Battery Insiders Reflection - Battery Scale-up using EIS

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights in the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And we're back. How are you feeling, Simon? Very well. It's wonderful. It's hot. The weather is lovely. How about you, Bhavya? Oh, same. I think I'm sitting in a room with no circulation right now because when it gets hot, one's AC also struggles. So we're currently in a very hot room and it's very hot outside. So feeling the heat, but it's all good. Everything's fine. So EIS, I'm curious. Is this something that you've worked with before in the battery world? I, for one, have not. I actually have. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, it's quite a common technique, I would say, in a laboratory setting. I mean, EAS stands for Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy. And it's one of these techniques, you know, to really characterize electrochemical characterization of batteries. You know, you have all these testing devices. You know, I think the most classical one many people probably know is charge-discharge.

1:22There's also, of course, a lot of complexity, how you can charge-discharge your battery to get information. Another one is EIS or like, you know, impedance measurements, which gives some other, you know, information. And it's actually, you know, from the measurement itself, it's quite a quick experiment, which is quite nice. You know, people like to do it because you can do it very quick. You know, yeah. It's like maybe a measurement of a few minutes rather than, you know, many hours. Of course, you can do otherwise. But the understanding of it can be quite complex. And that's also, I think, kind of linking to what we spoke about in this week's session, which was a lot about also, you know, one is, of course, the device, you know, to do the measurement. And here, the cost can be quite high. And especially in the laboratory setting, it's a bit of an issue. It was quite interesting for them, you know, to talk about how you can reduce the cost.

2:08I think they were saying, you know, about $1,000 per unit or so. So, but then they also spoke a lot about data and subscription and how they can use machine learning essentially to kind of make sense out of all the data. So, they were talking about, you know, different use cases with our fantastic conversation starters from actually from my last battery day, which was, you know, great and hilarious, but also great to have them back. And here, you know, the exciting work. So, we had Mariam, you know, and from Posenix talking about it and, you know, talking about essentially how you can use AAS in the field to monitor your degradation of your batteries. Something I personally have seen also being used for old car batteries, you know, electric vehicle batteries to kind of use a three-minute experiment, three-minute measurement to understand the degradation, how long they might still last. Oh, wow. So, I feel like I just learned a little bit more about it.

3:04I do think, so it's interesting because I know that your background, I believe, was in characterization, wasn't it, at Cambridge? That's definitely one part. It's definitely something I spent quite a bit of time on. Yeah. And it's something that we've talked a lot about on these talks. But, you know, when it comes to tactically, how do we actually execute on this? This seems to be one of the ways, one of the methods, or rather techniques that, you know, scientists and those in the battery world could use. And so, I think I really enjoyed hearing more about, as much as I was also very much learning about it, just hearing that, oh, this other option exists for making the practice of characterizing batteries so hands-on. And actually, how do you do it? I feel like that was nice to actually have that discussed. Because otherwise, I feel like often in our battery conversations, things stay pretty high level because people are still figuring out so much about it.

4:03But it seems like with EIS and the way our conversation starters were talking about it, that it's kind of already there. We just need to use it more. Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it. And I think it's one of these things, right, which kind of has been around for a while, but then the real world applications, you know, can be a bit of a different story. And it's what I personally found quite nice. And also, I think it fits into our, you know, like, you know, into the startup theme, you know, we've been talking about before as well. I think it's one of these topics which actually works quite well in the startup setting, right? Because they don't have to build new batteries, right? They don't have to, you know, build big factories or, you know, big, you know, chemistry and things, which can be quite challenging, right? Which, of course, very much needed. And we also can see success there as well.

4:50But I think it's quite a nice play, actually, where there's some, you know, some small dedicated hardware. I mean, you still have to figure out like a price point, which makes sense. And I think I've been working on that. But then also, it's a little about data, right? And kind of making use of data, which, of course, often is something which is not that, yeah, which I think there's also some limitation also from a stationary market, right? Which is just about uptime. It's about, you know, reliability. I think she spoke about safety, avoiding like, you know, hazards, fire, these kind of things. And they kind of having, I think they're creating like a nice niche there. So I think just from a personal level, from a startup perspective, they quite enjoyed it. And I think it was quite nice to learn more about how they're approaching it. And so do you think that as we discussed on the call and with ScaleUp, that it is feasible to scale up this technique or this technology?

5:45Or I guess what obstacles do you foresee for this type of scaling? Yeah. No, I mean, that's a good question. I think it was quite nice because I think we went like full circle in some way also, right? In the conversation, I think in the beginning, actually, we started off as OKR, you know, like kind of like more like a technique, kind of how can we work efficiently, right? How can we align our goals? And, you know, it was quite fun. You know, I mean, OKR stands for objectives and key results. So there's a technique we're actually implementing in battery sources as well at the moment. So that was a fun start. But then I think the kind of closing was also quite good where she kind of pulled it together, right, to kind of talk about how they see scale. And I think one for them was, you know, that there's a lot of in the development process, ES is used, right, as a characterization technique.

