colleagues, we agreed, where else could a battery expert help change the world via energy storage, than in China? How else could someone make a big impact on the world by returning the favour to mankind than to train a company in the fastest growing country in the world? If you had to pick one, it would be China!

China is certainly going through its evolutionary period, much like the UK, US, Japan, and Germany did, where pollution from carbon fuel sources create enormous amounts of pollution. However, the Chinese government is taking great strides in decreasing this pollution by instituting policies and creating programmes to assist industry in production of renewable energy sources and storage technologies.

This government involvement also generated another opportunity by the spawning a new company called CATL. By December 2012 my responsibilities shifted to the CTO role for this newly formed company.

O brave new worldthat has such people in’t!

Bob Galyen, who’s been a feature of the battery business — both lead and lithium — for over a quarter of a century upped sticks in July 2012 to relocate from the US to China. He told Batteries International about the reasons for his move.

Laid back. It’s perhaps the only way to describe Bob Galyen as he lounges on the balcony of his fi fth fl oor fl at in central Ningde. It’s evening. Down below, there’s lush vegetation and a surprising tranquillity broken only by the gentle sound of the so-called “barking frogs” famous in that region of south China.

Bob, who’s recently been named as one of the most infl uential foreign scientists working in the country in its One Thousand Talent Plan, is keen to explain his decision to leave the US on a fi ve year contract as chief technology offi cer at ATL and its sister company CATL.

ATL-CATL & CHINA: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE


How have you found life in

China? What do you miss

about the US and if you left

Ningde what would you miss?

My home is just a short walk from a large mall attached to a fi ve star hotel and these provide a good source of nearby entertainment and dining with a 3D IMAX theatre and a host of restaurants serving Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. It even sports western cuisines of Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Dairy Queen!

My favorite is to go to the Wanda hotel to hear my friends Daisy and Felix from the Philippines sing music dearly missed from North America.

The biggest thing I’ll miss upon leaving China will be the people. Their sincere warmth and compassion to other human beings is impressive. Being a foreigner in someone else’s country speaking a different language can be intimidating, but here that isn’t the case. My working colleagues have become great friends. They help, and have helped, beyond the call of duty.

As part of this, you’ve long

had an international dimension

to your working life, how is

that now? And an industry

viewpoint?From the past experiences of international travel for GM, Delphi, Magna and my own company Tawas, this work experience is quite different. It is the fi rst time living abroad for any length of time as an expatriate. The move was made much easier when my executive assistant of 12 years, Luanne, agreed to move to China to support my new job.

The most notable difference is stepping out of the management and leadership roles into more of a mentor and teacher role for my colleagues. Teaching has always been something I’ve enjoyed for years but now it is my primary function with our young technical teams here in Ningde. It is also rewarding that the company supports me with public speaking opportunities.

Some of these are on behalf of the company and others for professional organizations which infl uence the structuring of the fl edgling energy storage market. The most notable organizations are the SAE International Battery Standards

Steering Committee and the World Alliance of Low Carbon Cities, just to mention a few.

You speak about a larger

perspective of the way

that energy storage using

‘advanced’ batteries will

change the world, discuss!During my 37-year career, 32 were spent in the lead acid battery world. It is hard to get the acid out of your veins, so to speak. Over those fi rst three decades all we heard was that lithium energy storage was only 10 years away.

Well guess what? It is here and its market share is increasing.

What intrigues me most is that there’s been such a little deterioration of the market segment for lead and nickel-based chemistries. This just means more inventions or devices are manufactured using more batteries than ever before.

As you look at the plethora of energy storage technologies, batteries is just one of many. The battery solution is mostly driven by its ability to have higher energy effi ciency than other non-electrochemical technologies like pumped hydro or compressed air, as examples.

Typically the drawbacks of electrochemistry devices are cost and life expectancy. However, we are seeing a huge decrease in the cost of lithium batteries while energy and power densities increase dramatically. This is an opportunity for market penetration to surge within the next few years.

The analogy of two tsunamis approaching each other is akin to the collision between huge volumes of transportation and energy storage

sectors collide in the next three to fi ve years. If current trends in the market continue, these will produce volumes of batteries that could change the global carbon footprint of mankind.

Our colleagues in other battery market segments won’t have to worry about intrusion into their markets as these are all new product markets never seen in volume before.

Where do you see yourself in

2020? And the energy storage

business?

By 2020 my plans are to be doing consulting work or retired, fi shing from an electric boat with my grandchildren!

My perspective is the electrochemical energy storage business will have left the gate by this time frame on a journey with renewable energy generation to become commonplace in many countries around the world.

Countries such as Australia and Germany who lead the charge for behind meter storage applications, and countries like China and US who lead the charge for utility side of the meter, will see a much clearer path to energy independence from fossil fuels by the end of this decade.

New technology breakthroughs and system level improvements will create a new path to improve widespread renewable storage capabilities. A whole new market of installation, service, support, recycling and business practices will emerge. That said, oil and coal will be here for decades to come, but we must start the journey now to improve our environment for the generations that lie ahead of us!

Ningde: modernizing rapidly as its industrial base expands

PROFILE: BYD


China’s richest man, Wang Chuan-Fu, has come a long way in a very short time. So has his company BYD which

he set up — aged just 29 in 1995 — and which is reckoned to be the world’s big-gest mobile phones manufacturer. But despite his enormous success, equally enormous challenges lie ahead for the automotive wing of his business empire.

Wang enjoys a formidable inter-national reputation. He is described by Charlie Munger, vice chairman of fund management giant Berkshire Hathaway as “something like Edison in solving technical problems, and something like Jack Welch, former chief executive of General Electric,

in getting done what he needs to do. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Notoriously frugal and a workaholic, Wang began the company by making cheaper versions of rechargeable elec-tronics batteries from Japan.

He shifted gears by acquiring the Shaanxi Quichuan Auto Company and set up the BYD Auto Company in 2003.

BYD powered through the recession of 2008 by developing new business fi elds, increasing R&D of new recharge-able electronics batteries and promoting electric vehicle batteries, chemical en-ergy stored-power stations and electric tools.

In 2010, the company benefi ted from the recovery of the global mobile and

electric power equipment market and completed the fi rst phase of the com-pany’s solar energy manufacturing base. BYD’s compound annual growth rate for revenue from 2008-2012 was 13.5%, though margins thinned espe-cially in 2012 and the return on equity fell below the cost of capital.

The contextThe rechargeable batteries industry — that’s the rechargeable electronics batteries and the electric vehicle batter-ies — accounts for 76% of the overall battery segment. Some analysts, such as Global Business Intelligence, believe the industry should grow from a $16.7 bil-lion market in 2011 to $56.2 billion in 2020, driven largely by the need for lith-ium ion batteries for electric vehicles.

GBI believes global electric vehicle demand will increase from 2.8 million units in 2012 to 19.8 million in 2020.

The primary drivers behind electric vehicle adoption include high oil and gas prices and changes in the regulatory climate toward environmental conser-vation, including tighter tail pipe emis-sions standards.

Reducing pollution is an increasingly critical issue. A recent World Health Or-ganization report says this costs some 7 million early deaths per year. In ad-dition, several countries, including the US, are offering government grants and subsidies to the rechargeable battery and electric vehicle industries to encour-age R&D.

For electric and hybrid vehicles, the primary driver, for adoption, is the cost of the lithium ion battery, particularly the cathode, whose cost has been dif-fi cult to reduce. While lithium itself is inexpensive, production of the batteries involves high manufacturing costs, with each battery involving hundreds of bat-tery cells. Moreover, the industry is char-acterized by a lack of standardization.

The rise, rise and ambitious rise of BYD

China’s most successful automotive fi rm is also one of its leading battery fi rms. But is all well for this giant conglomerate? Are its plans to become the world’s largest electric vehicle producer by 2025 achievable? Jim Hartnett, Jeff Anderson, Karyn Caldwell and Tel Ganesan from the University of Michigan have analyzed the fi rm and its prospects.

• Continue multi-domestic approach

• Focus expansion efforts on countries or regions that expected to have the highest sales of electric vehicles (Japan, the US, emerging economies)

• Continue local R&D. BYD Los Angeles is a good start.

• Expand production facilities outside of China

• Focus on areas with low worker cost, such as Asia, or eastern Europe

• Continue focus on niche market of electric mass transportation

• Tesla has an incredible head start, especially in the US and Europe, in the electric vehicle market for end consumers. However, BYD’s early focus on electric buses and their cooperation with China’s local governments and private taxi services in the US and Europe gives them an early mover advantage in this niche but important market

Chinese conglomerate BYD is an international giant with a market cap of some $7 billion and listed in Hong Kong. It has two major businesses. The fi rst is IT/portable electronics parts manufacturing and rechargeable electronics batteries. The second is vehicle manufacturing.

Rechargeable electronics batteries accounted for some 47% of company revenues in 2012. Conventional — internal combustion engine — vehicles accounted for 46% of sales. The remaining 7% was split between electric vehicles and their batteries and power generation equipment.

RECOMMENDATIONS

BYD: THE BASICS

PROFILE: BYD


To date, the primary producers of lithium ion batteries have been Korea, China, and Japan, but the industry is projected to grow in North America, particularly given motor manufac-turer Tesla’s plans to create a massive ‘gigafactory’ able to produce as many lithium battery cells as the world pro-duces as a whole today and its use of cheaper “cylindrical” batteries that can be used to produce a sub-$40,000 premium electric vehicle.

BYD’s global strategyWhile 85% of BYD’s 2012 revenue came from China, the company has begun to expand into foreign markets.

BYD has focused much of its growth in the electric vehicle market, despite the fact that EVs contribute only a small fraction of BYD’s revenues.

BYD has approached growth out-side of China primarily through joint ventures with local fi rms — and spe-cifi cally by working in the public transportation space, building and supplying electric buses and taxis. This has leveraged the company’s cost advantages and helps pry open the door for the complex distributor net-work for passenger vehicles in these countries.

Vertical integration: The Li and NiMH battery market has become in-

creasingly crowded and by vertically integrating into vehicle production BYD has positioned itself as one of the premier producers of electric vehicles worldwide and is the market leader in China. BYD also makes all battery components and electronic battery management systems.

Cooperation with local fi rms: Since 2010 BYD has pursued opportunities

Strengths

Vertical integration (EV & EVB;

components like cathodes, etc).

Strong R&D. Created breakthrough

Lithium Iron-Phosphate (LiFePO4)

battery.

Dominant market position in

rechargeable batteries for electronics

Unique production model which

leverages large numbers of

inexpensive workers & custom jigs

Unique education system for workers.

Formal classes.

Weaknesses

Recent profitability has been

problematic (% net income fell from

9.6% in 2009 to 0.2% in 2012).

Revenue concentration risk in China

(85% in 2012).

Lack of global distribution network

that is only partially offset by joint

ventures. Difficulty of cracking into

European & North American markets.

Education system primarily for

engineering workers, not production

employees.

Opportunities

Rapidly expanding ICE automobile

market in China

EV market in China

EV market in other countries

Solar PV technology will require

batteries. New economies w/o

major legacy electric infrastructure

(BRICs, Middle East) will demand

this, according to Donna Zobel, CEO

of Myron Zucker, major supplier of

electric capacitors (in conversation

with us in March 2014).

Threats

Volatile and rising prices of raw

materials (lithium for cathode,

cobalt for separator).

Rapid advances in technology and

risk of obsolescence

Rising Chinese worker wages

can undermine key competitive

advantage (“labor plus jigs =

automation” at BYD).

Competition from Tesla’s

gigafactory for mass lithium battery

production in US.

BYD SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — analysis

Country breakdown and by year (RMB m)

Year Revenue Net income NI% ROE

2008 26,783 1,021 3.8% 6.1%

2009 39,469 3,794 9.6% 20.6%

2010 46,685 2,523 5.4% 11.9%

2011 46,312 1,385 3.0% 7.0%

2012 44,381 81 0.2% 0.4%

PRC

India

Europe

US

Other

85%

6%2%3%

4%

Timeline of decisions positioning BYD in the global market

1995-2002 • BYD incorprated (1995)

• Branch offices established in Korea, Japan, US

• BYD listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (2002)

• Becomes the Li-on battery supplier for Nokia (2002)

2003-2007 • Acquires Shaanxi Quichuan Auto Company and establishes BYD Auto Company LTD (2003)

• Begins producing cars and winning Chinese auto awards (2006-2007)

2008-2010 • $231m equity stake taken in BYD by MidAmerican Energy Holdings (Warren Buffett) 9.9% of BYD

• Partnership with Volkswagen to “explore” in the area of hybrids and electric cars (2009)

• Acquired Sanxiang Bus Group (2009)

• JV contract with CGL to create the BYD Auto Finance Company (2010)

2011-2013 • JV/agreements with Daimler ($176m, R&D) and NetSol (IT) (both in 2011)

• JV with SMRT Corp to distribute electric vehicles long-range, eBUSes & e6 electric taxis in Singapore (2011)

• Partnership with Enerpoint Group to jointly develop the energy storage market in Italy (2012)

• Signed MoU with greentomatocars to develop London’s first fleet of all-electric minicabs (2012)

• Agreement with Bulmineral LTD (Bulgaria) to create a 50:50 JV to produce electric buses (2012)

• JV with BMW to produce Zinoro electric car for China market. Built in China. (2013)

PROFILE: BYD


outside of the Chinese market primar-ily through acquisitions, contracts and joint ventures with foreign fi rms. This use of joint ventures and local partner-ships taps local knowledge and makes sense in that vehicles themselves and even the battery component of these vehicles are regulated by rules that vary by region/country.

The 2012 electric bus partnership with Bulmineral (Bulgaria) was a beachhead for BYD into Europe. Is-brand Ho, a key BYD director, said at the time: “The joint venture is a very important step for BYD and will en-sure we are able to move forward with our strategy to introduce our electric vehicles and more green products across Europe.”

Overall geographic expansion: Paul Lin, BYD’s corporate marketing man-

ager, has linked the time of the open-ing of BYD’s R&D center in Los An-geles to the company’s goal of being the largest electric vehicle maker in 2025. This global expansion is ambi-tious and, of course, risky. Focusing solely on China would also pose risk, yet there are several reasons why stay-ing and focusing on growth in China might be the wisest choice for BYD.

Low-cost production: Wang’s early signature accomplishment was rede-signing the battery production process to use more labor but far less capital to make cheaper batteries. Jigs — in-expensive home-made tools to speed up the handwork — helped with pro-ductivity, formed the BYD slogan, “Labor plus jigs = automation.”

The company’s strategy of “creative imitation” (relying on public technol-

ogy and modifying competitor designs to avoid their IP) also keeps costs low.

PerilsThere are dangers in BYD’s current strategy. Putting so much R&D into electric vehicles while BYD revenue today comes far more from recharge-able electronics batteries means that success depends on growth of the elec-tric vehicle market (which has been overhyped in the past).

BYD runs the risk of squandering its dominant position in rechargeable batteries as a whole. Further, BYD’s dependence on labor will be shown as wages rise in China.

Analysts also criticize Wang’s run-ning of BYD as being something of a one-man show that lacks management depth.

