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The Michigan-based battery vitality storage expertise startup Volt Harbor has raised $2 million in seed cash. The corporate makes a modular, software-defined vitality storage platform for knowledge facilities and the grid. Volt Harbor’s expertise works with EV batteries, that are in plentiful provide and are rising in amount.
When electrical car battery packs can not be used for working electrical automobiles, they nonetheless have fairly a little bit of vitality capability remaining to be utilized for second-life stationary vitality storage functions. Way back to ten years in the past, some used Nissan LEAF batteries have been re-purposed to be used in a French knowledge heart. Since then, there was an explosion in EV manufacturing and gross sales. Consequently, the variety of used EV batteries accessible has grown tremendously.
Dr. Al-Thaddeus Avestruz, President, CEO, and co-founder of Volt Harbor, answered some questions for CleanTechnica.
How does your expertise work extra effectively with converters?
Typical battery vitality storage techniques course of 100% of the vitality that comes out of the batteries. That works, however converters are costly, they usually waste vitality each time energy flows by means of them. So the bigger or the extra converters you could have, the extra price and inefficiency construct up throughout the system.
We mathematically modeled the variation noticed throughout used and blended batteries. Some packs are weaker, some are stronger, some have completely different chemistries. We discovered that you just don’t must course of all the energy from the battery. You want the correct converters in the correct locations, together with the correct software program structure — our patented Media Entry Management (MAC) method — to let battery modules from completely different producers share with small energy converters coordinating energy circulation by means of the system in actual time.
We use fewer converters typically organized in two coordinated layers: a small variety of higher-power converters deal with the typical mismatches throughout teams of batteries, and a bigger variety of smaller, lower-cost converters deal with the residual particular person variations. The exemplary consequence, validated in peer-reviewed analysis, is 94% vitality utilization in comparison with about 78% for standard partial-power processing and 23% for full-power (100%) processing: that means extra of the battery’s precise vitality reaches the applying, with considerably decrease {hardware} prices.
As well as, our structure creates AC straight from the batteries. This eliminates inefficiency and price of a DC-AC PCS (inverter Energy Conversion System) conversion step. Total, our system has 10-20% the price of energy conversion in comparison with standard techniques.
What capability is your pilot vitality storage system with DTE Power?
Our preliminary pilot system with DTE is a 100 kW / 300 kWh deployment designed to buffer high-power EV charging occasions and exhibit the platform’s multi-use capabilities, together with demand response, peak shaving, and backup help. Whereas the demonstration measurement displays the objectives of the Rising Know-how Fund partnership, the MAC-BESS™ structure is engineered to scale modularly, from compact business deployments to multi-megawatt utility-scale techniques.
What are the benefits your vitality storage system has?
A number of that matter most for grid and business operators:
Decrease whole system price. As a result of the structure makes use of fewer energy converters, capital prices are materially decrease than these of standard BESS approaches, significantly necessary for cost-sensitive utility-scale and C&I deployments. For second-life functions particularly, we ship storage at roughly one-half to one-third the price of new battery techniques with equal functionality.
Battery-source flexibility. Our software-defined vitality techniques tolerate heterogeneity on the power-electronics layer, enabling us to combine battery modules from a number of OEMs and chemistries — lithium-ion, LFP, NMC, sodium-ion, and so on. — into the identical system. That eliminates the necessity to kind and homogenize incoming battery provide, which is often the costliest a part of operating a second-life operation.
Prolonged battery life. Our software-defined battery administration method can prolong usable battery life by as much as 30% in comparison with standard approaches, additional bettering undertaking economics.
Sub-100-microsecond response time. That’s quick sufficient to trip by means of grid disturbances that will in any other case set off backup era: necessary for knowledge heart and critical-load functions.
Reliability corresponding to aerospace and business aviation. Single parts-per-million failure charges and no single level of failure, as a result of the structure is distributed throughout modules reasonably than depending on a single controller, converter, or battery. Every field-replaceable unit is hot-swappable with no interruption of operation.
