Metals Tech

Last fall Jaguar took the wraps off of a restomodded electric-powered classic E-Type of early 1960’s vintage, adding cutting edge technology to what some consider to be the most beautiful car ever made. With the so-named E-Type Zero leveraging technology and components borrowed from Jaguar’s upcoming I-PACE all-electric crossover SUV, director of Jaguar Land Rover Classic Tim Hannig said at the time that, “We could use this technology to transform any classic Jaguar.”

And as it turns out the technology will next be used to transform the brand’s contemporary flagship XJ sedan into an all-electric Tesla Model S fighter for its next generation. According to the U.K.’s Autocar, the new battery-powered XJ will be unveiled by year’s end to mark the nameplate’s 50^th anniversary, and go on sale in early 2019.

With sedans in general – and luxury models in particular – losing favor among new-vehicle buyers who are instead flocking to crossover SUVs, Jaguar obviously hopes to give the genre some much-needed spark. It would both give the brand an advantage over its chief rivals, the BMW 7 Series and Mercedes-Benz S-Class, but enable it to siphon sales away from the still-popular Tesla Model S EV.

The electric XJ will not only be the first new model to feature Jaguar’s latest design DNA, the flagship sedan will reportedly adopt more of a coupe-like profile with a hatchback at the rear to help give it sleeker look along the lines of the aforementioned Model S and the Porsche Panamera. As with the current model, we’d expect to see the car feature extensive use of aluminum as a weight-saving measure. No word on whether it will be offered, as is the current version, in standard and long-wheelbase versions or just stick with the latter to simplify the model range.

When it’s introduced later this year the I-PACE crossover will come powered by a 90-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery and a twin-motor electric drive system that generates a combined 400 horsepower, with a projected operating range on a charge of around 220 miles. A modified higher performance version of this powertrain will most likely power the electric XJ, and not only is it expected to deliver lively driving dynamics, but an effective range of perhaps 300 or more miles on a charge. Expect all-wheel-drive to come standard.

Jaguar is withholding regarding details, none the least of which is what the battery-powered flagship will ultimately cost. With the current model range costing between around $76,000 and $123,000, we’d guess the new XJ will start at just under the $100,000 mark.

Chile has emerged as a world-class destination for solar and wind energy developers, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest review of the country’s energy policies.

Chile’s energy sector is evolving dynamically in recent years and significant institutional and policy reforms as well as major infrastructure projects have been carried out. The country’s National Energy Policy 2050 was adopted in 2015, following an exceptionally inclusive public consultation. The electricity sector, in particular, has developed quickly.

The IEA’s report found that new legislation has encouraged investment in generating capacity across the electricity sector. The enhanced role of the state in effective energy planning has helped boost project development, especially in electricity transmission. The country now also has an interconnected national electricity system.

“By exploiting its vast renewable energy potential, Chile can help reduce electricity prices and dependence on fuel imports – without subsidies,” said Paul Simons, the IEA Deputy Executive Director, who presented the report’s findings on Tuesday. “Renewables and energy efficiency can also help limit carbon emissions and air pollution.”

Chile’s prospects for exploiting its vast potential for solar and wind energy are bright, thanks to considerable declines in technology costs, but also by enabling policies, such as technology-neutral tenders for electricity supply. “These tenders are both driving investment in green, affordable electricity and increasing competition,” said Mr Simons. “It’s looking like a win-win.”

The IEA report finds that to better integrate these variable energy sources successfully will require additional investments in grids, storage and flexible capacity, as well as a smart-system design. The government should now ensure that electricity market design and infrastructure facilitate the value-maximising integration of solar and wind power. The IEA also suggests additional incentives for innovation and competition in the electricity distribution sector.

Beyond electricity, the report encourages the government to strengthen energy efficiency policy.  Chile should make more use of mandatory energy performance standards for products, equipment, vehicles and buildings. This would help increase energy security and also limit air pollution and CO₂ emissions in a cost-effective way. Efforts on transport, in particular, would improve oil security, an area where more needs to be done.

Firewood is an important energy source in Chile, especially in the south, but its use is causing severe air pollution and, as a consequence, problems for human health. The IEA strongly urges the government to adopt more ambitious policies and measures to encourage the use of sustainable dry wood and alternative heating technologies.

The UK has bet on solid state batteries as the future for electric vehicles, pledging part of a £42m government grant to the technology in a bid to compete with countries in Asia.

The government’s newly-launched Faraday Institution said Oxford university will lead the research into solid-state batteries, which are lighter and safer than current electric vehicle batteries.

