State of Batteries 2020

BatteryBits report, and some updates from around the battery interwebs

This week, we’re intercalating the BatteryBits 2020 Review and other tidbits aggregated from the interwebs into your inbox. For business enquiries, reach out at intercalationstation@gmail.com.

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📅 2020 IN REVIEW

State of Batteries Report 2020

📅 The authors will be presenting the State of Batteries report at the next Battery Modelling Webinar Series on Tuesday February 2nd, 11am-12pm EST. Click here to add this to your calendar. 📅

2020 was a big year for batteries. We were excited to work with BatteryBits to compile the inaugural State of Batteries Report 2020, which has been accessed 5000+ times in the first week!

This 71-page deck summarizes the most significant developments in the battery industry in 2020. It’s a comprehensive and accessible overview of the current state of battery research, industry, talent, and policy. Hopefully, we can catalyze some in-depth conversations on the state of batteries and its trajectory for the future.

Link: https://www.batterybrunch.org/state-of-batteries-report

Here are a few of our key takeaways from the report:

1. Academic research is complimenting industry innovation. Based on the number of papers/patents, it appears academia is focusing on materials level while industry is focusing on pack-level innovation.

Ying Shirley Meng @YingShirleyMen1

@ndrewwang This is very healthy. In fact, academic and industry should not compete with each other, but complement and support each other. The slide you show is a very good sign to me. Will take a look at the long report...

January 16th 2021

37 Likes

2. Global policy movement. Major jurisdictions publicly announce net-zero plans with EVs, with a big component shifting away from fossil fuel vehicles. In the last month alone, we saw Japan and Massachusetts join the list to ban ICE vehicles. Next steps require putting the right infrastructure and incentives in place to increase EV equity.

3. Battery production is growing, and talent needs to grow with it. With the growth of electrification, battery-specific talent will balloon. 1 GWh of battery production leads to ~40 jobs in direct production and ~200 indirect jobs. 

Many thanks to the authors for putting this together: Nicholas Yiu, Linda Jing, Yen Yeh, Katherine (Qianren) Hu, Eric Zheng, and the many other reviewers and contributors for their time and insights.

Dennis Kopljar 🔋⚡ @DennisKopljar

Technology Roadmap for high energy density #batteries - for everyone wondering what to expect in the next decade 🔋🔋🔋 clearly going towards 500 Wh/kg. Taken from #BatteryBits status report, original reference see bottom 👇🏻

January 18th 2021

19 Retweets52 Likes

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🎧 WHAT WE’RE READING/LISTENING TO

1️⃣ State of Batteries Report 2020. A comprehensive end-of-year report summarizing key highlights of 2020, prepared by BatteryBits

2️⃣ Wharton Energy Network: Alumni Spotlight Nicholas Yiu. A conversation with Wharton Energy Network with Intercalation Station author Nicholas Yiu.

3️⃣ You May Remember 2020 as the Year the ‘Super-Battery’ Became Real. A 2020 industry recap by Steve Levine

4️⃣ Intercalation Station Battery Careers Webinar (Dec 2020). Catch the recording of our webinar about battery careers, with speakers Prof Shirley Meng, Dr Christine Ho, & Celina Mikolajczak

5️⃣ How can we increase equity in the EV transition?

6️⃣ Why are used batteries more expensive than new ones? Hans Eric Melin and Circular Energy Storage

7️⃣ So you want to start a Gigafactory? Cormac O’Laoire & Electrios Energy

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🚀 STARTUP MOVEMENT TRACKER

• Group14 raises $17M Series B for Si-C anode materials (Washington, USA)

• ZeroAvia raises $21.4M for hydrogen-powered planes, funded by Breakthrough and Amazon’s climate fund (California, USA)

• Voi raises $3M for e-scooter rentals in Europe (Stockholm)

• Bolt raises $183M for e-bikes, with net investments totaling $500M+ (Estonia)

• Gegadyne raises $5M for fast charging batteries (Mumbai, India)

• Connected Energy raised $13M for second life batteries (UK)

• 24M wins $9M from ARPA-E SCALEUP for Li metal based batteries (Massachusetts, USA)

• Freyr goes public via SPAC to build a clean gigaplant with an outsourced business model

• Sila Nanotechnologies wins $10M from ARPA-E SCALEUP for Si anode powders (California, USA)

• Ionic Materials wins $8M from ARPA-E SCALEUP for polymer electrolyte solid state batteries (Massachusetts, USA)

• e-Zinc raises $2.3M to develop energy storage in zinc metal (Toronto, Canada)

• Lohum raises $7M for battery manufacturing and recycling (New Dehli, India)

• Freewire raises $50M Series C for electric vehicle charging (California, USA)

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🗓 WEBINARS & EVENTS

Check out some of the upcoming battery/energy storage events and webinars in this shared calendar.

In particular, we wanted to share the monthly Battery Brunch networking events which are allowing battery-peeps to meet from all over the world!

📅 The authors will be presenting the State of Batteries report at the next Battery Modelling Webinar Series on Tuesday February 2nd, 11am-12pm EST. Click here to add this to your calendar. 📅

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👀 Where’s the rest of the newsletter?

Check out our previous release for detailed research and industry articles!

🌞 THANKS FOR READING!

If you enjoy this newsletter or know someone who would, please subscribe. For tips, feedback, or business enquiries, please email intercalationstation@gmail.com.

About the writers: Andrew is an engineering science PhD student at the University of Oxford (@ndrewwang). Nicholas is a business manager at UCL Business supporting technology commercialization and investments in early-stage startups from UCL, and Venture Fellow with Berkeley SkyDeck (@nicholasyiu).