Modular scaling. The identical constructing blocks scale from commercial-sized deployments to multi-megawatt utility-scale and knowledge heart techniques.
What EV battery packs can it work with?
The platform is designed to work with battery modules from a variety of EV producers and chemistries. This contains lithium-ion (NMC, NCA) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP), with the structure additionally extensible to rising chemistries like sodium-ion as these enter the market.
A key design alternative is that we work on the module degree reasonably than requiring intact OEM packs. This implies we are able to optimize our operation for a variety of voltage necessities. Which means batteries from completely different automobiles, completely different mannequin years, and completely different producers may be built-in into the identical system at a excessive yield with no need to be sorted, homogenized, or stored matched by chemistry. The facility-electronics structure handles heterogeneity. As the availability of retired EV batteries grows and diversifies over the approaching decade, this flexibility turns into more and more necessary. It means second-life provide chains don’t must depend on unique OEM offers or massive, presorted inventories to function economically.
Can your system work with knowledge facilities?
Sure. The information heart market is a main near-term focus alongside utility and C&I deployments. The identical MAC-BESS™ structure that handles heterogeneous second-life batteries on the cost-sensitive aspect can also be engineered to deal with the reliability and efficiency calls for of information heart energy infrastructure on the high-end aspect utilizing new batteries.
A number of issues make MAC-BESS™ a very robust match for knowledge facilities:
The sub-100-microsecond vitality supply is quick sufficient to trip by means of load and grid fluctuations that will in any other case trigger failures or set off backup era. With AI workloads driving fast energy swings, typically from 30% to 100% of rated capability inside seconds, conventional knowledge heart energy techniques weren’t designed for this sort of volatility.
The only parts-per-million failure charges and the absence of any single level of failure meet the reliability requirements that knowledge heart operators anticipate for vital masses.
And the built-in, software-defined structure is designed to scale back the variety of discrete techniques knowledge heart operators must specify, combine, and preserve, significant in an atmosphere the place grid connection wait instances in main knowledge heart markets now exceed 4 years, and operators are on the lookout for sooner, extra configurable paths to bringing capability on-line.
Some individuals assume the price of batteries will proceed to say no… do you foresee used EV batteries will nonetheless be viable for repurposing into stationary vitality storage for a while?
It is a query we predict fastidiously about, and our view is that second life will stay economically viable for the foreseeable future, however the sturdiness of our enterprise to work with each new and second-life batteries doesn’t rely on it.
On the second-life query particularly: even with new battery costs declining, the associated fee hole between new and second-life batteries stays substantial. Our platform delivers second-life storage at one-half to one-third the price of new equivalents, and that financial delta is sturdy as a result of second-life batteries additionally keep away from the embedded carbon, mineral extraction, and manufacturing prices that new cells carry. As ESG and lifecycle-emissions necessities proceed to tighten for utilities, knowledge heart operators, and business consumers, these non-price elements more and more matter to procurement choices.
There’s additionally a provide consideration that usually will get ignored. Trade analysts undertaking that the availability of retired EV batteries will develop greater than 10x by 2030. Even when new battery costs hold falling, that’s an unlimited quantity of usable capability that can exist regardless. Shredding all of it for supplies restoration means burning the plastics, insulation, and different organics, plus dropping 70-80% of the remaining vitality capability that’s already been manufactured. Placing these batteries again to work in stationary functions is a greater environmental and financial final result.
However the extra necessary level: Volt Harbor’s platform is designed to work with each new and second-life batteries. Our price proposition is the structure itself. Its software-defined, and modular, able to dealing with heterogeneous battery sources, with the bottom price of energy electronics. It’s not a guess on which battery provide finally ends up least expensive. In reality, as the price of batteries decreases, energy electronics develop into a bigger fraction of the system price. As the associated fee dynamics evolve, our clients can use whichever provide is smart for his or her utility, and our system works both manner. That flexibility is a part of why the structure is sturdy throughout no matter market shifts come subsequent.
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