Lithium News

Honda presented its first electric model for the Chinese market at the Guangzhou Auto Show. The compact SUV called VE-1 evokes the Honda HR-V model they based it on. It is also the series version of the Everus EV Concept Honda presented at the Auto China earlier in April.

Regularly the Honda HR-V comes with either petrol, diesel or hybrid drive. China is therefore the first country to receive the electric version of the model.

The Honda VE-1 electric motor delivers 120 kW. A 56-kWh battery pack provides a range of up to 340 km according to NEDC testing. The 4.3 x 1.8 x 1.6m model will go into production in December, with Honda and joint venture partner GAC handling local production. The price will be 170,800 yuan (around 21,500 euros) after subsidies.

Apart from selling to private customers, Honda also intends to use the VE-1 for the Chinese electric car sharing Reachda, in which they have a stake in since Honda invested the equivalent of around 9 million dollars last December reportedly. The money secured Honda ten percent of shares but to date Reachda relies on electric vehicles from Changan mostly.

In addition, Honda and GAC announced only last month their plan to build a joint plant in China for the production of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. The plant will have production capacity for 170,000 vehicles per year. Rather than aiming for a development cooperation alone though, the Japanese will use the joint venture to produce the compact SUV Trumpchi GS4 from GAC and distribute it under the Honda label in order to fulfil the new energy vehicle quota set to kick in by 2019.

Such a deal is not new and in fact looks much like another announcement made by GAC and Toyota in May. The Japanese carmaker said they would begin the sale of the ix4 from their joint venture partner GAC, while also expanding the production capacity for new energy vehicles by 35 percent over the next three years

Scientists from Penn State may have discovered the key to creating a new generation of faster, more power lithium metal batteries. Researchers believe the secret to improving battery life and performance involves a new material: a 3D, cross-linked polymer sponge. The sponge is then attached to the metal plating of the battery anode, which helps extend the life of the battery while providing it with an extra burst of power.

Lithium batteries have long been plagued by an assortment of issues, particularly dendritic growth. These needle-like formations can dramatically interfere with energy production and reduce the life of the battery. They can also cause explosions and fires, making them a serious safety risk for battery users.

To deal with these problems, scientists took the lithium metal and applied a polymer to the surface. This material operates like a porous sponge. It helps to promote ion transfer and can significantly impede the deterioration process. The material works even under fast charge conditions and with lower temperatures, making it extremely versatile.

To deal with these issues, collaboration was key. Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment teamed up with researchers from the Battery Energy and Storage Technology Center to help improve lithium ion batteries.

“The collaboration in this cohort really helped drive this paper forward. It allowed us to examine the different aspects of this problem, from materials science, chemical engineering, chemistry, and mechanical engineering perspectives.”

Donghai Wang, professor of mechanical engineering and the principal investigator of the project
To fully understand the structure and components of the lithium metal anodes, scientists conducted extensive modeling work. The end results point to a clear solution for many of the problems plaguing lithium batteries, and promise a new breed of power, stable metal batteries that could be mass produced and commercialized with relative ease.

Scientists believe these new batteries could be used in countless applications. Cell phone users could enjoy significantly longer battery life, while those who rely on electric vehicles could plan far longer road trips without having to worry about charging up.

Next up, researchers intend to explore the practical applications for their technology. They intend to create a large-format battery cell to fully demonstrate the advantages and viability of their new design. Ultimately, scientists hope to at least double the lifespan of present-day lithium ion batteries.

A CHINESE STARTUP claims to have solved the solid-state battery conundrum – the riddle being that no-one knew how to make them – stating that its technology could replace the lithium-ion batteries we see in most modern gadgets these days.

Announcing that its solid-state battery production line is now operational in the city of Kunshan, in east China’s Jiangsu Province, the startup claims its tech could even replace the liquid or gel-form electrolyte with a solid and conductive material.

Called Qing Tao Energy Development Co, the startup is led by Nan Cewen, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who has invested a massive 1 billion yuan (£112m) on the solid-state battery project.

Solid-state batteries use both solid electrodes and solid electrolytes, instead of the liquid or polymer electrolytes found in Lithium-ion or Lithium polymer batteries, with an idea that they are smaller, higher-capacity and cheaper than those found in today’s smartphones, laptops and tablets.

The fresh firm’s production line is said to be capable of producing 0.1 GWh solid-state batteries per year, which have an energy density of over 400 Wh/kg. Now it’s operational, Nan said the batteries would first be utilised on special equipment and high-end digital products.

He added that the company has engaged with a number of large automobile manufacturers to produce batteries for electric vehicles by 2020, when the company’s annual production capacity is expected to reach 0.7 GWh.

Nan founded the company with several PhD graduates from Tsinghua University in 2014 with an insight into the market prospect for solid-state battery technology. He said his goals are to provide world-renowned companies like Volkswagen, Toyota and Dyson with solid-state batteries as they are marching towards using these types of batteries for automotive applications.

“Getting rid of liquid electrolytes can ensure the battery is not flammable or combustible and can even be produced in flexible packs,” he said.

The market for energy storage is rapidly gaining momentum around the world. The growing cost-competitiveness of carbon-free energy sources, coupled with improving technology and more environmentally conscious government policies are driving a demand boom for batteries in both the transportation and utility power sectors. But just how big is this boom expected to be?

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predicts that the global energy storage market will grow to a cumulative 942GW by 2040, attracting a whopping $620 billion in investments. This makes sense, given that combined wind and solar power generation capacity is expected to eclipse that of natural gas shortly after 2040 – at least according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). And those renewable energy stations, which produce power intermittently (the sun is not always shining and the wind is not always blowing), will require adequate storage to make them economically viable.