“If successful, this research will put the UK on the map as being at the forefront of battery technology worldwide,” the Faraday Institution said. “It has the potential to radically increase the speed with which we are able to make the move to electric vehicles, as well as the speed with which we can decarbonise our energy supply, with obvious benefits to the environment.”

The £42m is the first tranche from a total of £246m the UK government has pledged to invest into battery technology under its Industrial Strategy.

The money will be divided among four projects led by different groups of universities. The other projects will be focused on battery life, battery system modelling, and battery recycling, the Faraday Institution said Tuesday.

Japan, Korea and China currently dominate global production of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and mobile devices. But finding a next-generation technology could give an advantage to countries such as the UK.

Solid state batteries replace a liquid electrolyte with a solid one and use lithium metal at the anode, rather than graphite as is standard in current lithium-ion batteries.

The batteries will require a new manufacturing process, which could enable UK companies to compete with the Asian giants such as Panasonic and LG Chem.

“We can double quadruple spending and you’re not going to outspend the competition — we have to try to do things a different way,” Peter Littlewood, founding executive chair of the Faraday Institution, said.

The race is on to develop new battery chemistries and manufacturing processes – and the UK is looking to take the lead.

For most of the 20th Century, batteries were an overlooked technology. And for good reason; the available batteries – predominantly lead-acid, although disposable zinc-carbon cells were also popular – were entirely suitable for the applications of the time. There was no particular reason to push the technology forwards.

But times changed. As the Century drew to a close, portable battery powered consumer electronics devices became widely used. Consumers not only wanted their products to last longer between either installing new batteries or recharging them, but a trend for smaller devices also appeared.

Now, electric and hybrid vehicles have added another twist. Together, these elements have kick started the recent interest in finding new battery technologies and chemistries.

Energy storage was one of the areas selected by ex industry minister David Willetts as one of the Eight Great Technologies. In a paper published in 2013, Willetts noted: “We need better ways to store electricity. This need arises at three distinct levels. First, there are the batteries in all our personal electronic devices. The second level is the development of better energy storage for vehicles. Thirdly, there is the challenge of storing more electricity for the Grid.”

Looking to take advantage of the opportunities, the Government is providing significant funding – as part of its Industrial Strategy – to help UK organisations to get the jump on other countries. Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark announced in July 2017 the launch of the first phase of a £246million investment into battery technology designed to ensure the UK builds on its strengths and leads the world in the design, development and manufacture of electric batteries.

Known as the Faraday Challenge, the four year investment will feature a coordinated programme of competitions, delivered via Innovate UK, that aims to boost the research and development of battery technology.

Anna Wise, batteries innovation lead at Innovate UK, told New Electronics: “The Faraday Challenge will provide an exciting opportunity to rebuild technology that has been developed in the UK. From the start,” she continued, “we’ll be looking at how we can invest at seven stages of technology readiness; looking to accelerate work that is close to market, as well as longer term projects.”

Towards the end of 2017, a partnership between Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and Coventry City Council was awarded £80m to establish a National Battery Manufacturing Development Facility (NBMDF).

The NBMDF is intended to enable UK based companies and researchers to come together to build and maintain a world leading position in manufacturing technologies for batteries and their components in vehicles and transportation. It will provide a strategic link between the research, development and full-scale industrialisation for battery technologies across the UK. The facility will enable the development of the next generation of battery systems across battery chemistry, electrodes, cell design, module and pack levels.

Greg Clark, Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary, said at the launch: “Battery technology is … one of the cornerstones of our ambition, through the Industrial Strategy and the Faraday Challenge, to ensure that the UK leads the world and reaps the economic benefits in the global transition to a low carbon economy.”

Dr Emma Kendrick, a materials chemist and energy storage technical specialist at WMG, provided attendees at last year’s Electronics Design Show Conference with an update on developments in the field. “If you look at the rechargeable battery market, lead-acid is still the biggest technology, with NiCd and NiMH declining. But it’s a huge market, estimated to be worth $65billion and growing.”

When you consider the various market segments, it’s surprising to find the starter, lighter, ignition (SLI) sector in cars remains the largest of all markets and depends almost entirely on lead-acid batteries. “And lead-acid batteries will be around for a long time,” Dr Kendrick noted, “because it’s a massive market.”

It’s no surprise that demand for batteries in portable electronics product grew significantly since the 1990s, but more surprising perhaps is that demand has slowed somewhat. “The strongest growth in the rechargeable battery sector is now coming from the automotive and industrial sectors,” Dr Kendrick pointed out.

And it’s the electric vehicle (EV) market which the Faraday Challenge has at its heart. The Advanced Propulsion Centre, in association with the Automotive Council, has set some challenging targets for those developing batteries.