6:31And now they're bringing it into the field and, you know, kind of creating the synergies there, kind of learning from each other. I think that's something which came up. And second one was, right, for them, I mean, having these units, I think they spoke to have like a five or 10 and 20 kilowatt hours per unit, essentially have like a modular system, right? So you can scale up, you know, I think in this way, and they spoke about some megawatt hours installations, I think, in Brazil they have. But then I think, you know, another one is kind of how can we scale up batteries in total, right? Like how can we create reliability, you know, how can we, I think one scale up, and we spoke about this before, right, is from a production scale, right? How can we reduce all the, you know, all the batteries we need? How can we build the factories, the production, how we can get all the materials we need?

7:15What do we do with them afterwards? But I think another thing is how can we actually create reliable use case, like, you know, applications and use cases for these batteries? How can we really use batteries, for example, in a stationary setting so that they are, you know, can replace other, like, you know, fossil fuel energy source right now? I think this also kind of, for me, went into this a bit, not just, you know, from a scale point, how can we produce more batteries, but then also how can we create, you know, reliable use cases, you know, in all these different areas they explained, they've been looking at. So I think it was really interesting to scale. What do you think about maybe also, I mean, maybe your policy angle a bit, you know, because safety and reliability and these kind of things, you know, I think, I guess it's a big part as well from acceptance, but do you have any thoughts on a policy angle or acceptance angle?

8:03Well, I think there have been a couple efforts, especially more in Europe to make data more publicly available, right? I think, especially when it comes to batteries and basically have that level of sharing with, not just with consumers, but with other OEMs or I guess, at least just have it publicly available so that when your battery hits end of life, you have that information to use, even if it's not owned or only available to the OEM of the battery manufacturer themselves. But of course, from a safety perspective, this is super important. I think I'm starting to understand more and more as we just talk about it, that this has many implications for both of those areas. And I would imagine that in the future, certain structures of like any kind of like policy framework would have to include, it sounds like EIS, just given that it can give you some of those measurements, like especially when you're talking about degradation and how that understanding that a battery's degradation, for example, has so many other impacts such as, okay, are we switching out the battery?

9:16What are we doing with the battery? How do we manage it? You know, if there's any telling of characterization, that also indicates how you manage a battery and at end of life or what is that, what is discharging this battery specifically look like? And so given those implications, I think it has to be a part of any future framework. I don't think I have seen it in a framework as of yet. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think that it should be a part of future conversation. And I'm glad that we had this topic this week, just to start. Totally. No, I agree. And I think maybe one thing to add, right? I mean, last week, I was quite fortunate to participate in a design sprint from the German Environmental Ministry on essentially like in a V battery passport and product pass, kind of like, you know, how can we collect all the information that's all the way right from the raw materials, but then also all the production, the application, and then, you know, recycling.

10:19And essentially, how can we create, you know, how can we make sure, for example, recycling has the right information, recyclers, they need to do it effectively, et cetera, but also all the use case in between. And yeah, what I found quite fascinating, we spent so many, we spent like three days, just think about all the data there is and what could be useful and what's needed and these kind of things. And yeah, we didn't really talk about EAS, to be honest, you know, we talked more about other kind of charts to start data. And it's kind of also interesting, you know, how data evolves over time, also based on what resource and what kind of measurements you have. You know, there's lots of, you know, sensors is still one of these things. So I think there's a lot of potential in the battery space. And EAS is one of these ones, which has been used for a while. But yeah, it's still fascinating to see how new startups and, you know, players come into it and, you know, trying to, you know, create more useful solutions for the end consumer and for the, for the application.

11:10So yeah, for my side also, just for a fascinating conversation, something we can see, I'm sure next week at our battery, then we're going to hear some exciting new startups as well. I mean, as I said, I was going to say, does our audience get a, does our audience get a glimpse too? Or are we keeping them in suspense? Yeah. I mean, I would just say, listen in, you know, it's one of these things I can definitely recommend also as usual, of course, to be there live. But I think especially for the battery, then you want to, don't want to miss it. It's, you know, Clubhouse, you can, you know, access it with Android and Apple now. So essentially any phone and yeah, you know, it's going to be fun. We're going to have four startups. I think I can say that much and some really exciting founders. We have another exciting, the same panels last time, really excellent. We also, you know, we really work hard on having gender equality or gender balance on the, on the panel as well as on startups pitching.

12:04So that's something as well. And yeah, there's just going to, it's going to be exciting. We already heard some pitches. So we are just excited to see how the event goes. And if you all participate and ask questions and yeah, hopefully find some nice matches as well between people. All right. And with that, we will see you all next week on Battery Dead. Sounds great. See you then.