BATT4EU publicly presents the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for batteries

21 March 2024

The webinar hosted by BATT4EU saw the participation of 457 attendees. This number can confirm the increasing level of interest towards more sustainable and more circular batteries made in Europe.

Fabrice Stassin, BEPA Secretary General opened the webinar by introducing the SRIA as the document that is going to guide the R&I priorities along the battery value chain for the years to come. The SRIA will advise on future research and innovation actions and the funding needed. This document represents the culmination of extensive consultations with over 500 expert that have been gathering under the Batteries European Partnership Association (BEPA) and Batteries Europe working groups.

To represent the public side of the BATT4EU partnership we heard from Rosalinde van der Vlies, Clean Planet Director, DG RTD, EU Commission who underlined how the SRIA will recharge our efforts to build a sustainable, inclusive and competitive European battery Industry. She also touched upon the topic of funding: “I really believe that we need to maximise the investment opportunities that we have in the European Union and there are many ways of doing this from the European Commission. One of our priorities is to better align the EU funding and investment instruments that we have.”

The webinar delved into the different priorities for every part of the battery value chain and the timeline for strategic actions as presented by our working group chairs. See PPT slides HERE:

• Raw Materials & Recycling was presented by WG Repr. Victor Trapp, Head of Marketing and Sales, Fraunhofer Institute  “Extraction and processing of raw materials should be improved, so as the adaptability and flexibility of existing recycling processes and the development of recycling processes for emerging chemistries.”
• Advanced Materials by WG Chair Silvia Bodoardo, Professor at Polytechnic of Turin “We want to commercialise long duration storage, for this purpose the chemistries for stationary applications and high-power application are very important. Also, the self-healing functionality with biomimetic materials and the new entry of sodium-ion is of very high relevance.”
• Cell Design and Manufacturing, WG Chair Daniela Fontana, Electrification Solutions Development Manager, Comau  “We have developed strategic actions for two groups of activities. the 1st is a safe and sustainable batteries by design. The second one is related to the demonstration, production and application of the market functionalities.”
• Mobile Applications and Integration by WG Chair Franz Geyer, Head of Technology Cluster, BMW  “Developing efficient, reliable and safe batteries using new technologies as well as advanced BMS. Multiphysical testing will accelerate market introduction of new technologies, while demonstrations for applications in different mobility sectors”
• Stationary applications and Integration by Executive Board member Luigi Lanuzza Head of B2B and Storage Innovation, ENEL X  “Focusing on how to best use the resources available, by thinking about long duration energy storage, how to manage them through advanced BMS, and finally how to efficiently integrate production and users to the grid”.
• Task Forces Transversal Topics by Executive Board Member & Task Force Repr. Edel Sheridan, Business Developer, SINTEF & Adviser, Batteries Europe Transversal topics affect the entire value chain, and involve many disciplines, like LCA and LCI development for next-generation batteries and stationary storage applications, education specific pilot lines and battery passport development for batteries with external storage”

Q&A:

The Panel discussion delved into the future agenda for batteries, and saw the working groups chair answering several questions posed by the moderators Wouter IJzermans, BEPA Executive Director and Johan Blondelle, Policy Officer at DG RTD, EU Commission. Read here the questions posed by the audience with our answers:

Advanced Materials 

• I did not see any reference to use or support of advanced lead batteries (even for stationary storage potential). Why is that? The ecosystem for lead-acid battery manufacturing is an established technology in comparison to the lithium-ion. This is why lead-acid is not mentioned specifically in the chapters on advanced materials and manufacturing. However, many strategic actions (and call topics) for applications are chemistry-neutral and open for solutions with lead-acid batteries. 
• Despite the development of new cell chemistries should be made in a “chemistry neutral” manner, if we are talking about next-gen batteries then we talk exclusively about Na-ion, or maybe Li-S (lithium-sulphur) could be considered as a sustainable new-gen battery system? What is a general opinion related to Li-S (or RT Na-S) system? The SRIA is a blend of strategic actions that are decidedly “chemistry specific”, boasting certain strategic value chains in Europe, like for lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries to improve European competitiveness. There are, however, still plenty of calls that are chemistry neutral or accept a wide swath of technologies. The BATT4EU Partnership has for example funded research on self-healing Li-S.
• How are the AI applications pushing the performance of new gen batteries? The BATT4EU Partnership believes that the discovery of advanced materials can be accelerated by harnessing the power of AI and robotics to create a fully-automated closed-loop discovery cycle. 

Manufacturing 

• Considering such intense development for new battery concepts, materials and solutions – is there any concept being developed how existing battery manufacturers technology and infrastructure would fit all those in the development pipeline? As mentioned during the webinar, flexibility and adaptability of production lines is a very important theme, and should get increased attention in the remaining work programmes. For example, it is known that Na-ion production lines are broadly compatible with Li-ion manufacturing, but the transition from liquid to solid electrolytes (Gen 3 to Gen 4) will depend on the specific configuration of the solid-state battery selected. It’s acknowledged that further R&I is needed to efficiently address these issues. 
• You mention the R&I action on the development and implementation of Digital Twins to improve battery manufacturing. Will this be part of a wider approach, aiming to exploit the ‘Industry Metaverse’ for the optimisation of the combined design & manufacturing processes for future batteries? Accelerating both the green and digital “twin transitions” lies at the heart of the BATT4EU Partnership. AI, digital twins and robotics are being implemented throughout the value chain (advanced material discovery, manufacturing, application simulation and recycling). Under Horizon Europe, digital platforms and engineering tools supporting creativity and productivity of research &development processes are also covered by the MadeInEurope Partnership and we are in contact with them to align wherever this makes sense. 
• One of the biggest challenges for the battery industry is its scrap rate which boils down to quality control. This is also one key area for cost control along with energy. Are there any strategic plans to address this?  Scrap reduction is targeted at the manufacturing level via the strategic actions that aim to increase efficiency, both by stimulating better processing techniques and by utilising digital twins. Scrap reduction is also covered in the Design chapter as a part of the safe-and-sustainable by design strategic action. 
• Regarding the R&I action on the development and implementation of improve battery manufacturing, will it include supercapacitors? No, supercapacitors are generally out of scope, except for the ongoing projects on hybrid energy storage. 