Arguments to continue to expand outside China or focus domestically

Largest single market in the

world: Expected $1.5 billion

in revenue from electric

vehicles by 2017

Raw material advantage with

>90% of rare earth reserves

and 2nd most lithium in the

world

Production in China provides

a 25% cost advantage in

labor/manufacturing costs

BYD is the leading producer

of electric car in China

and has become to build

infrastructure for electrical

vehicle owners

BYD is the leading producer

of electric cars in China,

holding a dominant market

position

BYD holds the dominant

position in rechargeable

batteries.

Chinese regulations require

foreign firms to enter the

country via joint ventures

with local firms

Focus only on China will

ignore the significant

expected world growth,

especially in North America

and Europe for electric

vehicles

Raw materials also found in

Argentina, Chile and Bolivia

Rising worker wages will

decrease this advantage

Many countries currently have

government subsidies for

electronic vehicles making it

more likely for there to be an

expanded consumer base

Raw materials for production

can still be obtained in China

regardless of final destination

of vehicles

Production could continue

to be in China with shipping

globally

Production could be moved to

regions with cheaper labour

BYD has created a unique

niche in providing electric

public transportation

BYD products, particularly

the Qin EV the e6 EV and the

F3DM hybrid, at half the price

of the Prius, could sell well

in Europe

BYD has successfully created

multiple JVs in several

countries

Each country has a relatively

small customer base

Tesla has a significant head

start in building charging

infrastructure in US and

Europe

High competition in US

and parts of Europe due to

inroads made by Tesla

There is current western

belief that Chinese products

are low quality making it

difficult to enter western

markets

Dealer networks are also a

barrier to entry in developed

markets

Market size

Raw materials

Production costs

Infrastructure

Competition

SOLE CHINA FOCUS

Pros Cons

EXPAND GLOBALLY

Pros Cons

BACK TO BASICS


Tesla Motors has huge plans — the gi-gafactory — to make and use billion s of Li-ion cells by 2017. Both the Tesla Model S and Model X electric vehi-cles get their electrical energy from the 18650 cell, a format that also pow-ers laptops and medical devices. The 18650 cell measures 18mm in diameter and is 65mm long.

A cylindrical cell in a metallic case has advantages over the prismatic ar-chitecture and pouch pack by being more durable, but cylinders are heavy and have a low packaging density as a cluster. A battery pack for a Tesla vehi-cle deploys over 7,000 cells, and to get the desired voltage and amperage, the cells are connected in series and paral-lel. Figure 1 illustrates the 18650 cells.

At 85kWh, the Tesla Model S has by far the largest battery in an electric car in terms of watt-hours; it also deliv-ers the longest driving range between charges. In comparison, the Nissan Leaf comes with a 24kWh pack; the Ford Focus EV has 23kWh and the Chevy Volt 16kWh for corresponding shorter driving ranges.

An 85kWh battery holds enough en-ergy to provide a US household with electrical needs for almost three days. But batteries must be charged and this draws heavily on the grid. They are also expensive; an EV battery has the price tag of an economy car.

Lithium ion batteries come in many

variations and Tesla chose the less com-mon nickel cobalt aluminum chemistry (NCA) for the S-Model. Made by Pa-nasonic, the cell is rated at 3,100mAh, a specifi c energy that is slightly higher than most contenders.

Balancing the advantagesOther advantages of the NCA are high specifi c power for exuberant accelera-tion and long life. The negatives are high cost and a lower safety margin than other Li-ion systems.

Figure 2 outlines six of the most im-portant characteristics of a battery in a spider web. NCA offers high specifi c energy and power, as well as a long life span. Increased manufacturing cost and

lower safety margin are negatives. Batteries for the electric powertrain

need high loading and a long life, and the NMC is another popular Li-ion system. NMC stands for nickel-manga-nese-cobalt and is also used in e-bikes, power tools and military and medical devices. The cathode consists of one-third nickel, one-third manganese and one-third cobalt. This unique blend lowers the raw material cost due to re-duced cobalt content.

Figure 3 demonstrates the charac-teristics of the NMC. NMC has good overall performance and excels on spe-cifi c energy. Typical applications are electric powertrains and portable de-vices. NMC has the lowest self-heating rate.

Another popular Li-ion system for electric powertrains is lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4). Its strengths lay in long life and superior safety, but the chemistry lacks specifi c energy. A fur-ther tradeoff is the lower nominal volt-age of 3.3V/cell rather than the custom-ary 3.6V/cell of other Li-ion systems.

Figure 4 summarizes the attributes of Li-phosphate. Li-phosphate has excel-lent safety margins and a long life span but offers moderate specifi c energy and elevated self-discharge.

Lithium-ion has much improved. In 1994, the capacity of an 18650 cell was 1,100mAh with a manufacturing cost of over $10. In 2001, the price dropped to $2 and the capacity rose to 1,900mAh.

Today, high energy-dense 18650 cells deliver over 3,000mAh and the costs have gone down further. This, however, does not come without compromise. Newer cells are more delicate than old-er ones this can affect the cycle count.

A Swiss manufacturer of upscale e-bikes did a comparison of older and newer cells. They use the NMC 18650 cell by Panasonic and LG Chem. The early version had 2Ah and delivered 80% after the onboard battery man-

Safe charging for the Li-ion battery

Figure 2: Snapshot of NCA spider web

Specific energy

Performance

Life span

Cost

Safety

Specific power

Figure 3: Snapshot of NMC

Specific energy

Performance

Life span

Cost

Safety

Specific power

Figure 4: A typical LiFePO4 battery

Specific energy

Performance

Life span

Cost

Safety

Specific power

The right way to charge lithium ion batteries is vital in terms of its battery life and safety, says Isidor Buchmann, founder of Cadex International and creator of the Batteries University.

Figure 1: 18650 cell format used for lithium-ion cells.

The cell measures 18mm in diameter and is

65mm long. Each battery pack for the Tesla

cars use over 7000 of these cells connected

in series and parallel.

BACK TO BASICS


agement systems (BMS) indicated 1000 cycles.

Then came the 2.2Ah NMC and the capacity dropped to 70% after 1000 cycles. The 3Ah NMC used today drops to 60% after 1000 cycles. It should be noted that the end-capacity of newer cells is still higher that the older ones; the 3Ah cell retained 1.8Ah after drop-ping 60% whereas the 2Ah cell ended up with only 1.6Ah after its 20% drop.

EV batteries must carry an eight-year warranty. To achieve this, a new battery may only charge to 80% and discharge to 30%. As the battery loses capacity with age, the BMS gradually increases the charging bandwidth to maintain a repeatable driving range.

With the eventual full bandwidth in place, the battery will be stressed more, refl ecting in a quicker drop in perfor-mance and reduction of driving range.

A delicate touchCold temperature causes the perfor-mance of all batteries to drop. A bitter cold also makes charging more diffi -cult, especially with Li-ion. Charging is more delicate that discharging; the ability to use a battery at low temper-ature does not automatically permit charging under these same conditions.

Careless charging at low tempera-tures can infl ict permanent damage to the battery.

Li-ion should not be charged below 0°C (32°F). Some battery manufactur-ers permit charging down to -10°C (14°F) by reducing the charge current to a tenth of the battery rating, or 0.1C, a charge that would take 12-15 hours on an empty battery.

Charging too fast at low tempera-tures could cause dendrite growth, but manufacturers say that battery safety should not be compromised.

The battery stress is highest at 4.20V/cell when the battery reaches full charge. Keeping a lower voltage also protects the battery during cold-temperature charging and some BMS limit the volt-age and current accordingly. Many EV batteries include a heating blanket to protect the battery when charging at cold temperature. Energy to heat the blanket is available from the grid.

EV owners want ultra-fast charging and technology is available to do so. Although convenient, fast-charging is harmful to the battery. If at all possible, avoid charge times that are less than 90 minutes.

The onboard BMS keeps a record of stressful battery events and histori-cal data can work against a warranty claim. This was the response of a large

European EV manufacturer when the question of ultra-fast charging came up at a recent EV battery convention in London.

Safety is a further concern, but this applies to all batteries.

A one-in-200,000 failure triggered the recall of almost six million lithium-ion batteries in 2006. Sony, the manu-facturer of these cells, said that on rare occasions microscopic metal particles may come into contact with other parts of the battery cell, leading to a short cir-cuit than can cause venting with fl ame.

Li-ion has improved and the failure rate has been reduced to one-in-10 mil-lion. This is reassuring, but the formula of one-in-10 million could cause 200 cells to fail in the batch of two billion that Tesla plans to consume. It is likely the failure rate has gone down further but caution is in place when storing tons of batteries in one place. Fires with battery manufacturers and in ware-housed storing batteries are common.

Little is known on premature aging when batteries are exposed to harsh en-vironmental conditions. Internal shorts and rapid disassembly are of concern, an event that no safety circuit can stop once in progress. The fault occurs inside the cell and the battery must burn out.

The Li-ion battery of Boeing 787 Dreamliner could have failed due to an electric short; the modifi ed battery en-closed in a metal housing will provide a safeguard should a short recur.

All batteries are subject to failure and there is also a reported incident where the battery circuit breaker of a Boe-ing 777 had to be pulled because of an overheating NiCd battery. In the 1970s, the National Transportation Safety Board several battery incidents per year involving the then new nickel-cadmi-um. A redesign eventually made NiCd safe; this will also happen to Li-ion.

Transporting batteries by air remains a concern. There are regulations as to how much metallic (or equivalent) lith-ium can be included in an air shipment.

Some content may go unregistered and the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority found with a reasonable degree of certainty — al-though several in the industry still deny it — that the fi re aboard the UPS 747-

400 freighter was caused by a lithium battery. The aircraft went down on Sep-tember 2010 in the Dubai desert.

New air cargo containers are being developed and tested with material that can withstand intense fi res for up to four hours. The fi re-resistant panels of these air cargo containers consist of fi bre-reinforced plastic composite that snuffs fi re by depriving it of oxygen.

A fi re is easier to put out in the cabin than in the cargo bay and since January 2008 people can no longer pack spare lithium batteries in checked baggage. Airlines allow them as carry-on where fi re extinguishers are available.

Extinguishing laptop fi resA coffee pot served as an extinguish-ing device of a fl aming laptop battery in one incident. Travellers are remind-ed of how many batteries can be car-ried on board in portable devices and as spares. This also includes primary lithium batteries and the maximum measured in grams are:• 2g for lithium batteries. Few consum-

er products use these primary batter-ies today.

• 8g for a secondary lithium-ion. This amounts to a 100Wh battery (a lap-top has about 60Wh)

• 25g for all Li-ion combined. This amounts to 300Wh of Li-ion batteries. While Li-ion is being scrutinized for

safety, other chemistries also exhibit problems. Nickel- and lead-based bat-teries cause fi res too, and some are being recalled. Reasons for failure are defective separators resulting from ag-ing, rough handling, excessive vibration and high-temperature.

Examining 113 recorded incidents of transporting batteries by air in 19 years reveals that most failures occurred due to inappropriate packaging or han-dling. Damaged battery pack and elec-trical short due to careless packaging were the main culprits.

Most incidents happened at airports or in cargo hubs. Problem batteries include primary lithium that contains lithium-metal, as well as lead, nickel and alkaline systems, and not just lith-ium-ion, as is perceived. Modern con-sumer products have very few failures involving Li-ion batteries today.

Careless charging at low temperatures can infl ict permanent damage to the battery. Li-ion should not be charged below 0°C but some battery manufactur-ers permit charging down to -10°C by reducing the charge current to a tenth of the battery rating

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Time to debunk thelithium mythsCase study: growing your business in the teeth of a recession

Excitement: NAATBaat picks Kentucky for HQ

Lead acid fights back

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Why cutting edge lead technology could knockout next generation batteries

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Separating flywheel

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BATTERY COMPANY VALUATIONS

The logic should be unassailable.As the world becomes ever more

reliant upon all manner of gadgets and new technologies — and yet ever more preoccupied with sustainability and energy effi ciency — there is an ever greater need for energy storage.

Or in simpler language. Batteries.

But the power source for so many of the world’s now critical technologies has not kept up with innovation.

Surely then, companies that can engineer breakthroughs in this space will rapidly grow and prosper?

Surely these fi rms must be an inves-tor’s dream? Whether you focus on

the electric car, smart phones, lap-tops or energy storage (solar panels and wind turbines are next to use-less without a complementary bat-tery technology, investors are rapidly learning) the logic is the same: the device is only as good as the battery that powers it or stores the energy it generates.

There is rapid growth, a pressing need and the sector is ripe for new solutions.

If only it were that simple.In fact, the world of batteries is

almost never that simple. While the dynamics described here are all solid, trying to guess on which companies and which companies will prosper in the long term is another matter en-

The dynamics underpinning an industry critical to global development, growth and energy consumption can make battery companies look like attractive investment opportunities — if only it were that simple. Wyn Jenkins reports.

“Everything comes back to cost — more precisely, the total cost of ownership — in the end. Some of the other technologies are great but it is like the chicken and the egg. There are clearly opportunities and op-portunities people can relate to” — Michael Lew, NAATBatt

Place your bets, please…



tirely.Look no further than what has hap-

pened at A123 Systems (bankrupt), Exide Technologies (Chapter 11 since July 2013 and still being restruc-tured), Valence Technology (Chapter 11 in July 2012 but emerged after be-ing restructured last November) and Atraverda (administration although some of its former executives have taken elements of it forward) for proof of the problems and risks in-herent in the sector — for established companies as much as start-ups.

Yet each company that has expe-rienced problems has had its own

unique challenges — it is tough to generalize about the sector in terms of either predicting its future winners or losers.

A fragmented offeringMichael Lew, head of communica-tions at the National Alliance for Ad-vanced Technology Batteries, charac-terizes the sector as “lumpy” from an investment point of view. “In terms of the lead acid side, there are the very established companies such as John-son Controls and EnerSys and it is a very fragmented offering after that,” he says.

“The main thing investors are look-ing for is the potential market and ul-timate usage. The more mature com-panies might get a lower valuation and some of the newer companies a premium — some are seen as sexier and more likely to fundamentally shake up the market.

“But it really varies by battery type and the specifi c end usage and poten-tial of that chemistry. It is very diffi -cult to generalize.”

One of the few trends most com-mentators can agree on is that lead acid is coming back into vogue with investors. After a period when it was almost disregarded as being an old and dirty technology and other chem-istries such as lithium ion and nickel metal hydride appeared to be set to rapidly gain market share, investors have become disillusioned with the slow progress with which that transi-tion has occurred.

Lew says investors now better un-derstand the extent to which much comes down to the all-in cost when it

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“The main thing investors are looking for is the po-tential market and ultimate usage. The more mature companies might get a lower valuation and some of the newer companies a premium — some are seen as sexier and more likely to fundamentally shake up the market. — Michael Lew, NAATBatt



comes to batteries. Lead acid remains the cost leader in many fi elds and has also started to shake-off its reputa-tion as being problematic for the en-vironment. It is now one of the most recycled materials on the planet.

“Everything comes back to cost — more precisely, the total cost of ownership — in the end,” Lew says. “Some of the other technologies are great but it is like the chicken and the egg. There are clearly opportunities and opportunities people can relate to.

“Everyone understands the impor-tance of the electric car and its result-ing potential. But ultimately lead acid technologies are still winning in many areas at the moment because they are often the incumbent technology and are also cheaper.”

Neil Hawkes, commodity analyst at CRU International, agrees that lead acid companies are often seen as a safer bet by investors now.

