Financial prospects
A growing international market
The demand for batteries is growing all over the world—and so is the need for better battery management solutions. Rechargeable batteries are found in medical implants, portable tools, residential and commercial solar systems, electric vehicles, mobile phones, cell towers, and now the huge, critical battery energy storage systems (BESS)s used to support the electricity grid.
Demand for automotive lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and electric passenger car sales have seen exponential growth in recent years. According to the World Economic Forum, the main drivers of demand growth are the electrification of transportation and the deployment of batteries in electricity grids. It estimates that, by 2030, passenger cars will account for the largest share (60%) of global battery demand, followed by the commercial vehicle segment with 23%.
The Economist has recently stated that “Energy storage for the electrical grid is about to hit the big time. By the reckoning of the International Energy Agency (IEA), a forecaster, grid-scale storage is now the fastest-growing of all the energy technologies.”
A cost-effective proposition
The Waikato Battery Team’s technology will extract state of charge SoC and state of health SoH from current and voltage measurements. The ability of the new technology to provide a clear picture of the remaining life of any battery translates into significant cost savings.
The cheapest version of the new technology is estimated to cost about NZ$8000.
The Waikato Battery Team’s system would add financial value to manufacturers of batteries, to people doing quality control on purchased batteries, and to other battery researchers at universities and industry.
Maximizing benefit to New Zealand
The Waikato Battery Team’s s innovative systems can foster high-value export technology via licensing, thus yielding high-value returns to NZ from manufacturers of electric vehicles, solar storage systems, and consumer electronics.
A key factor in maximizing benefit and probability of path-to-market is collaboration with those that have the most financial investment at risk: the battery energy storage system (BESS) used by electrical utilities worldwide that cost between $80 and $250 million each. In New Zealand there is one 35MW BESS, owned by the research team’s collaborative partner NewPower (a subsidiary of WEL Networks). There are five more BESSs in advanced planning or construction, each costing more than $100 million. NewPower states that reducing uncertainties in state of charge SoC and lifetime prediction will be invaluable and will lead to tangible benefits for all BESS stakeholders.
The new technology is expected to have an economic impact with products such as electric vehicles (EVs). NZ imports increasing numbers of full-electric cars (~730/month) worth over NZ$1 billion in 2023.