Recharging the Battery Market

Batteries

Interdisciplinary research informs battery warranties and risk calculations

Battery warranty presented two challenges for the insurance market: chemically driven performance loss and scarcity of historical performance data. An interdisciplinary team at Lancaster provided new models to validate and improve prior risk calculations. Via a spin-out company, they introduced new ¡®extended warranty’ products and made it more attractive to invest in the battery market.

Research led by Professor Harry Hoster and his interdisciplinary team into lithium-ion-battery degradation at LU’s Battery Laboratory (BatLab) enabled a new method of informing insurance risk calculation. Only mechanical fatigue and electronic failure had previously been considered but research demonstrated chemical-driven performance loss also needed to be included. These insights were commercialised through spin-out company Altelium Ltd bringing a new ¡®extended warranty’ product to the London Insurance Market.

  • Â鶹¹ÙÍø (LU) spin-out Altelium Ltd founded in 2019, has 20 employees and raised investments worth ?390,000 from its founding shareholders and ?806,560 of research grants. Income from first customers Â鶹¹ÙÍøed Energy and AMTE power has been ?121,000 and given worldwide green energy initiatives, projected income by 2023 is ?13 million.
  • Backed by Lloyd’s of London, Altelium ensures energy storage containers based on used electric vehicle batteries. This represents a first of its kind globally and is a crucial milestone in the wider rollout of green technology.
  • Insurance-backed extended warranty allows SMEs to offer their customers longer (eg five-year) warranties on their products. SMEs can only offer longer-term warranties when backed by an insurance company with sufficient capital. This warranty has already enabled SMEs such as Â鶹¹ÙÍøed Energy, AMTE Power, Delta Motorsports, and Brill Power to enter the rapidly growing energy storage market.
  • Â鶹¹ÙÍøed Energy rolled out their first batch of Mega- Watt (MW)-level energy storage systems with an Altelium warranty and AMTE are growing their larger-scale cell manufacturing provision. Other clients expect to install several thousand second-life battery packs in the next three years, which could not proceed without the new warranty.
  • Whilst private cars are typically parked 90% of their time, business-related vehicles are constantly in use. Cleaner transport enabled by these faster energy storage solutions would have a bigger environmental impact than the electrification of private cars.