“Lead acid’s ‘old’ image is fad-ing now and it is being seen in more positive way due to its relatively lower cost compared with competing battery technologies in these cash-strapped times (post credit crunch),” he says. “It is a proven and long-established technology (compared to lithium ion’s safety issues) and its long-established green credentials (re-cycling of lead compared to lithium) are also positives.”

He adds that this dynamic has been increasingly embraced by investors, reinforced as it is by some of the wider trends that are helping position lead acid as increasingly central to the batteries industry and, therefore, in-vestors’ mindsets.

Hawkes says that because lead acid is the preferred technology in mild stop-start hybrid vehicles, led by Europe, this is a plus for investors. Other issues around the high scrap cost prompting higher lead prices as smelters get squeezed is causing com-plications. “But nothing changes par-ticularly quickly in the lead market,” he notes.

Geoffrey May, director of Focus Consulting, also agrees that the up-side is nowhere near as attractive for investors — it might be a safer option but the potential returns are small in comparison.

“Lead acid is of greater interest at present because of new innovations in stop and start and micro-hybrid bat-teries as well as an overall increase in demand that seems to be sustainable in the medium and longer-term,” May

says. “However, the industry is domi-nated by a small number of very large players that, Exide excepted, are large and relatively stable.”

He groups Johnson Controls, East Penn, EnerSys and GS Yuasa together in this context. The problem is, he says, that the opportunities for con-solidation are limited. “Some of the medium players such as Banner and FIAMM are family owned and seem to be determined to remain so.

“Exide is an unknown at present and has to restructure more radically to survive and prosper. Having said that lead acid is of greater interest, it is nonetheless a low margin business, particularly for automotive where the lead cost dominates the factory gate price.”

He agrees that the dynamics of the industry are slow to change but men-tions that there has been some recent developments that have caught inves-tors’ attention around the potential of lithium ion. “Exide is still there [in Chapter 11] a year on so that tells you something. For lithium ion in the HEV/EV fi eld there has been some evolution. More manufacturers are offering EVs and HEVs (eg BMW) and Tesla is grabbing headlines with talk of a super-plant to build EV bat-teries,” he says.

Not all investors are alike, however.Andrew Haughian, partner, Pan-

gaea Ventures, a venture capital busi-ness that invests in start-up compa-nies with disruptive breakthrough innovation in chemistry and material science, says this dynamic and senti-ment towards lead acid depends on the type of investor. In his business, it

“Lead acid is nonetheless a low margin business, particularly for automo-tive where the lead cost dominates the factory gate price” — Geoff May, Focus Consulting

For a gauge of how stock market investors currently view battery stocks though, it is worth paying close attention to certain deals that some view as industry markers. Substantial listings involving battery companies do not come along very often so when they do investors watch with keen interest.Blue Solutions, an electric car battery manufacturer, completed its initial public offering (IPO) on Euronext last October. Its owner, Billionaire French businessman Vincent Bollore, listed around 10 percent of the business mainly, he said at the time, to raise awareness more than cash. He has said he wants to turn Blue Solutions from a €40-million operation to a company with annual sales of €1.5 billion by 2022. The company’s stock listed at the top end of the range at €14.50 a share, valuing the company at the time

at €530 million. It was 15 times oversubscribed. Since then, the stock’s value has risen consistently and dramatically peaking at €40 a share and maintaining a steady level of €35 to €38 a share.

LET THE MARKETS DECIDE



remains the start-ups selling the ben-efi ts of distributive chemistries and technologies that will catch the eye.

“Venture capital investors are drawn to new breakthrough tech-nologies such as entirely new battery chemistries that have the potential to displace incumbent technologies or open up new markets enabled by entirely new combinations of perfor-mance and cost,” he says.

“While lead acid technology has seen somewhat of a technology re-naissance in recent years there are many people working in this area and it is hard envision this not resulting to an eventual return to the unattractive normal of high capital expenditure and low margins.”

One counter argument to this, how-ever, made by some investors is that only the bigger incumbent players are likely to be able to afford the sort of investment required to design and manufacture a new battery technol-ogy capable of dominating a market.

The likes of Johnson Controls, which is valued at over $23 billion, boasts over 100 scientists in research and development, increasing the com-pany’s chances of making the next-best discovery in battery science.

Another player that falls into such a category is General Electric, which has a major stake in lithium batteries. The company has invested heavily in its research and development on bat-teries, and sees potential in many ar-eas relating to battery power.

Finally, there are fi rms such as Poly-pore International. Valued at nearly $2 billion, the company is still rela-tively small compared to its counter-parts but its Celgard division, a mak-er of a separator material, has been tipped by Lew to achieve big things.

If proof were needed that it is tough to generalize about the strength of batteries companies, consider the recent plight of two batteries fi rms that have enjoyed contrasting futures in the past 12 months: Exide Technologies and EnerSys .

Exide Technologies’ US operations fi led for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year for the second time in 11 years. The investment community remains split about what the future might hold for troubled automotive battery maker as they await restructuring plans to be released.

The company gave two specifi c reasons for its decision to fi le: the loss of a big contract with Wal-Mart worth some $160 million annually and the forced suspension of production at a Vernon, California, lead recycling facility on environmental grounds, a move it says will cost wipe about $24 million off projected earnings.

Commentators, however, say its troubles ran much deeper.

They cite structural diffi culties, poor management and a far too highly leveraged balance sheet, an issue compounded by poor sales on its European operation following a mild winter experienced in Europe a couple of years ago.

A big part of the company’s business revolves around supplying replacement batteries in vehicles with the highest level of demand coming during bad winters. This particular mild winter led to a substantial drop in sales. That has caused it cash fl ow problems.

The company faced $31 million in interest payments in August 2013 and the maturity of nearly $52 million in convertible notes in September. It listed assets of about $1.9 billion and debts of $1.1 billion in its

Chapter 11 petition. The bankruptcy only applies to its US operations; its global business arms are not directly affected.

The fact is, almost 12 months on, the company has still not emerged suggesting its troubles are far from easy to solve. It will be interesting to see in what form the company re-emerges.

In contrast, industrial battery producer EnerSys has enjoyed a very buoyant period, its stock price climbing steadily during what has been a 18 month period of strong performance and good news.

The company has consistently beaten expectations and has produced results exceeding analysts’ forecasts. Over the last three years, its revenues jumped from $1.58 billion to $2.4 billion while profi ts more than doubled to $150.3 million from $62.3 million.

Unlike Exide, EnerSys is a low debt company and has a debt equity ratio of just 0.2. The stock trades at an attractive price earnings multiple of 22.4.

The company has also been busy making acquisitions. Last year, it bought Purcell Systems, a designer, manufacturer and marketer of thermally managed electronic equipment and battery cabinet enclosures, for $115 million, a deal fi nanced using existing cash and credit facilities.

This year, it acquired UTS Holdings and its subsidiaries Battery Power International and IE Technologies – suppliers of motive power and reserve power solutions within the Southeast Asian markets. The company said the deal built on its strategy of expansion into the fast growing markets of Asia. The company is making the cash and is happy to spend it, it seems.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST “Venture capital investors are drawn to new breakthrough technologies such as entirely new battery chemistries that have the potential to displace incumbent technologies or open up new markets enabled by entirely new combinations of performance and cost”

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AUTOMOTIVE BATTERY HISTORY


The big date in the history of batter-ies for today’s makers of electric cars has little to do with cars in any shape or form that we would recognize them.

But it was vital to the modern world that was eventually to emerge.

It was September 13, 1838. The location: the River Neva, close to St Petersburg in Russia. The vehicle: a seven metre electric boat — the Elek-trokhod — containing volunteers.

The two protagonists in this historic event were from different worlds.

The fi rst in faraway London was John Daniell, an English chemist and inventor of the Daniell cell — a prima-ry battery of 320 couples, containing plates of zinc and copper, 36 square inches each, and excited by a charge of sulphuric acid and sulphate of copper.

The second was professor Moritz Jacobi, a German physicist and distin-guished academic who was research-ing the early electric batteries, at the

Russian Academy of Science and mas-termind behind the Elektrokhod.

The result was a success. Or at least of sorts. The boat surged at a steady couple of knots. But it gave out ni-trous fumes in such quantities that is was compared to the volumes of smoke seen from that latest motive en-

gine, the steam train. The experiment was discontinued.

But Jacobi didn’t give up. The fol-lowing year, Jacobi’s new e-boat was equipped with a battery of 64 cells on a system recently developed by 28-year-old Welsh scientist, William Grove of Swansea. The Russian fi -nance minister supplied 16kg of plati-num made up into 64 pairs of plates, measuring 36 square inches each. This battery was one fi fth the size of the one used the previous year and was charged with concentrated nitric and sulphuric acids.

But the power of this motor reached only 0.75hp and the boat, with

14 passengers on board, reached a disappointing speed of 3 mph.

Meanwhile, Robert Davidson, a manufacturing chemist based in Ab-erdeen, Scotland, had been developing his own battery to power his electric railway locomotive, the Galvani. This consisted of consisted of plates of iron and amalgamated zinc. These plates could be raised or lowered into the sulphuric acid in the wooden trough to give a primitive form of speed con-trol by varying the effective internal resistance of the battery. The Galvani reached a heady 4mph on the Edin-

The early years: the rise and fall of the automotive battery and the electric car

The history of electric vehicles may have been told and retold, but the same issues that bug the present electric car industry — capacity, range, safety and energy — have been concerns from the outset. Batteries International historian Kevin Desmond recalls the early years.

The boat surged at a steady couple of knots. But it gave out nitrous fumes in such quantities that is was compared to the volumes of smoke seen from that latest motive engine, the steam train. The experiment was discontinued

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burgh to Glasgow line in 1842,In 1851 the action moved to the US.

Perhaps the most sensational of the tests was that of Charles Page whose e-locomotive reached 19 mph on a test run near Washington. However, the US government was unimpressed by the way in which his batteries dis-solved in clouds of choking acid fumes and refused to provide further funds.

If only somebody would come up with a battery that could be recharged.

The answer came in 1858. Gaston Planté, 24-year-old French physicist working at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris, invented the lead-acid battery. His fi rst model contained two sheets of lead, separated by rub-ber strips, rolled into a spiral, and im-mersed in a solution containing about 10% sulphuric acid.

A year later, Planté developed a bat-tery consisting of nine of the elements, housed in a protective box with the terminal connected in parallel.

But it was Planté’s fellow coun-tryman Camille Faure who in 1881 further improved the lead-acid bat-tery’s storage capacity. He patented a method of coating lead plates with a paste of lead oxides, sulphuric acid

and water, which was then cured by being gently warmed in a humid at-mosphere. The curing process caused the paste to change to a mixture of lead sulphates which adhered to the lead plate.

During charging the cured paste was converted into electrochemically ac-tive material (the “active mass”) and gave a substantial increase in capacity compared with Planté’s battery.

Rechargeable magicOnce the innovation of storage cells — now called secondary cells — was made possible by the reversible chemi-cal reactions of its elements, the cells could be recharged and used again, and again.

One of the very fi rst to make used of Faure’s battery was the Paris inven-tor Gustave Trouvé who used these batteries to test out the world’s fi rst electric tricycle. Yes, the battery was fi nally reaching the road, though not yet in four-wheeled form!

Trouvé modifi ed an English Cov-entry-Rotary tricycle so that its two smaller wheels were each driven by a little 5kg motor: a Faure battery of six accumulators gave the current;

the weight of the vehicle raised up to 160kg, and gave a speed of 12km/h.

Almost at exactly the same time, in Paris, Nicolas Raffard and Edmond Julien powered their prototype street-car with 225 Faure cells. Weighing over two tonnes, they were housed un-der the car’s seats. This cumbersome car had steerable front axles which allowed it to be run off the rails for short distances. The following year, additional tests were operated with the number of battery cells increased to 375.

On one trip the car ran from the workshops to Versailles and back without the batteries being recharged.

The age of the electric vehicle looked set to be close.

Even before electric traction had proved itself, business treachery was interfering. While Simon Phillipart and Faure were over in England set-ting up an English company, Volck-mar and Phillipart Jr abused the trust placed in them by trying to sell off certain patent rights without the ap-proval of the directors.

Battery skulduggeryWhile Simon Phillipart set up the Eng-lish Faure Co with Sir William Thomp-son as consultant with manufacture to begin in Liverpool as of April 1882, Volckmar and Phillipart’s son, Gus-tave, joined forces with John Sellon of the Anglo-America Brush Company who had obtained provisional protec-tion for a pasted type plate, differing from that of Camille Faure’s, in that

While Simon Phillipart and Faure were over to Eng-land setting up an English company, Volckmar and Phillipart Jr abused the trust placed in them by trying to sell off certain patent rights without the approval of the directors.

Gaston Planté in later life, but the then 24-year-old French physicist working at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris, invented the lead-acid battery in 1858



the active material was pasted into a grid instead of being held by a felt wrapping to the surface of a plain roughed lead plate.

The weakness of Faure’s design had been that the red lead applied to the lead plates was so friable that with vi-bration would lose its grip, fall to the bottom of the battery container, elec-trically shorting the positive and nega-tive plates.

John Sellon also acquired from Jo-seph, the English light bulb inventor, a method of keying the active mate-rial by punching holes in the plates, so providing a battery purchase for the red lead. Their Electrical Power Stor-age Company was formed in March 1882 to manufacture the Swan-Sell-on-Volckmar accumulator.

“Discharged employees”At fi rst, the British Faure Company tried to discredit EPS claiming in-fringement of patent rights developed by “discharged employees”. The fl edg-ling battery industry already seemed to be in trouble before it had even got underway.

In May 1882, the Faure Company abandoned its threat of litigation and patent rights were given by the Faure Company to the EPS Company through a mutual exchange of shares.

By 1883 no fewer than 11 concerns were engaged in the manufacture of Faure accumulators.

These ranged from “La Force et La Lumière” of Paris; Faure Electric Ac-cumulator Company of London; Force & Power Co of New York, USA; the French Metropolitan Electric Car-riage Company; EPS of London; India and Oriental Electric Power Storage Company — and even the Australa-sian Electric Light and Power Storage Company Following litigation in the USA, the two American companies combined into the Electric Accumula-tor Company of New York.

In June 1883, Simon Phillipart was placed under arrest in Paris for alleg-edly contravening the French Com-pany’s Act in matters appertaining to the French EPS Company. Things had

gone wrong when Phillipart had re-fused to prosecute EPS for piracy.

By 1884 Phillipart was bankrupt — showing even from the earliest days of the battery business that the energy storage industry has had far more fail-ures than other types of business. This followed the failure of “Force et Lu-mière”, and the French EPS Company and the French Metropolitan Carriage Company.

With the closure of the Faure Accu-mulator Company, three ex-employees joined the British EPS staff. Antony Reckenzaun who became chief engi-neer, was to play as vital a pioneering role in electric traction in England, as Trouvé in France.

Commercialization advancesThe EPS Company became the fi rst real concern to manufacture batteries on a commercial scale, and with the acquired Faure rights, held a monop-oly until later manufacturers made a success of the Planté plates.

The EPS works at Lollar Wharf in East London began serious busi-ness from 1882 by supplying lighting plants for businesses and private resi-dences. Batteries were offered in 1, 2 and 5 electrical horsepower sizes, later known as L15, L31, and L59 types.