“I’m not sure how realistic these targets are,” Dr Kendrick admitted. “If we are to get costs down and create 1400Wh/litre batteries, we can’t stick with what we have. New chemistries will be needed.”

One company looking to hit these targets is Nexeon, which has pioneered the development of silicon based materials for next generation Li-ion batteries.

The Tesla big battery has been the big news of the Australian electricity sector since its formal opening at the start of December, grabbing headlines for its many interventions in the energy market and the first-of-its-kind demonstration of the next generation of technologies.

The Tesla battery, formally known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, is perhaps the biggest development in an industry that has seen little real change in nearly a century – its impact is probably more profound than even the spectacular cost reductions in wind and solar power.

For much of its first weeks of operation, most of the Tesla big battery’s activities were a mixture of tests, trials and just a little showboating – going from zero to 100MW in 140 milliseconds, jumping in ahead of contracted generators to arrest falls in frequency as big coal generators tripped off-line, and just generally being smart and fast.

Some of its early manoeuvres were spectacular but didn’t appear designed to be making money, focusing more on testing its capacities and abilities, particularly its speed of response and reliability, as much for the satisfaction of its builders (Tesla) and owners (Neoen) as for curious third parties.

That phase seems largely complete, and in the midst of the heatwave and the gyrations in supply, demand and pricing last week, it seems that Tesla is now able to demonstrate its ability to cash in and make money for its owners.

This was particularly visible in the price spikes that hit the South Australia market on Thursday and Friday, as this graph at the top illustrates.

The blue indicates generation, and mostly coincides with high prices, particularly the big spikes on Thursday and Friday afternoons. The red indicates charging, or load, and this occurs mostly during lower priced periods.

Another view of this data is presented below, showing the actual price achieved during the buying (charging) and selling (generation). It’s hard to be sure, but it might have made around $1 million over the two days from the wholesale market.

The advantage of the Tesla big battery over other sorts of storage, and particularly over fossil fuel generation, is its ability to switch on and off in an instant, meaning it is capable of responding immediately to change in demands and pricing.

The Hornsdale operator uses around 30MW/90MWh  in the wholesale market as a form of price arbitrage, balancing wind output from the neighbouring Hornsdale wind farms, taking advantage of spikes and dips, generating when supply gets tight, and making micro adjustments to supply and demand.

The rest of the battery – around 70MW, 39MWh – is contracted by the South Australia government specifically to deliver “network” services, such as frequency control at a time of system faults and problems.

Tesla has demonstrated its ability to respond quickly by jumping into the market in other states in recent weeks, such as when the Loy Yang A units failed on repeated occasions and when a unit at the Eraring coal generator in NSW also failed.

It jumped in again, last Thursday, possibly for a little more showboating, or testing, when the Loy Yang B unit tripped and pushed frequency outside its normal operating band.

The fact that the battery focused on network services carries less storage capacity is because the services they provide are usually of short duration – such as arresting changes in frequency within 5 minustes.

Exactly how the contract with the South Australia government works is not clear, like so much of the opaque electricity market – but some insight into its capabilities was given on those same days by its offering to the frequency control and ancillary services (FCAS) markets.

These three graphs above – again from McConnell at the Climate and Energy College, and sourced from NEM data – are a good illustration of how the battery can divide its services between several different needs.

There is no judgment here on the success or otherwise of its offerings, but more of an illustration of its multiple levels of operation. So far, the battery has pleased its owners (and developers), and has exceeded expectations.

This is important because the unique proposition of the battery, of course, is that it’s speed, particularly from a standing start, its modularity (it can be built up from very small units to a very large one), and its speed of construction (less than 100 days in this case).

It makes a mockery, for instance, of the Coalition’s derisory criticism that the battery is no more useful than the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, or that it could only power the whole grid for just a matter of minutes.

What it does do is point the way to the future, and the transformation to a smarter, cleaner, faster, cheaper and more reliable grid than what we have now.

More batteries are on their way – in South Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland and NSW – and more will follow once the market rules are adjusted to catch up with the technology.

Volvo’s Polestar performance division has officially established itself as a self-standing performance brand, one that will be responsible for the development and production of performance hybrids and performance electric cars. At the very least, every vehicle sold will be a plug-in hybrid, and all will feature a performance edge – be it a sports SUV, coupe, or even hatchback. But it’s the Polestar 1 – the brand’s first vehicle unveiled late last year – that gives us the best glimpse into the future, not just for Polestar, but for electrified vehicles as a whole.

A Brief Overview of Polestar 1