Energy Storage

The event aims to become a European benchmark for battery research and innovation.

 

Battery Innovation Days, the first annual European conference on battery research and innovation, will take place on 23, 24 and 25 November.

The event is organised by the main initiatives of the European battery ecosystem, such as Batteries Europe, Battery 2030+ and BEPA (the Batteries European Partnership Association), with the support of the two IPCEI battery projects.

The Battery Innovation Days will bring together leading industry and academic experts to discuss the latest advances in the field of European battery R&D, as well as the main strategic challenges to be addressed in the near future to accelerate the deployment of a competitive and sustainable European battery industry.

CIDETEC Energy Storage, as a leading member of the battery community, will be well represented in the Battery Innovation Days programme with different contributions:

• Oscar Miguel, Deputy Director of CIDETEC Energy Storage, will participate in the session “Future R&I priorities for 2023-2024, what’s on the table?” from 9:30 to 11:00 on Thursday 25^th. In the session, by virtue of his position as a member of the BEPA Association Delegation, Oscar will present the main lines proposed by the association in materials, design and manufacturing, as well as battery applications.

• Elixabete Ayerbe, Team Leader in the modelling and digitalisation area of CIDETEC Energy Storage, will be on the panel of experts who will discuss “From raw materials to application: the indispensable necessity of digital development”, in a parallel session to the previous one, from 9:30 to 11:00 on Thursday 25th.

• In addition, throughout the event, the European project DEFACTO, “Battery Design and Manufacturing Optimization through Multiphysic Modelling”, coordinated by CIDETEC Energy Storage, will be present in the virtual exhibition that will be active throughout the event, with the support of Elixabete and CIDETEC researcher María Yáñez, coordinators of the project.

The ALBATROSS project addresses the needs of European Electric and Hybrid-Electric passenger vehicle market by overcoming driver concerns relating to battery range and anxiety, cost, long-term reliability and excessive charging times.

 

Electrification of vehicles is seen as key to achieving global legislative requirements for CO2 emissions reductions. Zero emissions within cities and higher quality and higher performance electrified vehicles (EVs) is also making them more attractive. More than 2 million EVs were sold globally in 2018, 68,7% were battery electric vehicles (BEV) and 31,3% were plugin hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), with an annual growth rate of 57,3%. However, several issues currently limit further exploitation. Specifically, concerns of drivers regarding battery range (and anxiety), cost, the long-term reliability of batteries and excessive charging times. European manufacturers need to develop key technologies which address buyers’ main hesitation points. ALBATROSS was born to contribute to solve these challenges and CIDETEC Energy Storage is part of this team

 

European OEMs and policy makers want to see an increased uptake in EVs in order to stay competitive, meet climate targets and improve standards of living (improved air quality in cities, reduced noise). To realize an increased uptake, the general hesitations of buyers need to be addressed, primarily range and cost. Many of the current limitations relate to the battery packs. As vehicle manufacturers look to extract the maximum possible energy and durability from battery packs and recharge them as quickly and safely as possible, these issues become more critical. Thermal “smart” management of individual battery cells is a crucial enabler for performance improvements regardless of (even extreme cold or hot) external temperatures.

 

The outputs of ALBATROSS will enable our automotive OEM partners to improve their competitiveness through reducing battery pack cost and increasing value for second-life applications, making them more attractive as well as reducing emissions over the full lifetime, thus meeting global legislative requirements. Technologies are based on globally available battery cells, enabling rapid exploitation, giving our EU supply chains competitive advantage.

 

CIDETEC Energy Storage will play the role of validator of the achieved new battery pack concept through long-term tests at laboratory at the end of the project. These tests will include standard driving cycles and fast charging rates according to the maximum available safe operation scenario of the battery pack. On the other hand, CIDETEC is already contributing to the battery pack modelling thanks to our expertise in electrical and thermal modelling.

 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 963580

 

This article reflects only the author’s view and the Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains

The SPARTACUS research project as part of the EU research initiative BATTERY 2030+ has now been running for around a year. The project has successfully mastered the first milestones and project goals. On the way to sensor-based optimization of charging times, range and service life for lithium-ion batteries, the SPARTACUS project team has worked on a number of partial aspects over the past 12 months. Now the individual components can be combined into a complete system.

 

Spartacus – the abbreviation stands for “Spatially resolved acoustic, mechanical and ultrasonic sensing for smart batteries”. The research project aims to develop a multifunctional sensor array technology for batteries that transmits the relevant data to the battery management systems for optimal charging and discharging depending on the battery condition. The project focuses on mechanical and acoustic sensors, supplemented by electrochemical impedance measurements and temperature sensors. The SPARTACUS sensor technology is intended to detect faults and negative influences on battery life and performance at an early stage.