In 1882/3 EPS provided accumula-tors for both an e-tricycle and a retro-fi tted tugboat using 45 Planté accu-mulators, weighing 2,700lb, modifi ed

Determined to store more electrical energy in the growing fl eets of tramcars, in 1888, Edmund Julien further improved the lead acid battery. By adding mercury to the antimony/lead alloy, he greatly reduced the internal resistance of the battery, lengthened its life and lifted its energy density from 12.6 watt-hours per kilo up to 23.8 watt/hours per kilo. This would enable an EV to travel at 10 mph for 40-50 miles without re-charging.



by Selon and Volckmar to total 96

volts and supply power for six hours. And a retro-fi tted tramcar with two

tonnes of EPS cells, arranged on roll-er-mounted trays underneath the seats for ease of removal. In 1886 when the Volta became the fi rst electric launch to cross the English Channel, her en-ergy came from a 70-cell accumulator powering a 4hp motor for a speed of 8 mph.

By the end of 1887 some 15 launch-es, with EPS batteries, had been sup-plied, including a launch which must have brought a decisive touch of mo-dernity when it fi rst made its appear-ance among the gondolas on the an-cient canals of Venice.

In those days the storage batteries were derogatively nicknamed ‘pickled amperes’!

Determined to store more electrical energy in the growing fl eets of tram-cars, in 1888, Edmund Julien further improved the lead acid battery. By adding mercury to the antimony/lead alloy, he greatly reduced the internal resistance of the battery, lengthened its life and lifted its energy density from 12.6 watt-hours per kilo up to 23.8 watt/hours per kilo. This would enable an EV to travel at 10 mph for 40-50 miles without re-charging.

The same year, 1888, when the 68ft Viscountess Bury, the world’s largest electric vehicle, took to the waters of the River Thames, a staggering 200 EPS lead-acid cells of 145 Ah capacity gave energy to her 12hp mo-tor.

But was lead-acid the best couple? Extreme-ly heavy, the acid cor-roded the lead inside the battery, shorten-ing the useful life of

the battery.

Nickel-cadmium joins the fraySwedish inventor Waldemar Jungner took a different approach. In 1899, from his experiments with nickel-cadmium, Jungner experimented with substituting iron for the cadmium in varying proportions, including 100% iron.

Jungner had already discovered that the main disadvantage of the nickel–cadmium chemistry was cost, but due to the lower effi ciency of the charging reaction and more pronounced forma-tion of hydrogen (gassing), the nickel–iron technology was found wanting and abandoned.

Jungner then built batteries of the silver-cadmium type to supply the mo-tive power for motor cars, and these batteries were tested in Stockholm in 1900 with satisfactory results.

After each charge it was possible to drive 140km-150km. However, the silver was considered too expensive in this connection and cadmium too rare.

Meanwhile, in 1891, inventor Thomas Edison also began looking for a way to make batteries lighter, more reliable, and at least three times more powerful so that they could become the basis of a successful electric car. Edison and his team at Menlo Park conducted tests of all sorts of metals

and other materials, looking for those that would work best in batteries.

The tests numbered in the thousands and lasted until 1903, when he fi nally declared his battery fi nished. The bat-tery used potassium hydroxide, which reacted with the battery’s iron and nickel electrodes to create a battery with a strong output that was reliable and rechargeable.

Having tested his battery in a car two years before, the Wizard of Men-lo Park now fi tted one into a boat he called the Reliant. He tested it out during cruises up and down the Ca-loosahatchee River at Fort Myers, Florida — where his winter home was fronted.

Soon after, William Vanderbilt, the business tycoon, ordered an elec-tric launch, the Alva, from Charles Seabury’s yard. 30ft long with a draft of 2ft the Alva was capable of seating between 25 to 30 people.

True to character, Edison announced the new battery with great fanfare and made bold claims about its per-formance. Manufacturers and users of electric vehicles, which now included many urban delivery and transport trucks, began buying them.

Then stories about battery failures started coming out.

Many of the batteries began to leak, and others lost much of their power after a short while. The new nickel-graphite conductors were failing. En-gineers who tested the batteries found that while lightweight, the new alka-line battery did not signifi cantly out-perform an ordinary lead-acid battery.

Edison shut down the factory imme-diately and between 1905 and 1908, the whole battery was redesigned.

Edison came up with a new design, and although the new battery used more expensive materials, it had bet-ter performance and more power. By 1910, battery production was again underway at a new factory near the West Orange, New Jersey laboratory.

Thereafter the Edison Battery went

Thomas Edison also began looking for a way to make batteries lighter, more reliable, and at least three times more powerful so that they could become the basis of a successful electric car. Edison and his team at Menlo Park conducted tests of all sorts of metals and other materials, looking for those that would work best in batteries.

AUTOMOTIVE BATTERRYYYY HHHHISTORY

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back into use as the energy source for electric vehicles such as the Detroit Electric and Baker Electric. Custom-ers were given an option: a recharge-able lead-acid battery, or for an addi-tional $600— about $8,000 in today’s money — an Edison nickel-iron bat-tery was available.

The cars were advertised as reliably getting 80 miles (130km) between battery recharging, while in one test a Detroit Electric ran 211.3 miles on a single charge. Top speed was only about 20 mph — but this was consid-ered adequate for driving within city or town limits at the time.

Exide, the excellent oxideThere were other options available: The Electric Storage Battery Com-pany, found by Warren W Gibbs, pro-duced a chloride accumulator, based on the patents of a French émigré in-ventor Clément Payen.

As demand increased, in 1900, the ESBC developed a lighter product of greater capacity they trade-named Exide, short for “Excellent Oxide.” In 1901, the Columbia Mark III Elec-tric Vehicle carried a Exide battery, consisting of 44 chloride cells, with

a capacity of 75 ampère-hours at a three-hour rate, its makers claiming a mileage of 35 miles over ordinary roads.

To overcome the limited operat-ing range of electric vehicles, and the lack of recharging infrastructure, an exchangeable battery service was fi rst proposed as early as 1896. Just over a century later the same idea — en-countering the same problems of price and range — achieved prominence for a while.

The concept was fi rst put into prac-tice by Hartford Electric Light Com-pany through the GeVeCo battery ser-vice and initially available for electric trucks.

The vehicle owner bought the ve-hicle from General Vehicle Company (GVC, a subsidiary of General Elec-tric) without a battery and the electricity came from Hartford Electric through an exchange-able battery. The owner paid a variable per-mile charge and a monthly service fee to cover maintenance and storage of the truck. Both vehicles and batteries were modifi ed to facilitate a fast battery ex-change.

The service was provided between 1910 to 1924 and during that period covered more than 6 million miles. Beginning in 1917 a similar successful service was oper-ated in Chicago for owners of Milburn Light Electric cars who also could buy the vehicle without the bat-teries.

Higher speed electric vehicles wsere also being examined. When in 1899, Camille Jenatzy drove his rocket-shaped Jamais Contente to a top speed of 105.88km/h (66 mph), his lead-acid Fulmen bat-teries (80 elements) ac-counted for almost half of the total weight of the 1.5 tonne projectile.

They consisted of honeycomb lead plates — essentially a forerunner of the idea that persists today in creating a greater surface area for the electro-lyte to react — fi lled with lead oxide which were inserted in perforated cel-luloid envelopes.

In terms of range, that same year, two American engineers covered 100 miles on a single charge. In 1909, Emil Gruenfeldt of the Baker Motor Vehi-cle Company covered 161 miles on a single charge in his Baker Electric Roadster.

1912 could well be the high point of EV acceptance in America with a host of companies making them, and over 34,000 registered electrics — two-thirds of them passenger cars — in the US alone. About 6,000 electric cars and trucks were being manufactured

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1912 was the high point of EV acceptance in America with some 20 companies making them, and over 34,000 registered electrics — two-thirds of them passenger cars — in the US alone. About 6,000 electric cars and trucks were being manufactured annually.



Electric car-makers organized and held their own auto show. The Ameri-can Automobile Association issued road maps showing where electric vehicles could be recharged and ser-viced. Studebaker electric cars were sold until the sales peak reached in 1912; Ryker, Morrison, Anthony Electric, and the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company of Philadelphia, all continued to sell their cars until 1914.

But electric cars were limited to ur-ban use by their slow speed (no more than 15mph–20 mph) and also by their heavy and maintenance demand-ing low range batteries (30–40 miles). Rapid-refuel petrol cars were now able to travel farther and faster than equivalent electrics.

Ironically, it was the power source of the electric car, the battery, led to its demise through Charles Kettering’s in-vention in 1912 of the electric starter motor, making petrol cars easier to op-erate. That year’s Cadillac became the fi rst battery-started car with an internal combustion engine, produced with the Electric Storage Battery Company and Kettering.

In 1915, Harry Dey invented a revo-lutionary concept in electric auto de-sign which both replaced differential gearing and permitted the motor to act as a generator to help recharge the battery when the car went downhill.

Dey’s associate, Charles Steinmetz, the foremost car expert of the day — and also the patent holder for the fi rst three-phase alternating current gen-erator — endorsed the the design and predicted it would permit electrics to overtake gasoline-powered cars.

Steinmetz was right. Or more or less so. But just a century wrong in his pre-diction.

Seven years later, Steinmetz dem-onstrated a short-haul electric truck, which could carry a 1,500 lb load and could climb a two-block long 14.5 degree hill in 51 seconds. He also de-signed an electric car that could travel 200 miles on one charge, attain speeds of up to 40 mph, weighed 2,000 lb. and could sell for less than $1,000.

Steinmetz had a long relationship with the motor industry. Legend has it, when retained by Henry Ford, af-

ter a complex system had gone down and which no one could fi x, Steinmetz examined the broken system, found the mal-functioning part, and marked it with a piece of chalk. He submitted a bill for $10,000.

Ford, upset over the bill asked for an item-ized invoice.

Steinmetz sent it back:...making chalk mark $1... knowing where to place it $9,999.

Steinmetz died in 1923 and his company, the Steinmetz Motor Car Corp, soon folded, due to poor manage-ment, without ever producing the car and only a few trucks.

Despite such valiant efforts to fi ght back, by the 1920s electric vehicles had come to mean ‘trucks’ — fork-lift trucks, short distance delivery vehi-cles, golf-carts ... and all with lead-acid batteries.

End of an eraThe age of the electric automotive car had come and gone. Within a decade and a half of Kettering’s invention, the internal combustion engine had taken over as the de facto standard for cars. The 50 or so electric car makers in the US quickly closed their doors al-though a couple lasted into the early 1940s.

The last fi llip to the electric car came with the Second World War. With pet-rol even being rationed in the US, older electric vehicles were re-serviced and put to work once more. It was a short-lived reprise.

In Europe the scarcity of petrol pro-voked a great deal of engineering inge-nuity, most particularly after the Ger-man occupation of France in 1940. Perhaps most interesting was the alu-minium CGE-Tudor as designed by Jean Grégoire, with a normal range of 90km per charge. Production of the Grégoire was authorized by the Germans on condition that the ma-jority were exported to Germany.

Though two cars a week were made for nearly two years, so far as is known none left France.

One was offered to the director of a biscuit factory in exchange for his weight in biscuits. On September 11, 1942 Gregoire in a special CGE Tudor covered 155 miles at 26mph on the Paris-Tours road, without re-charging.

It was only in the early 1940s that France’s Henri Andre resulted in a commercially viable, truly silver zinc rechargeable battery, the use of cello-phane as a separator to retard the mi-gration of silver species from the posi-tive to the negative electrodes, which caused the early failure of previous versions of the system.

Post-war oil rationing in Japan led carmaker Tama, later the Prince Motor Company and which fi nally merged into Nissan, to release in 1966, a 4.5hp electric car with a 40V lead acid battery.

But for the next 50 years — with only a few brave pioneers in between who never managed to achieve the mass-adoption that they sought — electric vehicles were considered as belonging to the wild west of the car business.

And, oddly, when an EV revival re-surged in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the range of most vehicles was less than the heavyweight lead acid bat-teries that had been carried so succes-fully a century beforehand.

Steinmetz submitted a bill for $10,000 to Henry Ford who — indignant — asked for an itemized invoice. Steinmetz sent it back.... Making chalk mark $1,... Knowing where to place it, $9,999.



Interlinking chainsMoving away from which chemistry may or may not win through in the future, investors must also consider the many interconnected factors that determine the long-term potential and profi tability of battery companies. And some of these issues are unique to the battery industry.

Firstly, although it is natural for most investors to focus on the end user of a product and the size, growth potential and competition within that market, investors in battery compa-nies must also look the other way.

Almost all battery manufacturers have exposure to supply chains of various shapes and sizes, which can both benefi t and or hinder the risk profi le of companies.

Lew says investors have become in-creasingly aware of these risks in re-

cent years.“In the past, all that investors

would consider was the end market and the opportunities there. These days, they are more aware of volatil-ity in the supply chain. Lithium has risks associated with the mining side, for example. “This is defi antly more of a factor now.”

Hawkes at CRU says that this dy-namic can be traced right back to the availability and pricing of the raw materials. Some chemistries, such as nickel-metal hydride, are reliant on relatively rare minerals such as lan-thanum, causing a supply chain risk. In the case of lead, the robustness of the problem but the price of lead in the secondary markets is another matter again.

“The higher cost of scrap, caused by more smelters fi ghting for scrap, has

become a major issue in pushing up lead prices paid by lead acid battery makers,” says Hawkes. “They increas-ingly cannot fully absorb these and have to pass on some of the higher cost of making a lead acid battery (due to higher cost of lead) to their customers (vehicle makers, telecom companies etc).

“The varying ability of each lead acid battery maker to control more of its own lead needs, through a combination of owning its own lead smelters, tolling through other smelt-ers — and having their own battery collection network, may become a key factor in valuing each company.”

Haughian at Pangaea Ventures says considerations around supply chains and the availability of materials are always factored into valuations. But the potential of the end markets re-mains the greater focus for investors.

“I believe in effi cient markets and as with any industry, valuations are based on underlying growth and prof-itably assumptions,” he says. “Supply chain specifi c considerations are built into underlying valuation models and raw material volatility is absolutely a factor that would impact profi tability assumptions that are used.

“Any technology or company that is seen to be either the pioneer and/ or dominant player in a particular segment will absolutely be rewarded with a premium valuation. Rightfully so as in this industry there are signifi -cant barriers to entry created by IP and setting technology standards and these advantages are usually captured by the fi rst mover.”

Choose high or lowBut just as different types of investor will look for different things within the same company, different inves-tors will also consider different parts of the value chain itself. May at Focus Consulting says he believes the suppli-ers to battery companies can represent a better investment than battery com-panies themselves.

“I believe that component and mate-rials suppliers, particularly companies that make separators, electrode ma-terials and electrolyte and especially focused on lithium ion chemistries, are more attractive than the battery sector itself,” he says. “The margins are higher and new innovations easier to value. There are also opportunities in the lead acid area for additives and new electrode structures.”

In contrast, Haughian says venture capital money, seeking much higher

“While lead acid technology has seen somewhat of a technology renaissance in recent years there are many people working in this area and it is hard envision this not resulting to an eventual return to the unattractive normal of high capital expenditure and low margins” — Andrew Haughian, Pangaea Ventures



returns, will always head towards the other end of the chain.

