January Round Up!
The first twelfth of 2024 has gone by and a lot has already happened in the battery industry. As usual, at Intercalation we have been cooking up lots of content to get you through the northern hemisphere winter, as well as keeping our eyes on the news. Here’s our top picks from January.
Something which is constant in our battery news is monitoring for the risk of thermal runaway. How can you analyze and mitigate the risk of thermal runaway? Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) can be used to measure the heat flow of electrode materials. Scanning across a range of temperatures allows detection of exothermic reactions that may lead to thermal runaway. The impact of state of charge SOC of materials on the onset temperature and amount of energy released can be measured, making differential scanning calorimetry a useful tool in battery safety evaluation.
TA Instruments is the leader in analytical instrumentation and offers resources to help battery developers - see how isothermal microcalorimetry supports cutting-edge battery development in this blog, explaining five published cases of IMC in battery research.
💸 AMTE power wobble
In another major blow for the UK battery industry dreams, Scottish company AMTE power entered into administration at the very end of 2023. This wasn’t a surprise, since the company had been asking for government assistance since July. It was bought by Dutch Solid State company LionVolt and the site in Thurso will now be used to produce LionVolt’s tech, keeping 20 jobs. The staff in the HQ in Oxfordshire have been made redundant.
🏝️ Grid resilience is becoming reality
A large battery has replaced the last coal plant in Hawaii. 158 Tesla Megapacks give the plant 185 MW of instant discharge and a whopping 565 MWh total storage. This is a huge leap in grid resilience for Hawaii and we expect to see lots of similar stories as the dream combo of solar&storage take more centre stage in the global energy mix.
Over Christmas, a National Grid power line from UK to France tripped, causing the grid to lose 1GW of power and frequency dropped sharply. Battery stationary storage deployed 400MW. It’s good to see these kinds of incidents happen without event.
📉 LFP prices fall
The recent falls in LFP price means that for stationary storage first life batteries are now more attractive than second life. Related, VC Transition discusses what’s needed in Europe to build a thriving recycling company. More on the profitability balance of recycling of LFP here.
🇳🇴 Deep sea exploration approved in Norway.
Crucially, this is not a mining license, and does set stricter environmental survey requirements during the exploration phase than originally planned. The Norwegian parliament will have to make a final decision on whether to approve full-scale mining based on data gathered during the initial exploration. This does however put the country at odds to a lot of other nations calling for a moratorium on deep sea mining. Read more about the conflicts in deep sea mining in our recent article.
⌛Silicon’s hour is coming
Rincell raises $1.2 million in a seed round. This new kid on the block has already shipped 18650s and 21700 silicon-graphite cells. This infusion of cash will hopefully get them to commercial markets in 2024. At the same time Enovix and Group14 have announced a collaboration to make silicon batteries.
💰 Big Money for Circular Batteries
Northvolt has announced a $5 billion deal to expand Northvolt Ett. Specifically expanding cathode production, cell manufacturing, and the adjacent recycling plant, Revolt Ett. They have calculated that their facility recovers battery-grade metals with a carbon footprint 70% lower than mined raw materials, which they will need on their mission to be Europe’s greenest battery.
The same Northvolt has confirmed plans for their Hamburg gigafactory - Heide - with the planning permission awarded this month. This comes with a neat €902 million deal from the German federal and state government to support the venture.
⛓️💥US ties to China
Despite the USA’s best intentions, at this point it is still near impossible to completely decouple the economy from China. The complications are neatly described in this article from Henry Sanderson. This is exemplified as Tesla opening a battery factory with equipment from CATL in its quest to bring a new LFP supply chain into the US. The purchase appears to be a clever move by Tesla to access some of the best LFP battery technology without hitting IRA purchasing and licensing limitations.
🔴Live event
Based in London? Keep an eye on our socials for an exciting event partnered with Fastmarkets for International Women’s Day, aimed at discussing intersectional diversity in our industry, and networking. Save the date of 6th March 4.30-6.30pm…
🎧 What else we’re reading and listening to
Volta Foundation have published their Annual Report for 2023. For a highly comprehensive 295 overview of the global battery biz, check it out!
Fully Charged visits CATL. If you haven’t seen this video, we highly recommend you stop everything now to watch it. A very rare filmed tour of CATL in Ningde by Elliot Richards.
Report from RMI ‘X-Change: The Battery Domino Effect’ on how cost decreases increase adoption.
New book out by Hannah Ritchie ‘Not the End of the World’ which tackles the numbers on climate change. This has been met with mixed reviews and you can read her own commentary on it here.
Two recent Women in Batteries events from our friends at Volta Foundation. Here’s the earlier one featuring Sarah Maryssael, CSO at Livent.
🌞 Thanks for reading!
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