How can you accelerate battery design innovation?
The incredible demand for batteries has created significant opportunities for battery manufacturers at both existing businesses and new market entrants. However, current battery limitations can create an adoption barrier for more sustainable energy solutions. Companies with the right capabilities to rapidly innovate to overcome these battery limitations will be well-positioned to capture market share and establish themselves as a leader in the battery space.
This eBook examines how battery manufacturers can accelerate their innovation practices. It explains how to foster a culture of innovation, supported by digitalization, to advance R&D and engineering efforts for the next generation of batteries, and shares best practices for R&D and product development teams.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens (registration required)
Table of Contents
- Business Opportunities for Battery Innovation
- Battery Challenges
- Innovation Success for the Lab and Engineering
- 1. Develop a Battery Digital Twin
- 2. Facilitate Collaboration
- 3. Explore Ideas with Simulation
- 4. Support Chemistry Development & Cell Engineering
- 5. Optimize Battery Packs
- 6. Use the Right System Tools for the Battery Management System (BMS)
- Recommendations
- References
- Acknowledgments
Business Opportunities for Battery Innovation
Increasing Demand for Batteries
The battery cell market is expected to grow by more than 20% annually until 2030, reaching at least $360 billion globally, with a potential for as much as $410 billion. Much growth comes from sustainability initiatives to shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and alternative power sources to help address climate change and reduce carbon emissions. Batteries are critical to this transition as they can enable 30% of the required reductions in carbon emissions in these sectors.
Energy Storage and EVs
Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are not constant, so batteries are critical to support their adoption. With projections for renewable capacity to grow by almost 2,400 GW, an 85% acceleration over the previous five years, the demand for batteries will continue to spike. Further, the electric vehicles market is booming, setting new sales records every year, with 2023 approaching $40 billion, nearly double 2022 sales. This demand should continue, as by 2040, EVs are expected to represent 70% of all passenger vehicles. With EV’s reliance on batteries as a power source, this could create incredible opportunities for those already in the battery industry, as well as those looking to enter it.
Battery Innovation
Much of this growth has been made possible by the impressive advancements in battery technology. For example, battery energy density, the amount of energy batteries can store, is now nearly three times what it was in 2010. Further, prices have dropped 87%. However, more work is needed to encourage wide-scale adoption. EVs must increase their range, charge faster, and cost less, while ensuring safety and long operational life. Achieving this requires companies to develop new material chemistries and innovate around battery cell and pack designs.
Batteries Impact Profitability
To accomplish this innovation, companies should invest in their R&D and development processes. Those investments will pay off as batteries contribute more than a quarter of an EV’s weight, account for 35% to 50% of the vehicle’s cost, and significantly impact performance and profitability. With the right capabilities and technology solutions, manufacturers can accelerate innovation to enjoy a competitive advantage by getting to market faster and capturing market share. By acting quickly, they can even offset costs by taking advantage of government incentives and new funding to support green alternatives.
Battery Development Challenges
Engineering Challenges
Despite the advancements in battery technology, batteries must perform beyond what is capable today to realize the market potential. Overcoming these challenges requires analysis and trade-offs across multiple domains spanning chemistry, structural engineering, heat transfer, electrical engineering, electronics, software engineering, and more. Manufacturers will be better positioned to manage this with the right technology solutions.
Overcome Adoption Barriers
EVs must charge faster and increase their range to overcome major adoption barriers. They also need to use more environmentally friendly materials and cost-effective production methods. The chemistry, cell, and pack design directly impact this. Manufacturers must create an environment to facilitate innovation, enabling R&D and engineering to develop new solutions to these challenges.
Battery Safety
As battery technology has advanced, batteries can store more energy. However, this also means that heat can build up. If the heat is not managed properly, a dangerous situation called thermal runaway can occur, which can lead to fires. It is so challenging to manage, even experienced manufacturers struggle. In 2013, this problem led to Boeing needing to ground 50 787 Dreamliners. It is also why Panasonic, Sony, and Lenovo had to recall their laptops due to the potential fire hazard.
A Battery Management System (BMS) provides the intelligence to monitor the battery and make adjustments to manage thermal conditions and optimize performance, but it adds additional design complexity. The right development tools can provide needed insights to manage thermal runaway and the complexity of the BMS.
Slow Development Cycles
Batteries are so complicated, it is difficult to predict their internal reactions, particularly around safety and aging. This leads to a trial-and-error approach that depends on physical testing. However, physical testing takes time and slows development efforts. Plus, it is often hard to obtain needed insights to understand the root cause of failures to make improvements. Development teams need better insights into real-world performance during development to accelerate innovation.
Recommendations
Recommendations and Next Steps
Based on industry experience and research for this report, Tech-Clarity offers the following recommendations for battery manufacturers designing batteries:
- Develop a battery digital twin. The insights offered by a battery digital twin can lead to the breakthrough innovations required to solve top challenges, such as faster charging and longer ranges, which have created adoption barriers for electric vehicles.
- Facilitate collaboration. Battery development involves multiple disciplines, including chemical, materials, thermal, structural, software, manufacturing, and more. Facilitating collaboration across the team will strengthen it so they can leverage their collective expertise to develop new innovative solutions
- Explore ideas with simulation. By running experiments via simulation, more experiments can be conducted in less time, at a lower cost, than in the lab.
- Optimize battery packs. Use the digital twin of the cell to model the pack and ensure the enclosure will meet the safety requirements for the battery.
- Use the right system tools for the Battery Management System (BMS). Model the complex controls of the BMS with model-based design tools integrated with software development tools. Then, use the digital twin to test it to catch problems and ensure it will function as required in various scenarios.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the ebook and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens.
If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the research, please contact us.