“Most venture capital investors pre-fer investing in opportunities further up the value chain where there is the potential to use product differentia-tion as a platform for identifying early adopter markets that speed time to market and establish credibility while at the same time setting the stage for eventual penetration into the largest markets,” he says.

“The potential for government funding to support the early days is also much greater the further you are to the top. Further down the supply chain, project equity investors com-bined with strategic investors that can play their part in terms of materials supply chain, manufacturing capital project delivery are the most likely combination.”

Lumpy marketsMay agrees with Lew’s characteriza-tion of the batteries market itself as “lumpy”. Each sector has to be ana-lysed individually taking its respective challenges and market dynamics into account.

The lithium ion business is in two parts, he says, consumer lithium ion batteries, which are established and supplied from China, Korea and Ja-pan, and lithium ion batteries, which are used for HEVs and EVs.

“This sector is oversupplied and un-developed,” he says. “The consumer side is very competitive. The HEV and EV side needs to shake out before the values of any particular businesses are clear.”

In terms of nickel-metal hydride, the consumer side is dominated by China and very competitive, May says, while the products for HEVs are more or less exclusively PEVE, the joint ven-ture between Toyota and Panasonic) and Sanyo/Panasonic. “This is an im-portant sector as most HEVs use Ni-MH today but it is potentially threat-ened by lithium ion and is unlikely to change ownership,” he says.

There are also other outside run-ners, he says. “There are opportuni-ties in new battery chemistries for ap-plications such as utility load levelling or power conditioning but these are riskier bets both on technology and because this is not yet an established market.”

For all the vagaries and recent fail-ures by companies in this sector, how-ever, Lew says sentiment is improving towards batteries stocks at the mo-ment. In part, he says, the sector has

been helped by these failures.“There was always going to be a

fl ush out and now that has happened I think we are at an infl ection point and confi dence among investors in the sector is improving,” he says.

“Many believe that those companies that have now survived for a good few years have done so for a reason. And more companies are now raising capi-tal, which itself is a refl ection of this confi dence.”

“The varying ability of each lead acid battery maker to control more of its own lead needs, through a combination of owning its own lead smelters, tolling through other smelters — and having their own battery collection network, may become a key factor in valuing each company” — Neil Hawkes, CRU

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CONFERENCEIN PRINT

Welcome to a special section of our magazine, called Conference in Print.

Our aim is a simple one. We want to offer you the readers a section where you can highlight your products, technology and skills to our broader audience — rather like going to a conference or an exhibition without the inconvenience of all the travel!

We’re putting no restrictions on what you’d like to showcase — this is your section not ours — but hope that this will prove an invaluable and cost-effective way to reach our audience of subscribers and readers.


CONFERENCE IN PRINT: LI ION DOUBLE CELLS

Lithium-ion batteries typically come in three forms: laminated, cylindrical, and coin-shaped.

To produce a laminated battery, one makes an electrode unit by winding positive and negative electrode sheets around a separator, made of high-polymer fi lm and then sets the electrode unit in the aluminium-laminate pouch cell.

In the next step the pouch edges are sealed all but an electrolyte intake by the thermo-compression bonding method using a laminator. One places the pouch cell in the vacuum glove box and inject electrolyte into the pouch. Now perfectly seal the pouch in the vacuum glove box to complete it as a battery.

Figure 1 shows part of the battery-making process mentioned above in our laboratory. Using a charge and discharge evaluation system, subject the completed battery to an initial charge test and cyclic charge-discharge tests.

Confi guration and production of a double-cell batteryTo make a double-cell lithium-ion battery one puts two electrode units set in a pouch cell. The battery can be used with the terminals of the electrode units connected either in parallel or in series. Figure 2 shows this.

A double-cell battery brings immedi-ate advantages:

• In parallel, the battery’s capacity doubles over that of a single-cell battery.

• With electrode units connected in series, the battery’s terminal voltage doubles over that of a single-cell battery.

Lithium — doubling up cells, doubles up capacity

A new type of a double-cell lithium ion battery using a confi guration different from the conventional aluminium-laminated battery has been developed and evaluated through its charge and discharge tests. The outline of the battery’s basic construction as well as the evaluation of its charge and discharge performance is explained by Osaka-Electro Communication University’s Shouji Usuda, a visiting fellow at the institution and Isao Iyoda, a professor at the university.

Figure 1: Process to produce the traditional laminate battery cell

Electrode

terminals

(b) Electrode unit made by the

winding-around method

(a) Positive and negative electrode

sheets

(c) Electrode unit set in a pouch cell (d) A completed battery cell

Figure 2: Double-cell battery confi guration

Electrode terminals Electrode terminals

Electrode units Electrode units

Pouch cell Pouch cell

Doubled battery capacity

Terminal voltage, 4.2 V

(a) Connected in parallel

Same battery capacity

Doubled terminal voltage, 8.4 V

(b) Connected in series

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• The double-cell battery, made of two electrode units, requires a smaller number of batteries than the batteries, each having a single electrode unit, linked together in parallel or series.

• The double-cell version, having two electrode units that are simultaneously sealed in a pouch, reduces the number of production processes, such as electrolyte injection and laminate sealing, compared with the manufacture of batteries having a single electrode unit.

Figure 3 shows the double-cell lithium-ion battery made experimentally in our laboratory. After setting two electrode units in one pouch, this constituent battery was completed as a double-cell battery in the same manner as in the case of a single electrode unit shown in Figure 1.

Two pairs of (four) electrode terminals of the completed double-cell battery are wired so they may be connected in parallel or series. The battery cell with electrode terminals connected in parallel will be called the ‘parallel double-cell battery’ and the

battery cell with the terminals linked in series will be identifi ed as the ‘series double-cell battery’.

Evaluation of double-cell battery charge and discharge testsThe charge and discharge performance of the developed double-cell battery were evaluated.

Figure 4 shows the charge and discharge characteristics of the respective battery cells (tentatively called cell ‘A’ and cell ‘B’) before their two electrode units were connected in

parallel or in series. The charge and discharge characteristics of the two battery cells set in the same pouch were identical and nearly overlapped each other without dispersion. Such characteristics are called the ‘twin characteristics’. The internal resistance values of cell ‘A’ and Cell B are almost the same coming in somewhere between 92 mΩ and 96 mΩ.

Figure 5 shows the discharge characteristics of the parallel double-cell battery with these cells’ electrode terminals connected in parallel. The obtained discharge capacity almost

Figure 3: Two types of double-cell battery cells

Electrode terminals

(a) Two electrode units set in a pouch cell

2 electrode units

(b) Parallel (c) Series

Cell A Cell A

Cell B Cell B

Figure 4: Charge & discharge characteristics of individual battery cells

(a) Charge characteristics (b) Disharge characteristics

Figure 5: Discharge characteristics of

the parallel double-cell batterycharac-

teristics of individual battery cells

Figure 6: The trial making of a battery stack

(a) Battery container (b) Measuring a terminal voltage



doubled that of the individual electrode unit.

Two series double-cell batteries were made experimentally and set in a battery container designed for a 3D printer to make a battery stack where the batteries are connected in series (Figure 6).

Figure 7 shows the charge and discharge characteristics of the battery stack. The two double-cell batteries connected in series made it possible to charge them at a relatively

high voltage, and a terminal voltage of about 17V was obtained when charged to the full.

Where next?Since the double-cell lithium-ion battery leads to increases in battery capacity and terminal voltage, it can be applied to control apparatuses, such as a DC-AC inverter, and electric power equipment. Further application possibilities for the new double-cell battery are expected.

Figure 7: Charge and discharge characteristics of the battery stack

(a) Charge characteristics (b) Disharge characteristics

Shouji Usuda

Shouji Usuda is a committee member of the Japanese Lithium Ion Society for Academic Study, visiting fellow at Osaka-Electro Communication University and the author of “The introduction of circuit design using lithium-ion battery” (2012). Some of his latest fi ndings can be found in April’s OHM “Fabrication research for lithium-ion battery”.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


EV Roadmap conference Portland, Oregon, USAJuly 24-25

The EV Roadmap conference has estab-lished itself as the Pacifi c Northwest’s premier electric vehicle gathering and one of the leading electric vehicle con-ferences in the United States. EV Road-map brings together Oregon’s early adopters with national and interna-tional experts to inform transportation electrifi cation efforts across the nation. EV Roadmap 7 is produced by Port-land State University, Portland General Electric, and Drive Oregon.

Widespread electric vehicle adop-tion requires a supportive ecosystem of stakeholders, from utilities and local governments to vehicle OEMs, charg-ing providers, interest groups, and drivers. This collaborative approach - and the technology already embed-ded in electric vehicles - places electric vehicles at the cutting edge of exciting new developments in connected cars,

intelligent transportation systems, and autonomous vehicles. EV Roadmap 7 will explore questions such as:

ContactKaylee [email protected]: +1 503 2262377

EPE’14-ECCE EuropeLappeenranta, FinlandAugust 26-28

We are proud to announce that the 16th Conference on Power Electron-ics and Applications, EPE’14-ECCE Europe, will discover the Nordic latitudes and visit Lappeenranta, the home city of Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), on the border between the EU and Russia, and sur-rounded by the magnifi cent nature of the Lake Saimaa.

Hosted by Lappeenranta Univer-sity of Technology, the EPE’14-ECCE Europe conference will take place in

a peaceful Nordic late-summer atmo-sphere. We hope to welcome a truly in-ternational academic and industrial au-dience, and invite you into the heart of Finnish expertise in Power Electronics.

LUT is the largest energy research and education organisation in Finland. At LUT, we know that no one technol-ogy alone can solve the crisis of global warming but a combination of tech-nologies and actions based on life cycle thinking and sustainable development is required.

Our core activities focus on research and development of advanced clean en-ergy systems. Here, expertise in power electronics is our core competence and the mainstay of success for achieving excellence.

ContactPhilippe Hamacher, EPE Associationc/o VUB – IrW – ETEC, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, BelgiumTel: +32 2 629 28 00, Fax: +32 2 629 36 [email protected], www.epe2014.com

Battery Power 2014 is an international conference highlighting the latest developments impacting mobile and portable battery systems for consumer and commercial products, including power tools, smart phones, tablets, laptops and medical devices.

Conference topics will include new battery designs, improving power management, predicting battery life, regulations and standards, safety and transportation, battery authentication, charging technology, emerging chemistries and market trends.

Join hundreds of OEM design engineers and system engineers involved in battery powered products and systems and discover what is driving innovation, capabilities and features, application trends and performance improvements.

The interactive exhibit hall will feature the latest battery technology and power management capabilities.

Network with battery manufacturers, charger manufacturers, IC companies, materials and manufacturing equipment providers,

testing services and systems providers, as well as an array of component and sub-system providers.

The pre-conference workshops provide an in-depth education experience, providing valuable information for both the new and seasoned engineer.

ContactMarsha [email protected] [email protected]

BATTERY POWER 2014 Denver, Colorado, USA • August 6-7

Portland, Oregon, USA, home to the EV Roadmap conference, July 24-25

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


6th China (Shanghai) International Battery Industry Fair (CNIBF)Shanghai, ChinaAugust 26-28

CNIBF 2014 is Co-located with The 5th China (Shanghai) International Su-per Capacitor Industry Fair which is the leading ultra-capacitor expo in China. CNIBF 2014 will attract 500 exhibitors networking with the vendors and profes-sionals in the 30,000m3 exhibition hall.

CNIBF usually attracts 12,000 at-tendees from East Asia, Europe and North America at each version.

ContactAmy [email protected]@zhenweiexpo.comTel: +86-20-8395 3208Fax: +86-20-8395 3200

63rd Annual Meeting of the International Society of ElectrochemistryPrague, Czech RepublicAugust 19-24

Topic: Electrochemistry for Advanced Materials, Technologies and Instru-mentation

Contact [email protected]

ITEC Asia-Pacifi c 2014IEEE Transportation Electri-fi cation Conference & ExpoBeijing, ChinaAugust 31-September 3 This conference and expo consists of 10 tracks identifying various major in-dustry themes.

Energy storage systems are the key components of electric transportation systems. Lithium ion technology has been substantially improved over the past few decades, and is becoming the standard for personal electric transpor-tation. Other technologies are being considered for higher power and mass transit systems.

Track 1: Power electronics and electric motor DriversThe technologies include the theory, analysis, design, and applications of power electronics and motor drives. Track 2: Electric machines and actua-torsTrack 3: Battery and battery manage-mentTrack 4: Electric, hybrid electric, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle system and architectureTrack 5: Smart grid, V2G and electric railwayTrack 6: Electrifi cation of heavy-duty and off-road vehicles

Track 7: Fuel cells and their application in transportationTrack 8: Electric systems and compo-nents for sea, undersea, air and space vehiclesTrack 9: Modelling, simulation and controlTrack 10: standards, regulations and policies for transportation electrifi ca-tion

Contactwww.itec2014.com/

Infobatt 2014Niagara Falls, CanadaSeptember 14-16

Infobatt provides the ideal forum for participants to better understand the intricacies of energy. A panel of expe-rienced energy professionals will be giving presentations and hosting dis-cussion groups on a myriad of topics within the energy fi eld.

The Infobatt tradeshow offers the unique opportunity for attendees to get up close and personal with the leading energy industry related vendors from around the globe.

ContactPolytronics EngineeringTel: +1 905 305-8204Fax: +1 905 [email protected]

Infobatt 2014Niagara Falls, CanadaSeptember 14-16

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


The 14th European Lead Battery Conference (14ELBC) and Exhibition will provide an ideal opportunity for those involved with the global lead battery industry to review and discuss the most recent technical advances associated with lead-acid batteries, especially in the areas of emerging new automotive and renewable energy systems.

Technical presentations at the conference will bring delegates up-to-date with the latest research and development information from around the globe, and will be of keen interest to both manufacturers and users of lead-acid batteries, as well as to the scientifi c community.

An extensive exhibition — expected to involve over 100 exhibitors

— by suppliers to the industry of equipment, materials and technology, will also take place.

Since the fi rst meeting in Paris in 1988, the European Lead Battery conferences have developed a reputation for high quality presentations on the design, manufacture, performance and use of lead-acid batteries.

Over 600 delegates and 100 exhibitors attended 13ELBC in Paris 2012 and similar numbers are confi dently expected in Edinburgh.

ContactMaura McDermottTel: +44 207 833 8090Fax +44 207 833 [email protected]

Edinburgh, Scotland • September 9-12

14TH EUROPEAN LEAD BATTERY CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION

The Battery Show 2014 is the premier showcase of the latest advanced battery technology. The exhibition hall offers a platform to launch new products, make new contacts and maintain existing relationships. With more qualifi ed buyers and decision makers than any other event in North America, The Battery Show 2014 is the key to unlocking your future business opportunities.

The show is attended by technical leaders, scientists, engineers, project leaders, buyers and senior executives concerned with advanced energy storage and will host the very latest advanced battery solutions for electric and hybrid vehicles, utility and renewable energy

support, portable electronics, medical technology, military and telecommunications.

This is the event that buyers, genuine decision makers, engineers, technical leaders and executives use to source suppliers and discover the very latest power solutions.

If you are involved in the battery industry, you cannot afford not to be represented in the world’s foremost industry trade show.

