Managing Batteries and Expectations

We’ve now passed the official start of summer, and at the risk of sounding cliché, things are about to heat up with one of – if not the – hottest topics for our publication, batteries.

Batteries are uniquely critical in that they’re vital to myriad portable devices and the electric vehicles in operation today, and they’re potentially more indispensable for the future – with escalating renewable energy sources (and their need for energy storage) and EVs taking over the road.

Indeed, it’s hard to find a hotter (and more lucrative) topic in our fair industry, and the numbers support it – according to a prominent consulting firm, the entire lithium-ion battery chain stands to grow at 30% annually from 2022 to 2030, reaching a value of $400 billion and a market size of 4.7 TWh.

And while China is currently dominating the lithium-ion supply chain, the U.S. and Europe are catching up, and that same firm predicts the highest growth within those two regions – whether by free market innovation or government regulation, the tech of the future is heavily dependent on lithium-ion batteries.

Thus, the entire battery supply chain will potentially increase 5-fold over the next 7 years, from $85 billion in 2022 to over $400 billion in 2030.

With that in the back of your mind, I’d like to highlight a couple pieces from July’s “Batteries + Other Storage Devices” edition, starting with one of the unfortunate downsides of li-ion batteries – their tendency to catch fire.

ZapBatt’s Charlie Welch and Amiad Zionpur dive into that issue with the sobering statistic that, in 2022, NYC experienced 216 fires related to li-ion batteries, causing six deaths and 147 injuries. And already in 2023, we’ve seen 2 deaths and 40 injuries from those same fires.

Clearly, something needs to be done.

ZapBatt identifies several reasons why NYC is plagued by these fires, including Lack of certification, overcharging, maintenance neglect, swapping batteries, and battery chemistry, and the authors underline why we’ll need to address these problems to ensure our (less fiery) electric future.

Meanwhile, JD DiGiacmandrea with Green Cubes delves into battery management systems, and in particular, how they can monitor li-ion batteries from potential abuse.

As JD points out, using multiple batteries can offer “extended runtime, enhanced reliability, and the ability to carry energy to different locations that may not have charging capabilities,” and a BMS can help manage the downsides of running batteries in parallel.

But even then, that can lead to “nuisance tripping,” or the undesired activation of the battery management system. Read JD’s piece for more.

Enjoy the July issue!

Best Regards,

Jason Lomberg

North American Editor, PSD