Battery Energy Storage System \[BESS\] are needed to maximise the utilisation of renewable energy sources, to support the functioning of electrical grids and to provide energy access to those in locations not yet grid-connected. Faradion's Sodium-Ion Battery \[SIB\] technology represents a lower cost, more sustainable alternative to existing lithium-ion or lead acid battery technologies normally used in BESS. Building on over a decade of SIB technology development and delivering low-voltage packs for residential applications, further innovation at Faradion in this project aims to develop a high-voltage BESS suited to manufacturing at a scale appropriate to the burgeoning demand in South Asia. In Sri Lanka, Ultracarb will specifically design a hard carbon material optimised for performance in SIBs. Using a sustainable waste by-product as the precursor for this material will allow the costs of SIBs to be reduced further and will encourage investment in cell manufacturing and related industry in the region. The anode developed by Ultracarb will then be incorporated in SIBs. SIBs containing the developed material will be integrated into a high-voltage BESS demonstrator unit that will undergo field trials in India. The challenging operating environment in India provides valuable information to inform future product development and will demonstrate the reliability of this technology in the South Asia region This project will enable the partners to establish local supply chains for materials and components in order to serve the rapidly expanding energy storage market in South Asia.

"The projects aims are to develop and demonstrate low cost 12V batteries for electrified vehicles. These batteries are used for lighting, security, control of the traction battery management system and other critical features. Generally, in electrified vehicles, these batteries use lead acid technology on account of their low cost and specialised requirements. The consortium is seeking to replace these batteries with lower weight and lower volume batteries of comparable cost and performance based on sodium-ion chemistry, a technology which uses more sustainable and lower cost materials than lithium-ion technology but is otherwise very comparable. The consortium members include Jaguar Land Rover the automotive supplier, Croda the specialty chemicals company who will be developing electrolyte additives, Talga Technologies who will be focussing on natural carbon anodes, Faradion Ltd the developer of sodium-ion batteries and Warwick University home to the Warwick Manufacturing Group and the centre for battery pilot plant manufacturing in the UK.."

Energy storage is one of DECC's top priority areas for development, with the potential to massively cut the cost of decarbonising the electricity supply if a grid-scale electricity storage system to balance the variable output of renewables can be created. The challenge for residential energy storage (RES) systems is in providing safe, low-cost, long-life energy storage which can be coupled with renewable energy sources or 'economy' tariffs. This project proposes a scale-up of sodium-ion battery technology through industrial research. Sodium-ion batteries are analogous in many ways to the lithium-ion batteries that are in common use today; they are both rechargeable batteries. The use of cheaper and more abundant sodium in place of lithium addresses concerns of cost and sustainability of lithium ion technology as a residential energy storage solution. This project would innovate the scale-up of the cathode material manufacture from a few hundred grams to tens of kilograms, the surrounding sodium ion technology will be scaled up from single cells of a few Ah to 250Wh modules suitable for 4kWh residential energy storage at lower cost than current offerings. The project would include studies to understand the best design and operation of the cells and also the battery management system for both safety and longevity. This would be the first commercial residential energy storage sodium ion module and opens up the possibility of significant technology exploitation for all the commercial partners from intellectual property, materials manufacture, cell manufacture and battery assembly and distribution.

This feasibility project enables a low cost sodium ion battery (NIB) option for Residential Energy storage (RES) to partner with PV. The project aims to transfer knowledge from the conductive ink industry into the battery industry and develop carbon pastes and electrodes to enable a low cost NIB as an alternative rechargeable battery technology to lithium ion batteries. Dycotec Materials Ltd, will work with Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd and Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG). Combining Faradion’s NIB technology with Dycotec’s capability in carbon paste formulation and WMG’s large scale coating know-how, the PHOENIX project will demonstrate the feasibility of a non-toxic aqueous based carbon paste for manufacture of a novel hard carbon anode. Enabling a low cost anode formulation and coating for a cost effective sodium ion battery technology, optimised for the RES markets.

A consortium of three businesses, Faradion Ltd. , AGM Batteries Ltd. and Renault together with Warwick University have come together to demonstrate that battery packs based on sodium-ion technology can be manufactured successfully on a commercial scale. The technology has been developed in the laboratory by Faradion Ltd who will be joing forces with Warwick University and AGM Batteries Ltd to transfer the technology to AGM`s battery manufacturing plant. Renault contributes to the setting of priorities for the programme by providing information on market requirements.

Faradion Limited is being supported by Innovate to develop and optimise sodium-ion batteries which can operate over the wide range of ambient temperature conditions which can be experienced by electric and hybrid vehicles. These range from -20C to +60C.

The project is a three year programme undertaken by Faradion Ltd, Moixa Ltd and Warwick University to develop sodium-ion batteries for the storage of domestic solar energy. The stored energy, generated when there are high levels of sunlight can then be used later in the day when demand is at its highest. The attraction of sodium-ion batteries is that they promise to be significantly cheaper than lithium-ion batteries so enabling a faster take-up of energy storage technology.

The project will demonstrate the use of sodium-ion technology in low cost batteries for applications in transport and the storage of renewable energy. If it is succesful, it will enable a faster adoption of electric vehicle and renewable technologies. The project is a collaboration between three partners namely Faradion Ltd., Williams Advanced Engineering and Oxford University.

Efficient and low cost energy storage is a crucial requirement for many high technology markets including low carbon vehicles, mobile communications and renewable energy. Rechargeable batteries are advancing in technology to meet these market demands but they are currently hindered by high cost, weight and volume and significant safety issues. There is a huge opportunity for a company to develop new battery technology to tackle these key issues and this is what this project aims to do. Faradion intends to develop a new range advanced battery materials based on sodium-ion that significantly reduce the cost of advanced batteries. The electric-vehicle market represent today`s largest opportunity for new battery materials. All market research data suggests that the markets for these materials will be growing at rates exceeding 120% throughout the next 5 years and beyond, so that the size of the market for batteries in electric vehicles will have grown by $23Bn by 2020. However it is also clear that today`s materials are not adequate for the market’s demands and there will need to be major technical improvements if the full market potential is to be realised. The battery pack for a full electric vehicle currently costs up to 50% of the total vehicle (less for a hybrid) and current EVs are still too expensive for the mass market. The growth of the market is highly dependent on a reduction in battery pack costs which will require significantly less expensive electrode materials. Beyond electric vehicles new low cost batteries will have market opportunities in consumer electronics ($14bn in 2016 for batteries) and grid/renewable energy storage ($2.5bn in 2016 for batteries). To answer this market need Faradion is looking to exploit the unrecognised potential of sodium-ion batteries which can match the performance of lithium-ion batteries but use significantly cheaper, more sustainable and safer materials. The output from this project will be proof of technical viability for the new materials along with associated IP protection. To exploit this IP Faradion will first develop a range of cell demonstrators (a follow-on project) to prove the performance of the technology at cell level and to investigate production options. Following this Faradion will be in a position to partner with an existing cell manufacturer (such as Sanyo, Samsung, LG, etc.) to look at productionisation. For this fast moving market Faradion will follow an aggressive development plan; completing this proof-of-concept project in 6 months and then having demonstrator cells in 18 months. This will enable Faradion to address the market need ahead of competitors. With cost being a key driver this technology benefits from being able to drop into existing production lines using the same equipment and the resulting batteries will be indistinguishable from standard liion batteries making them simple replacements – this will result in low cost fast technology introduction.