ContactAdam Moore, sales [email protected] Bryan, event [email protected] & Canada toll free: +1 855 436 8683

September 16-18 • Novi, Michigan, USA

THE BATTERY SHOW

This event last year had:• 1962 total visitors• 805 organisations represented• 157 organisations exhibited• 79 vehicles in the outdoor display• 59 presentations• 16 seminar sessions

ContactCenex Loughborough Offi ces, Innova-tion Centre, Holywell Park, Loughborough University, Ashby Road, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, United KingdomTel: +44 1509 635 750Fax: +44 1509 635 751

LOW CARBON

VEHICLE EVENT 2014

Millbrook Proving Ground, UK

September 10-11

Aerial view of Millbrook Proving Ground, one of the world’s most famous automotive testing areas

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


19th International Congress for Battery Recycling ICBR 2014Hamburg, GermanySeptember 24-26

This top quality congress in battery re-cycling will focus on:• Update of battery legislation in EU

and worldwide• Safety issues and transportation

regulations• Recycling effi ciency• The great future of LEV, EHV,

PEHV and EV battery systems• The success of lithium ion batteries

technologies• Country reports on collection and

recycling• Best available technologies for bat-

tery recyclingThe congress is a perfect platform

to exchange the latest information, to meet your business partners and to get easy access to new potential clients.

The congress is also organizing plant tours to leading companies in the vicin-ity of Hamburg

ContactICM, Schwaderhof 7, 5708 Birrwil, SwitzerlandTel: +41 62 785 10 00Fax: +41 62 785 10 05

[email protected]

Batteries 2014September 24-26 Nice, France

Batteries 2014 promises to be the main pole of exchanges between the whole value chain of the battery market: raw material and electronic devices suppli-ers, battery manufacturers, industrial users, environment and recycling spe-cialists and universities.

The congress programme in will in-clude three days of technical conference sessions, 60 high level speakers; some 40 booths within a large exhibit area; many networking opportunities

ContactChristophe Pillot, chairman+33 1 47 78 46 [email protected] Sonia Jouneau, congress [email protected]

China International Green Vehicle Industry Expo 2014Hangzhou, ChinaSeptember 26-28

GVE China 2014 is the premier show-case of the latest advanced EV, HEV, NGV technology. The exhibition hall offers a platform to launch new prod-ucts, make new contacts and maintain

existing relationships. With more quali-fi ed buyers and decision makers than any other event in China’s green vehicle industry fi eld, GVE China provides you with the best opportunities to meet and promote your products to China and Asian green automobile market.

GVE China has an exhibition area of over 15,000 square meters and more than 500 booths in total. Its main ex-hibitors include various new energy automobile companies, related down-stream components and related prod-ucts manufacturing enterprises.

Enterprises and experts all over the world are welcome to show and join the discussion of the electric vehicles’ business models, demonstration and market-oriented promotion, battery problems in nice Hangzhou, China.

ContactHangzhou Sinobal Conference & Exhibition Service Tel: +86 571 8577 9755 or +86 8577 8533 Fax: +86 571 8577 [email protected] Faith [email protected]

Energy Storage North AmericaSam Kpse. California, USASeptember 30-October 2

The fi rst staging of Energy Storage North America (ESNA) in 2013 in San Jose, California was a tremendous suc-cess. Jointly organized by Messe Düssel-dorf North America and Strategen Con-sulting, ESNA 2013 was the fi rst energy storage conference and exposition in the US to focus exclusively on projects, ap-plications, and deals.

Over 740 attendees from 16 countries, representing 400 organizations, joined the event to celebrate successful projects and applications, share best practices and accelerate energy storage market development. In addition 43 exhibitors demonstrated innovative technologies and applications to transform North America’s grid infrastructure.

Contact

For exhibitor informationDaniela Knoll, director, event operations, Messe Düsseldorf North [email protected]: +1 312 621-5838

For conference information:Cedric Christensen, director of operations, Strategen Consulting

Batteries 2014September 24-26, Nice, France

19th International Congress for Battery Recycling ICBR 2014Hamburg, Germany. September 24-26

Register Now!

North America’s Premier Exhibition and Conference for the Solar IndustryMoscone Center, San Francisco

Be a part of North America's most-attended solar eventJoin 27,000 peers, visit 600 exhibitors, attend 80 conference sessionsMake key connections in U.S.’s #1 installation market: CaliforniaGain insight into technology trends on PV, energy storage and solar heating/coolingIntersolar - Your key for successful business in the growing U.S. solar market!

Co-located with

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


[email protected]: +1 510 665-7811

226th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society

19th Congress of the Mexican Electrochemical Society

7th Meeting of the Mexico Section of the Electrochemical SocietyCancun, MexicoOctober 5-10Contact

http://www.electrochem.org/meetings/bian-nual/226/

BATTERY+STORAGEStuttgart, GermanyOctober 6-8

BATTERY+STORAGE is the fi rst inter-national fair for battery and energy stor-age technologies — and thus an impor-tant platform for speeding up the change to alternative energy sources. It addresses all players involved in the manufacturing of battery and energy storage systems for mobile and stationary implementation.

All areas are dealt with, from raw

materials to turnkey battery systems. The target groups include trade visi-

tors from the storage system manu-facturing industry, service providers, researchers and representatives of the most important user industries, for ex-ample the electric mobility, energy sup-ply and electrical engineering industries.

The BATTERY+STORAGE meeting is held together with the f-cell Fuel Cell Forum and e-mobil BW TECHNOLO-GIETAG. The f-cell focuses on future-proof energy supplying based on hy-drogen and fuel cell technologies, and on stationary, mobile and specialised fuel cell application areas. The e-mobil BW TECHNOLOGIETAG discusses current technological trends in electric mobility on regional, national and in-ternational level.

Topics include battery production (focus 2012: lithium-ion batteries), en-ergy storage solutions for renewable energies, battery system requirements and automation. Another focus of at-tention is synergies between technolo-gies and new application markets.

ContactLandesmesse Stuttgart GmbHMessepiazza 170629 Stuttgart Tel: +49 711 18560-0

Back for its 5th year, the Hybrid and Electric Vehicles Conference will once again be the forum to share the most recent research, work and developments within the fi eld of electric vehicles and hybrid infrastructure.

Offering delegates the chance to gain an up to the minute understanding of recent developments and future trends in the design, implementation and strategy of this hybrid technology, this is an event not

be missed!The Hybrid and Electric Vehicles

conference is a well established two day event focusing on shaping the future of hybrid and eco-friendly vehicles

The key objective of the event is to raise awareness and stimulate debate on hybrid and eco-friendly vehicles, and through a combination of technical presentations and poster sessions, formulate future strategy.

Government, industry and academia

must act together to develop a cohesive, long-term future strategy that effectively reduces the vehicle emissions and this is your chance to infl uence the debate.

Contact

Tanya SpencerEvent producerTel: +44 1438 767 662Fax: +44 1438 767 [email protected]

London, UK • November 5-6

HEVC 2014 — 5TH HYBRID AND ELECTRIC VEHICLE CONFERENCE

Three events in one: Cancun, MexicoOctober 5-10

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


Fax: +49 711 [email protected]

eCarTec – 6th International Conference for Electric- & Hybrid-MobilityMunich, GermanyOctober 21-22

eCarTec is the worldwide biggest elec-tric and hybrid mobility, trade fair, con-ference and B2B platform

ContactMunichExpo VeranstaltungsZamdorfer Straße 10081677 MünchenGermanyTel: +49 (89) 32 29 91-0Fax: +49 (89) 32 29 [email protected]

Electric Mobility Canada hosts an annual conference and trade show which provides learning and network-ing opportunities that cover technical, business and policy discussions for the electric transportation sector.

Electric Mobility Canada — the voice of the electric vehicle industry in Canada — welcomes you to our 6th annual event. EV2014 promises to be an outstanding event designed to advance the electrifi cation of all modes of transportation in Canada, particularly in urban centres. We are delighted that BC Hydro and the City of Vancouver are hosting this event.

British Columbia and the City Van-couver have much to show in terms of electrifi ed and sustainable transpor-tation. We are also pleased with the wide support from key organizations with their assistance in pulling this conference together.

The theme for the conference is ElectriCITIES — Move Electric and will focus on how electric transport contributes to the creation of liveable cities.

EV2014VÉ will be of particular interest to those supplying, operat-ing or planning to market or operate battery, plug-in hybrid, hybrid or fuel cell electric vehicles in Canada. It is a three-day event with plenary sessions, technical sessions as well as special sessions aimed at academics, new technology developers and vehicle manufacturers.

The exhibition hall will host nu-merous EV companies, utilities, com-ponent and technology developers, government agencies, infrastructure companies and more. You will be ex-posed to some of the latest battery, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell electric vehicles.

EMC is always seeking to bring new electric-transport related ideas, tech-nologies and business models to our delegates. As a result, our 2014 con-ference will look at autonomous elec-tric technologies as well as electric car sharing models.

ContactEV2014VÉ Conference Secretariat – JPdL International1555 rue Peel, Suite 500Montréal (Québec)H3A 3L8 Canada Tel: +1 514 287-9898 ext. 334Fax: +1 514 [email protected]

Al Cormier, CAE, project director, Electric Mobility CanadaSuite 309, 9 — 6975 Meadowvale Town Centre Circle, Mississauga, ON L5N 2R2 Canada Tel: +1 416 970 9242Fax: +1 905 858 [email protected]

Vancouver, Canada, October 28-30

EV 2014

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


Energy4Power LiveLondon, UKNovember 5

Energy4PowerLive will feature exhibitors from a number of fi elds, and one of the four tracks of this one day confer-ence will be specifi cally looking at standby power, energy storage, batteries and how these are integrated into the larger energy industry. Exhibitors include those involved in:• Generating sets (manufacturers of complete diesel, gas

or gas turbine engine driven power generating systems in the range of 2kW to 5MW)

• Acoustic treatment• AC generators (manufacturers of rotation AC genera-

tors in the range 0.5kVA to 30MVA)• Biomass• Biogas• CHP/Cogeneration• Control & monitoring Equipment (manufacturers of

electrical control and switchgear panels, measuring instruments and digital controls).

• Diesel engines• Engine speed governors• Engines (manufacturers of diesel and gas engines for

power generation in the range 3kw to 6MW).• Environmental solutions (manufacturers of noise

attenuation equipment, exhaust gas after treatment sys-tems and vibration isolation units)

• Fuel systems• Gas/steam turbines• Governing (manufacturers of engine speed governors

and controls for load management)• Heat exchangers• Load banks• Noise, acoustic equipment• Radiators (manufacturers of engine cooling system

radiators and heat exchangers).• Services (suppliers of hire equipment, repair, installa-

tion, maintenance and freight forwarding services and technical consultancy)

• Starting (manufacturers of electric, air and hydraulic engine starting equipment)

• Switchboards• Test equipment (manufacturers of static and mobile

electrical resistive load banks).• Turnkey solutions• UPS rotary• UPS static

ContactGlobal Media Publishing Global House, 13 Market Square, Horsham, RH12 1EU, United KingdomTel: +44 1 403 220 750 • Fax: +44 1 403 220 751

Lithium Battery Power ConferenceWashington DC, USANovember 11

The Lithium Battery Power Conference, now in its 10th year, will include technical case studies and presentations on next generation lithium-ion and beyond lithium-ion ad-vanced materials science, technologies and research from academic and government labs, leading manufacturing, and start-up companies. In addition to research papers, this conference will also address the need to better connect re-search science and manufacturing to create higher perform-ing, lower cost batteries. There will be a series of strategy talks on this bridging theme along with a panel discussion.

Topics include:• New ideas for battery design, battery trends and chem-

istries

www.world-of-energy-solutions.com

Do you work in the battery or fuel cell manufacturing business and are looking for ways to produce large quantities at less cost? Are you looking for new mobile and stationary energy storage methods, or are you interested in future mobility?

As an international trade fair, conference and net-working event, WORLD OF ENERGY SOLUTIONS is the connecting link between the innovation areas of energy supply, storage and mobility and their numerous services and off ers.

Visit WORLD OF ENERGY SOLUTIONS 2014 and meet the ”producers“ of the future of energy and mobility.

Conference with over 140 international speakers – Register now!

y-soenergd-of-

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


• New lithium chemistries for better electrodes and higher LIB perfor-mance

• Beyond Li-ion research including lithium-air/lithium-oxygen, lithium-sulphur, metal-air

• From novel materials and com-ponents to systems design and integration

• Novel electrode and electrolyte materials and technologies, solid electrolytes

• Role of nanotechnology in improv-ing power and energy density

• State-of-the art commercial lithium-based batteries

• Challenges of manufacturing Li-ion, scale-up, performance in real devices, formulation

• Issues of miniaturization for certain applications

• Thin-fi lm lithium-based batteries• Silicon-based lithium battery an-

odes• Solvent-free lithium electrode

manufacturing• Trending from EV to stationary

applications• Supply chain challenges for raw

materials for new battery chemis-tries

• Supercapacitors

ContactEdel O’ReganVice President, Conference ProductionKnowledge Foundation Tel: +1 781 972 5423

3rd Workshop on Lithium Sulfur BatteriesFraunhofer IWS, Dresden, GermanyNovember 12-13

Lithium-sulfur batteries are the most promising choice for future energy storage systems. Novel materials such as nanostructured carbon/sulfur com-posite cathodes, solid electrolytes and alloy-based anodes are expected to signifi cantly enhance the cell’s perfor-mance.

Following the success of our previous lithium-sulfur battery workshops in 2012 and 2013, this year’s symposium will again bring together an interna-tional audience of scientists and indus-trial customers.

Renowned experts will present the latest results, new materials, processes and applications in the fi eld of lithium-sulfur batteries.

ContactFraunhofer-Institut für Werkstoff- und Strahltechnik Winterbergstr 2801277 Dresden, Germany

Tel: +49 351 83391-0Fax: +49 351 [email protected]

An international conference and tradeshow covering the applications and latest technology developments of Graphene

Our audience will develop a com-prehensive yet detailed understanding of the state of technology and market per graphene application area. The conference will cover all promising applications of graphene, including graphene composites, supercapaci-tors and batteries, functional inks, logic and memory, touch screens, sen-sors and bio-electronics and beyond.

Uniquely, you will hear the full story per market segment. Potential end-users and investors will initially outline the opportunities, require-ments, scaling concerns, price points, etc. Academics/experts will then discuss the latest progress and chal-lenges facing graphene per applica-tion area.

Companies targeting each gra-phene application area will then present their technology, target mar-kets, business strategy, progress, etc. Here, we will also include companies developing a suitable manufacturing technique for that application. This will include players commercialising chemical vapour deposition, oxidi-sation-reduction, liquid-phase exfo-liation, plasma, etc. Finally, you will hear views from player(s) from the incumbent and/or rival technology area where appropriate.

The event brings together users, material providers, equipment mak-ers, policymakers, academics and in-vestors from more than 30 countries. It covers more than 30 speakers over the two days.

Energy harvestingThis fi fth annual IDTechEx event provides insight into energy harvest-ing technologies, case studies and markets, ranging from consumer electronics and sensors all the way to vehicles, building and industrial auto-mation.Attendees to this event will learn:• Who needs energy harvesting, the

ROI and sectors close to adop-

tion. End user and integrators from a diverse range of markets present their needs and experi-ences.