 

The SPARTACUS project team started its work one year ago. The goal is to ensure that previously unused reserves in battery management are exploited in the future by means of comprehensive battery monitoring. This should make it possible to reduce charging times by up to 20 % without compromising reliability and service life. “The SPARTACUS project has broken new ground in many respects,” explains coordinator Gerhard Domann of Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC. For example, he says, not only have new sensor concepts been prepared by combining acoustic-mechanical and thermal sensors with advanced analysis methods, but the modeling of the processes in the battery cell has also been advanced in such a way that new prediction models for battery condition and optimal charge control are possible. “After the first year of the project, all working groups have successfully advanced their individual project work, and all specifications have been defined. Now it is a matter of putting the puzzle pieces together and linking them into a successful monitoring technology for batteries,” Domann continues.

 

This marks the beginning of the second project phase, in which the new battery sensor technology will deliver real data in precisely defined test series, which will be correlated with the model data. On this basis, the refined prediction models will be developed, with which future battery management systems can better exploit the performance range of the batteries. At the Green Batteries Conference 2021, which took place in October, the first project results were already presented to a larger audience from science and industry and received with great interest.

 

The SPARTACUS work packages

 

Specifications

With the first work package, the specification protocols were defined on different levels, starting with the sensor, data pre-processing, integration, modules, battery management systems, validation and the LCA methodology framework. The work package has already been completed and forms the basis for the collaborative development within the Spartacus project.

 

Sensor development

The aim of the sensor development work package is to develop new integrated multi-sensor technologies for monitoring the operating state of battery cells in terms of electrical, mechanical and thermal parameters. If possible, the sensors should provide information with local resolution.

The sensor technologies include

•         Various ultrasound procedures
•         Flexible capacitive stress, strain and pressure sensor arrays
•         Temperature sensors
•         Impedance spectroscopic measurements

 

Assembly and connection technology

The integration and assembly technology work package is closely linked to the sensor development work package. In addition to primary integration and assembly, signal evaluation and data acquisition as well as data preprocessing are also challenging tasks. For the assembly, different sensor levels must be combined into one system without loss of sensitivity for the different sensors.

 

Modeling

The modelling work package aims at obtaining a complete monitoring and control of the battery system to increase its quality, reliability and lifetime (QRL) and to ensure its operation within a predefined safe operating area (SoA). In this context, the states of the batteries should be systematically extracted and validated. The sensor signals should be correlated with the different fault mechanisms. Methods based on artificial intelligence will also be used to evaluate the large amounts of sensor data. The models provide the basis for controlling the cell management systems.

 

Cell/battery management system development

In order to exploit the advantages of intelligent sensor integration, cell and battery management systems are being adapted. The aim of the CMS/BMS work package is to develop a battery management system (BMS) that is able to read out the various sensor measurements, process the data and optimally control the cell during the charge/discharge cycles on the basis of the model calculations.

The CMS/BMS development includes

•         Hardware design and production
•         Software architecture, programming and implementation
•         Realization of the CMS/BMS power line communication
•         System level verification: a series of a few cells equipped with the CMS to achieve a 24 V system.

 

Ecological and economic assessment

To evaluate the environmental and economic performance of SPARTACUS smart batteries, the project includes a life cycle analysis (LCA). The increased quality, reliability and lifetime of the batteries as well as the second life and LCOES – that means levelized costs of energy storage – of extended life batteries will be assessed in accordance with the European Circular Economy Strategy and the Battery Directive.

 

Validation / Demonstration

In this work package, a complex use case will be designed and set up to test all new functionalities of the Spartacus CMS/BMS, the new sensors and the modeling of batteries/cells in a virtual platform. This includes e.g. aging experiments under conventional CMS/BMS to compare and validate the aging behavior.

 

The SPARTACUS project is part of BATTERY 2030+, the large-scale
European research initiative for inventing the sustainable batteries of the future

 

SPARTACUS project team

 

FRAUNHOFER Institute for Silicate Research ISC (coordination), Germany

COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES CEA, France

CSEM CENTRE SUISSE D’ELECTRONIQUE ET DE MICROTECHNIQUE SA – RECHERCHE ET DEVELOPPEMENT, Switzerland

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSELS. Belgium

FUNDACION CIDETEC, Spain

ARKEMA FRANCE SA, France

ELRINGKLINGER AG, Germany