Applications 

• Advanced thermal management technologies will have to be developed to fully utilize super-fast charging. Cooling was mentioned; can you elaborate which cooling technologies could prevail in the next 5 years – for example immersion cooling? Partial or full immersion cooling fall indeed under this strategic action, but one can also think of new cooling agents or other innovative solutions. In the end, if this actions is included in the Horizon Europe Work Programme, it will be proposals that will come up with the most promising technologies.   

Repurposing and recycling 

• About 2nd life batteries. I didn’t see any projection in the future for them. But there are EU programs running right now for 2nd life batteries. Is it because we want to give time to the recyclers to find a way for processing the black mass? And then EU is going to abandon the repurposing step of the cycling economy, or 2nd life batteries are still in the game? Through its (ongoing) projects, the BATT4EU Partnership pushes the (digital) technologies needed to build integrated second-life battery systems of stationary applications to a relatively high TRL. This means that the direct role of the BATT4EU in pushing the technology has run its course, however proposals for other storage calls are still welcome (and sometimes encourage) to think of integrating second life batteries. One concrete example is that one of the projects that is expected be funded under the hybrid battery storage topic, will also use second-life batteries.  
• The SRIA seems to refer mostly to EoL battery recycling, not so much on recycling / reducing off-spec in battery cell and CAM production, or recovery of process effluents such as sulphates from pCAM production. Are these ruled out from the SRIA or included under some other WG/topic? The Recycling chapter of the SRIA is indeed focussing on EoL recycling, however in other parts of the SRIA these other streams are mentioned. Recycling scrap is a big part of the Strategic action called ‘Integration of secondary raw materials’ in the Raw Materials chapter. Design-for-recycling is a cornerstone of our Strategic Action on safe-and-sustainability-by-design. 
• The report says 80% lithium recovery by 2031. How will this be achieved and are there also new research methods towards new methods on how to recycle and which method is currently the most promising? BATT4EU supports the development of various technologies needed to meet the challenge of 80% lithium recovery. The Partnerships has funded projects on the safe and efficient collection and dismantling of batteries, and pushing up the state of art of safe and sustainable recycling (pre-)processing. For the longer term, the Partnership has funded projects on recycling waste feeds and low value battery chemistries, including LFP. 
• Project follow-up, funding and other questions Is there any data or review available to understand how successful all these finished projects are? At the first level, the CORDIS database (CORDIS | European Commission (europa.eu)) is fully searchable at project level and provides an overview of the scope of the project, its consortium, and the public results. At a more aggregated level, BEPA together with CINEA organise more and more clustering events to bring thematically linked projects together and allow for review and synergies between them. 
• Are there any projects that has ever addressed inter-country collaboration review between EU and outside? Any project under Horizon Europe (including Batt4EU) is open for international cooperation involving participants from outside the EU. The only distinction between different countries is whether participants need to foresee their own (national) funding, or whether they are funded by the EU. This depends on the agreements existing between the EU and the countries in question. For some topics, international cooperation with certain geographical regions is recommended, in function of the nature of the activity and their relevance to the areas in question. Please note that project proposals for Batt4EU follow the general Horizon Europe rules in terms of the required composition of the consortium submitting the proposal. 
• Do you have any plan to provide funding to Startups who are developing new solutions? Batt4EU supports collaborative projects that follow the general Horizon Europe rules in terms of the required composition of the submitting consortium. The best way forward would thus be to join a like-minded consortium where your particular skills are relevant and complementary. The EU Funding and Tender Portal (EU Funding & Tenders Portal (europa.eu)) offers a facility to help search for partners, and BEPA also regularly organise matchmaking events where consortia can meet. For start-ups that have a solution close to the market, it may also be useful to consider submitting a proposal as a single entity (i.e. without the need for a consortium) to the European Innovation Council (EIC) accelerator calls, see EIC Accelerator – European Commission (europa.eu). For scaling up of green technologies, the Innovation Fund could also be a suitable option (Innovation Fund – European Commission (europa.eu)) 

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, Johan Blondelle outlined the future steps following the publication of the SRIA. He mentioned that the SRIA will be implemented through annual calls and it will be covering for the work programme 2025.  The SRIA will be shared with other Funding Instruments and across Members States. But most importantly, in his words “the SRIA should be a living document, more updates will be integrated and the document will serve as a basis for work programmes 2026 and 2027.”

Edel Sheridan, thanked all the stakeholders involved in the drafting of the SRIA who have been examining what needs to be done in Europe in order to bring the battery sector forward. She sent a message of hope to all the researchers in the sector, “we have to keep searching, resilience really is what we essentially represent in this area and the battery sector needs resilience. We really need this in order to move the whole industry forward.”