• All the technology options — from energy harvester choices, energy storage options, through to the latest in low power elec-tronics and wireless sensors and related technologies such as thin fi lm harvesters and supercapaci-tors.

• The current state of the technol-ogy at the event tradeshow… and all with an analytical, commer-cial outlook, taking into account market requirements, competitive technologies and development roadmaps. More than 400 people attend this event to aid their criti-cal business and technology de-velopment strategy decisions in this emerging, high growth topic.

Application-focused sessions cover the opportunity of energy harvesting in the built environment, showing how it is enabling smart and more energy effi cient buildings and smart cities, merging with the Internet of Things (IoT) and M2M evolution.

Sessions also focus on industrial wireless monitoring, transportation and consumer electronics. The con-ference features some of the world’s largest user and integrator compa-nies presenting on their needs and many are in attendance to learn how they can use these new tech-nologies to address their challenges.

The event assesses the merit of the following technologies from world leading companies and research institutes: energy harvesting tech-nologies, including thermoelectric, piezoelectric, photovoltaic, electro-magnetic, wireless power transfer and multi modal versions

ContactChris ClareEvent director+44 1223 [email protected]

Santa Clara, California, USA • November 19-20

GRAPHENE LIVE! — APPLICATION, TECHNOLOGY, OPPORTUNITIES

ENERGY HARVESTING & STORAGE USA, COMMERCIALIZATION OPPORTUNITY

Graphene

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


Supercapacitors USASanta Clara, CaliforniaNovember 19-20

Supercapacitors USA 2014 is a leading conference in North America on the subject for this rapidly growing multi-billion dollar market This international conference and tradeshow focuses on the future applications, market fore-casts and opportunities as well as giving the latest technology trends, providing a global platform where users, investors, suppliers, developers, system integrators and government representatives come together. There are no commercials!

Topics include: How supercapaci-tors wholly or partly replace batteries - what next? How supercapacitors re-place electrolytic capacitors Road map of how supercapacitors, pseudocapaci-tors, supercabatteries and other vari-ants are improving and what markets this will open up New forms - struc-tural, smart skin, fl exible, transpar-ent, foldable, paper 10 year forecasts for supercapacitors and their variants - operating parameters, costs, sales Today’s supercapacitors and their vari-ants - comparative data, sales successes and applicational challenges The future of hybrid and pure electric EVs using supercapacitors by land, water or air Applications for supercapacitors (cold start, regenerative braking, etc.) Super-capacitors in military and aerospace applications Static applications - grid, welding and other electrical engineer-

ing applications The future role of energy storage in renewable energy/energy harvesting technologies: chal-lenges and solutions Supercapacitor applications in consumer electronics including mobile phones Technical challenges and improvements needed for supercabatteries to fully realize their potential Printing technology and supercapacitors, including control cir-cuits and their integration Materials in energy storage: Graphene, Carbon Nanotubes, ionic liquids, non-fl am-mable and non-toxic electrolytes, in-creased temperature range

ContactCorinne Jennings Event Director Tel: +44 1223 812300 E-mail: [email protected]

European Electric Vehicle CongressBrusselsDecember 2-5

The European Electric Vehicle Congress strengthens its posi-tion as global platform to fos-ter exchange of views between the R&D, the industry, the au-thorities, the end-users and the NGO’s actors, so to develop synergies in the field of eMobil-ity.

As motivations and con-straints are different for each of them, EEVC-2014 has the objective to help define the most promising solutions to be selected, taking into account the research and development progresses, as well as the en-vironmental and economical constraints.

Feedback from past and cur-rent experiences will also be discussed and analyzed so that best practices and best ways for a daily introduction of eMobility could be identified.

The venue is again Brussels, so to ensure optimal connection with the representatives of the European In-stitutions that are considering Bat-tery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles to play an important role to lower atmospheric pollution and to reduce oil dependency.

Policy aspects, new mobility con-cepts, noise and health factors will also be issues to be discussed.

The day prior the Congress, a EU Project day will be organized to pro-vide the audience with a complete overview of the different programs supported by the European Au-thorities (FP7, Horizon 2020, IEE, EUROSTAR, INTEREG) & related funded projects dealing with eMo-bility, so to identify possible actions, overlaps, synergies and/or gaps.

ContactTel: +32 477 364 816 E-mail:[email protected]

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

ECBD

TCtttt

ThLittle did Brian Conway (front row second from the right) think his supercapacitor would still be being discussed in Santa Clara

European Electric Vehicle Congress Brussels, December 2-5

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


EV CHINA: the 7th China International Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology ExhibitionShanghai, ChinaDecember 18-21,

As one of the most important profes-sional exhibition in Asia, EV CHINA New Energy Auto Show aims to pro-vide the newest information and in-tegrated solutions for customers. EV CHINA creates a professional trade platform under the brand infl uence of nevsources.cn and New Energy Vehicle magazine for companies at home and abroad to show electrical vehicle and charging equipment in the Chinese market. At the same time, it provides a fantastic opportunity for companies to meet their customers and buyers when showing their products which is good platform for trade cooperation.

EV CHINA combines a professional exhibition and trade exhibition together.

Contactwww.evchina.cc/en/

The 2015 European Advanced Automotive & Stationary Battery ConferenceMainz, GermanyJanuary 26-29, 2015

Join us at the leading European forum where automakers and energy-storage system developers discuss the status and prospects of the latest advanced batteries to meet the needs of the Euro-pean market. AABC Europe 2015 will offer two technology focused symposia and two application focused symposia, including AAB’s fi rst exploration of the emerging market for stationary batter-ies in utility applications

Contact:[email protected]: +1 530 692 0140

Energy Storage India 2014New DelhiDecember 4,5

The structural realignment of the ener-gy infrastructure in India is the focus of the 2nd Energy Storage India Confer-ence & Expo. While the main interest will be on the establishment of techno-logically and economically viable ener-gy storage and microgrid technologies, the Conference & Expo will system-atically present a selection of practical applications and pioneering solutions while illustrating the necessary politi-cal conditions.

On 3rd December, one day before the start of the Expo, interested visitors and exhibitors can take part in prepa-ratory workshops of the Conference.

The Conference will be hosted at the Kempinski Ambience Hotel. After Chi-na, India is the most populated nation in the world, with a total population of almost 1.3billion. Providing access to reliable power and power quality for all is a major challenge.

In the Smart Grid Vision and Road-map, the Ministry of Power has set a goal of electrifi cation of all households with minimum 8 hour of power avail-ability. This will require providing elec-tricity to over 400 million people cur-rently not connected to the grid.

While developments are still in their infancy, the market has tremendous potential. Last year, India assumed a pioneering role in the deployment of advanced energy storage systems, par-ticularly for decentralized applications

with over $300 Million spent on Li-Ion battery systems for telecom towers.

Apart from the 600,000 telecom towers, India is also planning to install 26 million solar powered water pumps in coming decade.

Over the next two years, the govern-ment will install the fi rst pilot grid scale energy storage plants, and plans for a major implementation of this technol-ogy are to be completed by 2022

ContactSachin PatilMesse Düsseldorf India PvtE-mail: [email protected]: +91 11 2690 1655Mob: +91-9717179615

Top Speakers, Hot Subjects!Won’t you be there?

International Conference & Exhibition on

LEAD & LEAD BATTERIES – TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT28-29 July 2014, The Lalit, New Delhi

EXHIBITION: to showcase the latest developments in lead and lead batteries, technology, plant & equipment, environment protection, markets etc., at the venue. Several stalls already booked; please rush your stall booking. Pl. see website (www.ilzda.com)for exhibition layout.

Stake holders of the lead & lead battery industry from India and overseas countries participate & deliberate.

For sponsorships, registration, exhibition, advertisements, pls. contact:

India Lead Zinc Development Association, New DelhiPh: +91 11 26056889/7360, 29955536; Fax: +91 11 29956522Email: [email protected]; website: www.ilzda.com

SPONSORS: M/s Hindustan Zinc Limited, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd, Luminous Power Technologies, Engitec Technologies Italy, Gravita India Ltd, Arya Alloys P Ltd, Supreme Batteries & Nile Ltd

HOSPITALITY PARTNER: M/s Dreamz Conference Management Pvt Ltd

MEDIA PARTNERS: Batteries International, MMR, Steel and Metallurgy & SSRL Battery Directory

CONFERENCEWorld class speakers congregate:

• Mr Andy Bush, International Lead Association, UK

• (To be announced), International Lead Zinc Study Group

• Mr Mark Stevenson, Chairperson, ABC & ISLC

• Mr Brian Wilson, International Lead Management Centre

• Mr Doug Lambert, WIRTZ, USA

• Dr Massimo Maccagni, Engitec Technologies S.P.A, Italy

• Mr Wang Xinyu, China Non-ferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engg & Construction Co Ltd, China

• Ms Zhang Weiqian, Beijing Antaike Inf. Dev Co. Ltd, China

• Mr Yang Gewen, China Non-ferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engg & Construction Co Ltd, China

• Mr Manoj Soni / Pranbesh Roy, Hindustan Zinc Ltd

• Mr Rakesh Malhotra, Luminous Power Technologies Ltd

• Mr Subhankar Chakrabarty, Exide Industries

• Dr B Sengupta, Former Member Secy, CPCB

• Dr V K Aggarwal,Supreme Batteries

• Dr Sugumaran, Consultant

• Dr S N Joshi, Green Vision Technologies Pvt Ltd

• Dr Yamini Gupt, University of Delhi

• Dr Venkatesh Thuppil, Indian Society for Lead Awareness & Research

• Dr S Ambalavanan, Central Electro Chemical Research Institute

• Mr C S Ramanathan, Consultant

• Mr G Chandrasekhar, The Hindu Business Line

• Mr Navin Sharma, Gravita India Ltd

• Mr Sanjeev Tyagi, Verdeen Chemicals Pvt Ltd

• Mr P K Sood, Regnant Energy Systems P Ltd

• Mr Baiju Parasuraman, Daramic India

• Mr Sajid Mobashir, Dept. Of Heavy Industries

ILZDAINTERNATIONAL LEAD

CONFERENCE

INDUSTRY GIANTS: TROJAN BATTERY


The history of Trojan Battery is a com-plex one. At one level it’s a simple tale of how a family business that started as a small repair shop in downtown Los Angeles could turn into an inter-nationally respected fi rm. But it’s also a story of how clever business man-agement, an ability to understand the technology trends that shaped the 20th century, and a close knit family could survive the twists and turns of some 90 years of trading.

It all began with George Reginald Godber.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts on Independence Day 1899, he was just a teenager when he fi rst stumbled on the world of electric batteries.

His location? A Holland L-Class submarine off the coast of Ireland towards the end of World War I. His job was to ensure the reliability of the submarine’s power source — vital to the boat’s mission and safety, irrespec-tive of the war still raging around him.

The war over, Godber and Carl Speer, his future brother-in-law, set up a small auto parts business in a garage (where the Occidental Towers eventu-ally were to be built in downtown Los Angeles).

Their business idea, which took time to formulate, was to take what they had learned in the US Navy and ap-ply it to the now booming American economy. They knew how to repair batteries, but quickly realized that a better battery would be a more com-plete solution. They also realized early on that issues such as the health of the battery depended not so much on its engineering — although that was im-portant — but in the chemistry of the battery itself.

In 1925 they set up what was to be-come a household name and the ar-rival of Trojan Battery.

The choice of name of the fi rm was not an obvious one. But one, neverthe-less, that showed that the two partners were not just talented businessmen

but had a quirky, even sentimental streak inside them.

Speer, who’d played lineman for the University of Southern Califor-nia football team in 1916, loved the idea of adopting the team’s mascot of the USC Trojan horse mascot named Traveler.

“Once that’d been decided choosing a company colour was easy — it was in-spired by the Cardinal colour from the USC Cardinal and Gold team colours.

Trojan initially began by manufac-

turing automobile batteries. There weren’t as many different sizes of bat-teries in that period, so Trojan made batteries for most models. They later moved into building batteries for commercial trucks.

But through the ups and downs of the tempestuous economic climate that characterized the 1930s the fi rm retained its focus on looking at ways of improving their basic product: the lead acid battery. The Eureka moment came in 1939 when Godber perfected a way to determine and maintain the proper electrolyte level in the cells of an electrical battery. His key patent (US 2242671) was granted in May 1941.

By this time, Godber’s sons, Dick and Ray, had joined the company, ushering in the second generation of the family fi rm. Neither had any spe-cial training or electrical engineering degrees — though both attended Uni-versity of California Los Angeles — and had experience working at Trojan during summer vacations.

Dick spent several years in the Navy before joining the company. Ray start-ed his own auto parts business early on and when that struggled he then joined the company.

There was a kind of irony when Dick and Ray joined the fi rm. “Trojan was a USC thing yet they went to UCLA for college, USC’s biggest rival,” says Rick. “We fi nally got it right when my son Bryan and I both graduated from USC, with Bryan also obtaining his MBA from USC!”

The trigger for the arrival of Trojan as a major US battery fi rm came in the early 1950s with the development of Trojan’s deep-cycle batteries. The catalyst was a dynamic businessman named Royce Seevers who had set up the Autoette Electric Car Company in Long Beach, Los Angeles.

Seevers had been asked to pro-duce a vehicle for a physically chal-lenged golfer, enabling him to play

The twists and turns of theTrojan story

Trojan Battery has always had a distinctive business style characterized by the management approach of this family-owned fi rm. Kevin Desmond reports.

“We provide the infrastructure that our competitors don’t have to properly support the continuing design changes in the golf cars, and the fi eld demands from a technical support aspect.”

George Godber, founder of the family fi rm

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on the Thunderbird Country Club golf course, a celebrity haven in Palm Springs, California. The result was the Autoette Golfmobile. This was in-stalled with specially made batteries from Trojan providing motive power to a converted 24-volt Dodge 1½hp electric starter motor.

Trojan immediately realized the business opportunity to be seized in the electric golf car industry, and soon Trojan maroon batteries were power-ing golf cars on over 98% of the top golf courses in the US.

One of Trojan’s fi rst models was the J217. The “J” stood for Jumbo due to its size and the 217 was the 20 AH rat-ing. This was built in a hard rubber case and used rubber and glass separa-tors which were of the highest quality available at that time.

The pasting formula was developed with the help of Joe Orsino, a well known consultant of the time. It still forms the basis of the current pasting formula today with some tweaks and additives that have been added along the way that are patented. (The J217 changed to the company’s most popu-lar sized golf battery called the T105 in the early 1980s. It’s an odd name in that it’s also a teckie name — the T stands for Trojan but the 105 was the 75 amp discharge rate in minutes which at the time depicted the average AH draw of an electric golf car.)

In the 1960s, the company expand-ed its line of deep-cycle batteries. The Godbers saw the way whole markets were about to move into such diverse electrically operated equipment such as forklifts, fl oor scrubbers and aerial work platforms.

They started contacting the OEMs in these markets and designing prod-ucts to meet their needs. This pushed them into larger sized products along with their golf products such as In-dustrial Steel Tray batteries and taller models such as the L16 and J305 for boom lifts and fl oor scrubbers.

“Trojan’s Industrial battery business at this time was focused on utilizing

our proprietary past-ing formula for longer cycle life. We also fo-cussed our efforts on the quality and crafts-manship of our manu-facturing operation,” says Rick Godber. “This set the platform for the Trojan brand being noted for very high quality.”