That’s to say nothing of battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), where the global fleet has been expanding at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 52% over the past 5 years. That rate is expected to level off to about 25% between now and 2025. There are currently 3 million EVs on the road today, and an estimated 1.2 million of them were sold in 2017. That’s around 1.5% of all car sales last year.

The Market Driver

Fall in costs of lithium-ion (LI) batteries are a key driver of increasing demands for battery storage. Lithium-ion is the leading battery storage technology to date, though alternatives are beginning to crop up. The price of LI batteries fell 80% between 2010 and 2017 ($/kWh) with costs projected to fall another 52% between 2018 and 2030. Head of Energy Storage at BNEF expects to see ‘energy storage growing to a point where it is equivalent to 7% of the total installed power capacity globally in 2040.’ Nothing to sneeze at considering all (non-hydro) renewable power accounted for 8% of worldwide electricity production in 2017.

Market Players

China, US, India, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, South Korea, and the UK lead the energy storage markets, together accounting for two-thirds of 2040’s installed capacity

The major players operating in the battery energy storage system market include ABB (Switzerland), LG Chem (South Korea), NEC (Japan), Panasonic (Japan), Samsung SDI (South Korea), AEG Power Solutions (Netherlands), General Electric (US), Hitachi (Japan), Siemens (Germany), and Tesla (US). Keep an eye on these companies as battery deployment and investment continue to rise.

Challenges

The pre-eminent obstacle to battery storage is cost. The technology is still prohibitively expensive and not yet widely deployed in large-scale projects. Currently, the cost of lithium-ion batteries for ‘front of meter’ units (sources providing energy to the grid) used for when the grid needs energy fast – ‘peaker’ units – run $282/MWh to $347/MWh by its levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). By comparison, a combined-cycle natural gas peaker is closer to $175/MWh. ‘Behind the Meter’ costs of storage – those systems which draw power from the grid (think homes and businesses) – reach an LCOE of between $800/MWh and $1300/MWh. This is hardly cost competitive in most applications.

So, while costs have been dropping (figure 1), perceptions of high prices among decision makers are a constant obstacle to investment. Many have outdated notions about the price of systems, assuming that batteries still cost the same as they did a couple of years ago, or even six months ago.

Lack of standardization and outdated regulatory policy – two issues you can expect to see with any emerging technology – are also prominent.

But as batteries continue their penetration into the energy sector, we can anticipate markets and regulations to adapt. Scaling will continue to bring prices down, and lower prices will attract further investment. Cost declines projected by industry participants vary widely, but lithium-ion capital costs are expected to decline as much as 36% over the next five years. And over the next twenty?

The future is bright for energy storage, and right now it’s powered by lithium-ion.

The use of a nano-porous silicon material has enabled researchers to boost the power of lithium-ion batteries by around 50 percent. This is though improving the uptake of lithium ions within the battery.

The development comes from the organization RGS, which is located in the Netherlands. The company’s researchers have produced something called E-magy, which is a nano-porous silicon. The application of the material improves the uptake of lithium ions and accommodates swelling during charging cycles, leading to an upswing in battery power and efficiency.

The silicon is used in the anode of lithium-ion batteries to enhance their capacity, up to fifty percent in terms of additional capacity. As to what this means, for an electric vehicle this would push the range above 500 kilometers without the need for additional batteries to be fitted into the vehicle.

The development fits in with the overall technological consensus of replacing carbon-based batteries with lithium-ion ones. The additional of silicon leads to even greater efficiencies.

One aspect that has been troubling developers of silicon batteries is due to detrimental swelling effects during charging the battery. This means that while power capacity is increased, the lifetime of the battery decreases.

This has been overcome with the E-magy nano-porous silicon material. The material has been developed as to absorb the lithium-ions during battery cycling, a factor based on the material’s inner porosity which prevents outside swelling of the battery anode.

Speaking with EE News Europe, Dr. Erik Kelder, Associate Professor Applied physics at Delft University, who helped with the research: “RGS has achieved an excellent process for scaling up micro sized silicon particles with a nano structured morphology, suitable for the next generations of Li-ion batteries.”

He adds: “This combination of structures prevents many obstacles and safety issues encountered with micron or nano sized silicon alone, and will maintain its quality during charging and discharging.”

In terms of what such batteries can be used for, the main applications will be with e-mobility, electronics and large utility storage battery applications.

The hype is strong around solid-state batteries as it is believed to be the next step after Li-ion batteries, but no one has really brought them to volume production.

Now, a Chinese startup says that it started a production line of solid-state batteries that will lead to volume production.

Qing Tao Energy Development Co, a startup that spun off of Tsinghua University, one of the highest-ranking technical universities in China, claims to have deployed the first solid-state battery production line in the country.

Solid-state batteries are thought to be a lot safer than common Li-ion cells and have more potential for higher energy density.

Nan Cewen, the head of the startup, says that they invested 1 billion yuan (144 million U.S. dollars) in the production line, according to Chinese media.

The production line, located in the city of Kunshan, East China, has a capacity of 100 MWh per year and they plan to ramp it up to 700 MWh by 2020.

Right now, they are using the batteries for “special equipment and high-end digital products”, but Nan says that they are talking to “a number of large automobile manufacturers” about using their solid-state batteries in electric vehicles.

The executive claims that they have achieved an energy density of “over 400 Wh/kg” compared to the new generation Li-ion battery cells having a capacity of 250 to 300 Wh/kg.