The majority of the batteries in use up until the 1980s would have been recognised by their mid-Victorian inventors. However, during the past 25 years several entirely new classes of batteries have been commercialised, including nickel-metal hydride, lithium polymer, lithium-ion, lithium-polymer, rechargeable alkaline, and zinc-air designs. These developments, as well as being the results of the endeavours of electrochemists, also reflect the enormous improvements in battery charger controller technology which allow the commercialisation of higher performance, smaller and safer designs.
Thanks to these advances, a range of portable products has been brought to market including mobile telephones, cordless hand tools and portable computers.
A host of new applications are becoming possible as a result of the development of thin film battery technology, where some major advances are being made. Thin film batteries can be integrated with small photovoltaic or thermoelectric systems as self charging storage devices. NanoMarkets projects that the thin-film battery market, for applications ranging from medical devices and implants to RFID and smart cards, will be worth some $1.1 billion by 2016.
Batteries play a vital role in providing back-up power (for Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) and energy storage. Energy storage will be an essential component for the integration of renewable energy generation into the existing electricity grid structure. Large scale storage capacity will be required to handle the renewable energy generated in remote locations (for example solar energy from the Sahara or wave energy from the North Atlantic). Battery technology is one of various options being considered for energy storage on this scale and on smaller scales.
The “….paradigm of energy storage technology” has changed; from being a consumable, batteries have become “an asset which benefits the customers by increasing the performance and reliability of storage and saving fuel costs”
Ira Ehrenpreis, of Technology Partners (referring to the energy storage batteries developed by Deeya, a Technology Partners investment).
We have seen estimates of the potential size of the power and energy storage market of between $46 billion and $65 billion (the latter in a Lux Research Report). Batteries will not prove to be the only solution – but can clearly play an important role.
Batteries are also poised to extend their role in the automotive sector. The electric car is not a new invention; Thomas Edison promoted the nickel-iron battery for use in electric cars at the beginning of the 20th century, but the introduction of Henry Ford’s Model T in 1910 marked the beginning of the era of the internal combustion engine (ICE). We are, it appears, approaching the end of ICE domination and entering a period when the ICE is only one of a choice of power sources – batteries providing the alternative (either within an individual hybrid vehicle or in the broader sense of stand-alone EVs).
“Semiconductors and battery cells are both strategic elements of their ultimate end products….. Batteries will be to automobiles what semiconductors were to computers"
(Stanford L. Kane – a founder of the National Association for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture in the United States).
The first half of 2009 has seen something of a dash to invest in battery technology in the US as companies vie for funding under the Obama stimulus plan. There is a growing concern to ensure that batteries are manufactured in the US and fears that the US might lose out in terms of jobs to Asian manufacturers was behind the creation of the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture in Chicago at the end of 2008.
Quoted battery companies have been performing strongly on stock markets from Shanghai to Wall Street. And batteries have been attracting venture funding – with the sector ranking as one of the most attractive to VC investors in the first half of 2009.
Batteries are set to play a fundamental role in the cleantech economy of the future – and the sector looks set to attract growing levels of investment.
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