One of the strangest characteristics of the lead acid battery busi-ness — where rivals look after their own — extends from coast to coast. East Penn, for example, has received (and given) help from its competitors during industry downturns and calamities. So too for Trojan when a fi re in 1950 effectively could have shuttered the business.

In a show of support, the local bat-tery manufacturers got together and supplied the Godber family with products until Trojan could get a new facility up and running. In 1968, Tro-jan moved to petroleum-rich Santa Fe Springs in Southern California, the last of seven such relocations.

Growth continued into the 1970s with the addition of batteries for fl oor machine, marine, construction and various industrial applications.

The fi rm’s understanding of the im-portance of R&D, from its original patent application in 1939, developed during this period with its investment in Santa Fe Springs.

The result, says Trojan, is that sev-eral key innovative technologies have emerged which have made their deep-cycle batteries so successful.

In 1985 Trojan developed the Maxguard Advanced Design Separa-tor — making Trojan the only bat-tery with this proprietary technology, designed to increase battery life and

improve performance. The R&D for this was led by Rick Godber, Tom Tomkins, the vice president for manu-facturing and the engineering depart-ment.

“We were looking for an alterna-tive to the Permalife separator that was widely used in the golf car battery market in the early 80s,” says Rick Godber. “We felt the separator had a major impact on the overall life cycle performance of a deep cycle battery so we worked with Amerace (later to be known as Microporous) on sev-eral design chemistries until we found what we were looking for. The result was that we were able to double the cycle life with minimal cost increase. This helped Trojan obtain virtually 100% of the golf OEM business.”

By this time, Rick Godber (third gen-eration) was president of Trojan Bat-tery. Realising the way that the wind was blowing he put great emphasis on both R&D and the latest technology. “During my tenure we added two new locations in Georgia besides the Cali-fornia operation. One through acqui-

Speer, who’d played lineman for the University of Southern California football team in 1916, loved the idea of adopting the team’s mascot of the USC Trojan horse mascot named Traveler. Once that’d been decided choosing a company colour was easy — it was inspired by the Cardinal colour from the USC Cardinal and Gold team colours.

The changing face of Trojan and photo of Speer’s team in action in 1916 that inspired it all.



sition and one built from the ground up,” he recalls.

“We grew from 40,000 square feet in the early 1970s to well over 500,000 square feet in 2007, with more expansion plans in the very near future. We’ve developed manufactur-ing processes that are unique for those who use our sizes of fl ooded products. We have completely converted our Li-

thonia plant to being fully automated and state of the art for our types of batteries.”

This investment in technology has continued to this day. Under the most recent management team headed by Jeff Elder, president and CEO, Dave Godber, executive vice president of sales and marketing (and a key third generation family member), and Gor-

don Beckley, executive vice presi-dent of engineering, Trojan has opened a new state-of-the-art facto-ry in Sandersville, Georgia. Its main focus is on AGM products.

During the 1990s, Trojan faced several challenges in terms of ena-bling the business to grow further.

“Our aftermarket distribution was poor,” says Rick Godber. “Our solu-tion was to seek out the top 13 or 14 battery specialists in the country and develop exclusive territories for them with our Trojan products. Led by Dave Godber, we established our Master Distributor programme in the US and Canada, and eventually ex-panded this programme globally. This has worked out well with a cohesive group focused on promoting the Tro-jan brand in the proper fashion.

“Dave Godber has been extremely infl uential in establishing our Master Distributor programme over the past 14 years, and has extended this strate-gy to our very successful international endeavours.”

Dealing with competition — and particularly, the way competition has been carried out — has required ex-tensive rethinking of investment strat-egies and branding.

“We had a large number of battery manufacturers playing in our niche even though their products didn’t compare to Trojan’s in quality,” says Godber. “Their strategy in most cases was to look at our market as a loss leader so pricing was an issue. This had the long-term effect of shrink-ing the number of competitors in our markets.

“In the 90s, Trojan had virtually all the OEM golf business. Customers’ demands were high in terms of want-ing engineering and technical support. This forced us to add a number of re-sources to support this aspect of the business. In the long run, this is what most differentiates Trojan now at the OEM level. We provide the infrastruc-ture that our competitors don’t have to properly support the continuing de-sign changes in the golf cars, and the fi eld demands from a technical sup-port aspect.”

Realizing that it lacked the resources to compete in offering starting and industrial forklift batteries, Trojan moved out of those markets in 1998 to concentrate on its deep cycle business.

In 1992, Trojan state-of-the-art re-search and development facility was set up in Santa Fe Springs, California. The year after it trademarked its branding. “Trojan maroon is now a symbol of

But through the ups and downs of the tempestuous economic climate that characterized the 1930s the fi rm retained its focus on looking at ways of improving their basic product: the lead acid battery. The Eureka moment came in 1939 when Godber perfected a way to determine and maintain the proper electrolyte level in the cells of an electrical battery.

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Trojan’s fi rst battery factory circa 1950



quality, reliability and excellence in the battery industry. Since then, only genu-ine Trojan batteries come in the dis-tinctive maroon case that makes them stand out from the rest,” Godber says.

In 2004, Trojan developed a new line of spill-proof AGM maintenance-free batteries and the following year it launched its consumer Marine/RV brand.

Around that time Trojan’s engi-neering team partnered with South-ern California Edison, the US electric utility, to develop an energy manage-ment solution reducing Trojan’s ener-gy consumption and CO2 emissions by over 12 million pounds annually. Also that year Trojan launched its Plus Series deep-cycle battery line and a new line of spill-proof deep-cycle Gel maintenance-free batteries.

In 2008, Trojan recognized the global shift to energy sources that are environmentally friendly and readily available worldwide, and introduced its RE Series line of deep-cycle batter-ies. “These deep-cycle batteries were specifi cally engineered to deliver un-matched life, durability and excellent charge effi ciency in renewable energy applications such as solar/photovol-taic, small wind, and micro hydro,” Godber says.

“Product innovation continued in 2009 with the launch of HydroLink, a single-point watering system for Trojan deep-cycle fl ooded batteries. HydroLink offered a faster, safer and easier method of battery watering for a wide range of applications.”

As a result of the company’s efforts in the renewable energy market seg-ment, Trojan received the “Applica-

tion Solar Project of the Year” award in 2013 for its solar-powered rural street lighting project in Dubai.

The landmark product for this year was, after fi ve years of research, the introduction of its Smart Carbon line in 2014 to address the impact of Partial State of Charge (PSOC) on cycling batteries in renewable energy, inverter backup and remote telecom applications. ‘Smart Carbon’, which is now standard in the fi rm’s industri-al and premium fl ooded battery lines, has been registered as a trademark by Trojan. It decreases the rate of sulfa-tion in PSOC conditions, as well as providing improved charge accept-ance, faster recharge and high energy effi ciency in PSOC applications.

Deep-cycle batteries used in off-grid and unstable grid applications are heavily cycled at PSOC, which quickly diminishes the overall life of a battery and results in frequent and

costly battery replacements.Jeff Elder, Trojan’s CEO, says the

future business development of the fi rm is set to change following the decision in 2013 by the Godber fam-ily to sell off some of its sharehold-ing to private equity fi rm Charles-bank. “By 2025 I expect that Trojan will clearly be identifi ed as a global energy storage solutions company, not just a battery company,” he says.

“The recent partnership with Charlesbank through its majority share investment in Trojan is opening up even more opportunities for us to expand globally into new markets such as renewable energy, remote tel-ecom and transportation, as well as into new geographies including In-dia, Southeast Asia and Africa.

“It is exciting to see a business that started as a battery repair shop turn into a global energy storage solutions provider.”

“We were looking for an alternative to the Permalife separator that was widely used in the golf car battery market in the early 80s,.We felt the separator had a major impact on the overall life cycle performance of a deep cycle battery so we worked with Amerace (later to be known as Microporous) on several designs chemistries until we found what we were looking for.”

Dick (left) and Ray Godber

The Autoette created a revolution in both golf … and batteries!

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Contact Karen Hampton: [email protected] or call +44 (0)7792 852337

Enchanting publisher of Batteries International, Karen Hampton, has never been shy about announcing that another birthday has arrived. So much so she spends the last half of April and the fi rst half of May dedicated to remembrance of her arrival into this world.

“It’s not just the presents,” she sighs, “though I do like lots of them. Or everyone buying me drinks, though I don’t mind that. Rather it’s the way that I go to stacks and stacks of parties. (though of course I deserve them).”

This year’s celebrations coincided with the BCI annual convention in San Diego where entire sponsored parties were hijacked in honour of her 30 plus something event. “My birthday dinners were nice but a big yacht would have done just as well.

“I quite liked the look (hint) at that Medway by the way.”

Other birthday boys and girls at the end of April included East Penn’s, Donna Snyder and Mac’s Doug Bornas. “We’re not as famous as Karen,” says Doug. “But she’s really nice and lets us go to her parties.”

What is it about moder English that we want to add new words to arg ably the most prolifi c lang age in the world?

The latest, cour esy of the BCI Inter ational Commi ee For New-Fangled Technical Phrases, is the “Human Directional Sig post” which, we were told would g ide us to this year’s opening

conference par on board the USS Medway in San Diego this April.

Until enlightenment dawned, we dutif lly followed hand-held sig s to the car ier but en route one of our more gist ed ba er intellect als got it. “It’s the sig s they’re holding,” he shouted. “They’re the Human Directional Sig posts.”

Human directional signpost-guidatory thingies

BCI’s birthday bonanza

the last word

Birthday Boy Bornas receiving Batteries International’s present of emergency rations for on the road

Carol Chambers, the organizing Wunderkind behind the successful AABC series of meetings, is leaving the world of energy storage to setting up a psychological counselling agency in California.

“Conference organizing was my testing ground for the larger practice of dealing with the best (or is it the worst?) of human nature,” says Carol.

Farewell Carol

R&D never ends. Or that’s the conclusion of battery legends Dave Prengaman and Allan Cooper who say they are planning to extend their research activities into the perfect Malt Whiskey Electrolyte at this year’s Edinburgh conference.

The Prengaman-Cooper test, as readers of this column will remember, compares the taste of a whisky that is served neat, with water or with ice.” “We’ve had some promising results so far,” says Dave. “But we’ve had too small a universe

of electrolytic material to test. In Edinburgh we’re in the home of the single malt. There’s a lot of work to do.”

“Yes,” says Allan. “But it’s going to be an exacting process testing them all — especially since we’re going to have to labour through whiskies that have been aged for as much as 16 years.

“It’s tough work, a precision job that requires attention when we should be relaxing after the conference …but someone has to do it. Duty calls.”

This year’s ELBC conference in Edinburgh looks set to be one to remember. Or to forget if your party tastes include some of the malt whisky tasting that has been planned.

Among the private exhibitors’ parties that have been rumoured to us include an evening reception in Edinburgh Castle complete with pipers, kilts and who knows what goes under them, a dinner on the Queen’s royal yacht Britannia and, so it is rumoured, a trip to Loch Ness to see the monster. But who that is, we can but speculate.

“Could I have a steak please?” said one impertinent delegate.

“Sorry no steaks ...

“But we’re very important members of the international lead acid battery community, you must be able to give us something. A burger? No burgers? So what have you got?”

Cynical smile. “Mussels or sushi?”

“I’ll have the mussels … and chips.

By now you’ll know the answer to that one.

“Well how about some bread instead?”

And I think you’ll have some idea of that answer too.

Ending with “Come back next week, we’ll have the napkins then.”

Scene. A beach bar in Albena, host resort to

the battery intellectuals that fl ocked to LABAT this June. Blue sky, blue sea. All is perfect in the

post-conference glow of heavy-weight graphene

conversations. (Sigh.) In the luxurious — just opened —

restaurant bar on the golden beach, a dozen delegates

congregated to discuss the fi ner points of the day’s

proceedings over a glass or 10 of wine.

The Pretest, ascolumncompara whiskneat, wice.” “Wpromisisays Dahad too

conluxu

restab

co

pro

Party time at ELBC

Edinburgh R&D electrolyte analysis ... on the rocks

Fine dining, Bulgarian style

Well perhaps not so light, but substantial and highly topical and fresh from the pens of battery giants Ron Dell, Pat Moseley and David Rand.

‘Towards Sustainable Road Transport’ charts the century-long development of road transport based on the internal combustion engine, surveys the progress in technology that offers the potential to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and, in a foretaste of the future, assesses the prospects for the targets in emissions reduction by 2050 to be met.

The book, priced at $99.95, can be bought from Elsevier’s website or Amazon.

Introducing Batteries International’s latest correspondent — Sara Verbruggen (a not-at-all look-alike pictured here) — freshly back

from her Zipwire holiday break in North Wales. “Flying down a moun-tain at 100mph is kind of fun,” she says. “But the world of energy storage is an adrenaline rush that cannot be sur-passed.”

A misty look crosses her eyes. “Except by lead acid batteries, maybe.”

9am. (Actually it’s more like 5.30am — we were lying through our teeth as we love starting work as early as we can.) But one never needs an excuse for a glass or two of Bolly. Today’s excuse (I mean reason) —another stage completed in our press business. Darlinks.

Absolutely fabulous darlinks

A little light reading for the weekend

WIRED

the last word

Coming soon to a Jumbo near you …

Another day, another lithium plane fi re? But forget those Dreamliners, look in the cabin instead. The not-so-smart phone in the pocket or the tablet in the briefcase (or the iPad with the fl ight plan in the cockpit?). With the rise and rise of portable electronic devices, could it only be a matter of time that we have to deal with thermal runaway at 35,000 feet? Plucky inventors George Brilmyer and Mike Gil-christ have come up with a solution — the PlaneGard a special case that comes with protective gear that allows cabin staff to deal with ther-mal runaway.

Pasting Pasting ► ► DividingDividing ► ► Flash Drying Flash Drying ► ► Stacking Stacking ► ► Curing Curing ► ► C.O.S. C.O.S. ► ► Assembly Assembly

MAC Engineering and Equipment Company, Inc. 2775 Meadowbrook Road, Benton Harbor, MI 49022 U.S.A.

[email protected]

www.mac-eng.com

Latin America Latin America (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) Asia Asia (Sorfin Yoshimura Tokyo, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Tokyo, Ltd.) Brasil Brasil (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) China China (Sorfin Yoshimura Qingdao, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Qingdao, Ltd.) Europe Europe (Sorfin Yoshimura Paris, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Paris, Ltd.) India India (Sorfin Yoshimura India, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura India, Ltd.) Thailand Thailand (Sorfin Yoshimura Thailand, Ltd.) (Sorfin Yoshimura Thailand, Ltd.)

New York, USA:New York, USA: [email protected] [email protected] Tokyo, Japan:Tokyo, Japan: tokyo@[email protected] yoshimura.jp São Paulo, Brasil:São Paulo, Brasil: saopaulo@[email protected] yoshimura.br Qingdao, China:Qingdao, China: qingdao@[email protected] yoshimura.cn Paris, France:Paris, France: paris@[email protected] Pune, India:Pune, India: sales@[email protected] Bangkok, Thailand: sorfin@sorfinBangkok, Thailand: [email protected] yoshimura.co.th

Batteries International — issue 92

Documents

grid storage

energy storage pilots

aquion energy

battery testing equipment

energy tmour

battery packs

large scale energy storage

battery testing program