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UltraBattery is resistant to many of the typical lead-acid failure modes and its longevity,
safety, efficiency, long uptimes, and full recyclability all offer competitive advantages
through both revenue gains and environmental benefits.
Why UltraBattery?
Total lifetime energy throughput capacity, when used in pSoC applications, is far beyond
previous lead-acid technology
Ability to operate continuously in a pSoC regime (i.e. operating in a band of charge that is
neither totally full nor totally empty)
leads to viability of use models where energy is charged and discharged at significantly
higher efficiency
Enhanced charge acceptance (charge and discharge occur at similar or equal rates,
whereas traditional lead-acid cells can discharge quickly but charge more slowly)
1.3. Recyclability
Lead-acid batteries of all kinds are virtually 100% recyclable, including the batterys plastic,
steel, acid, and lead. Lead-acid batteries have high recycling rates around the world and are
the most fully recycled product in many countries, including the USA. The US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) states that 96% of all
lead-acid batteries in the USA are recycled, and
that a typical lead-acid battery contains 60% to
80% recycled lead and plastic. Moreover, while
the lead-acid battery supply chain consumes
more than 80% of the lead used in the USA, due
to extraordinary levels of recycling it is
responsible for less than 1% of the countrys
lead emissions.
In Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics states that 60% of all lead used in Australia is
recycled, and that 93% of all motor vehicle batteries are recycled (Louey, 2010).
The European Union document Questions and Answers on the Batteries Directive
(2006/66/Ec) states that the collection of industrial and automotive lead-acid batteries in the
EU is close to 100%.
UltraBattery manufacturer East Penn Manufacturing has developed one of the worlds most
advanced lead-acid battery recycling facilities, which processes approximately 30,000 used
lead-acid batteries per day.
+ Batteries are collected, dismantled and separated. The lead is smelted, then refined.
Sulfur fumes created during the lead smelting are trapped and processed into a liquid
fertilizer solution.
+ The plastic jars, cases and covers are cleaned and ground into polypropylene pellets
that are molded into new cases and parts at the companys onsite injection molding
facility.
+ Finally, East Penns acid reclamation plant recycles approximately 23 million liters (6
million US gallons) of acid per year.
The motivations for recycling are both environmental and economic. Production of
secondary lead uses approximately one-third of the energy required to produce lead from
The three key areas examined by the research have been the UltraBattery cells:
+ performance in pSoC;
+ rate of charge acceptance; and
+ longevity under various working conditions.
Most lead-acid batteries have reasonably long lifespans if they are regularly refreshed and
properly recharged. However, they generally quickly deteriorate under pSoC use (a regime
that is generally outside of the design parameters for lead-acid cells).
4.1. Longevity
Two organizations (Furukawa Battery and ALABC) have publicly released the results of their
tests on UltraBattery cells for HEV use. Both found that UltraBattery could tolerate
extremely long periods of use without suffering significant degradation.
A driving test carried out on a test circuit in January 2008 used a 144 V module with
prototype Furukawa UltraBattery cells installed in a Honda Insight HEV, and a drive of
100,000 miles (160,000 km) was achieved without recovery charging. The UltraBattery cells
remained in good condition after the drive (Furukawa & CSIRO, 2008).
Of particular significance is that this field driving test demonstrated no difference between
the driving performance of the HEV using the UltraBattery pack and that of the HEV using
the NiMH battery pack. It has also been shown that the cost of the UltraBattery cells was
dramatically less than that of the NiMH cells, and that fuel efficiency and carbon dioxide
emissions were similar for the two cell chemistries.
In one test, Furukawa set an aggressive target lifespan of 200,000 cycles for the cell.
UltraBattery exceeded this sevenfold, achieving
1,400,000 partial charge cycles (over 5,000 full
capacity cycles) with no signs of significant
degradation.
In 2008, Sandia National Laboratories devised
tests to examine how UltraBattery cells
responded in a simulation of wind smoothing and
grid support.
Traditional valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries were also tested in the same regime.
+ The traditional VRLA cells dropped below 80% of initial capacity after 1,100 cycles.
+ UltraBattery lasted about 13 times longer, exceeding 15,000 cycles (Figure 3).
Subsequent to this 2008 Sandia study, Ecoult and its parent company (US battery
manufacturer East Penn Manufacturing) have experimented with various aspects of
UltraBattery technology to improve the chemistry, hardware, installation techniques, and
control and monitoring software for stationary storage applications. (Furukawa Battery Ltd,
headquartered in Japan, holds a license to develop HEV and EV solutions.)
Improvements made to the UltraBattery cell over the 5 years since 2008 have enhanced its
power and energy characteristics while even further reducing its tendency to suffer sulfation
in high rate pSoC operation. The result has been a significant increase in cell longevity.
Figure 4 shows 2013 testing (upper three traces) against the Sandia 2008 tests (lower three
traces including the results of a lithium-ion cell tested by Sandia).
Figure 4: Sandia National Laboratories tests on VRLA, Li-Ion and UltraBattery
technology in 2008 (bottom three traces) are compared with the most recent 2013 internal
testing (top three traces). Significant longevity increases have been achieved.
Figure 5: Results of efficiency testing undertaken at the Furukawa Battery Company. Note
that efficiency drops at high SoC. However, a key component of the value proposition of
UltraBattery technology is that it can operate continuously in pSoC and rarely needs to
enter the low-efficiency range (Furukawa, 2013).
Even at peak rates of discharge of 1C (a rate that would discharge the cells full capacity in
one hour) UltraBattery cells typically achieve DC-DC efficiency of 9395% when performing
variability management applications such as regulation services or renewable ramp rate
smoothing in a pSoC regime. Efficiencies above 85% are seen even in the most challenging
high-rate cycles.
Efficiency for HEV applications is measured in fuel usage. For example, test results
published in 2012 by Idaho National Laboratory describe the performance of a Honda Insight
HEV with an UltraBattery pack, used for fleet duties. The vehicle delivers around 44 mpg
(5.3 L/100 km) in flattish terrain and approximately 35 mpg (6.7 L/100 km) in hilly terrain. The
same test also made positive findings for the lifetime efficiency of the UltraBattery,
concluding that an UltraBattery pack installed in a new car would maintain operational
capacity for the design life of a modern HEV (INL, 2012).
Figure 6: UltraBattery performance under PV hybrid cycling (adapted from Ferreira, Baca, Hund & Rose,
2012).
UltraBattery technology has also been tested with low rates of recovery charging in
stationary applications. The cells consistently show capacity ratios equal to or exceeding
100% of initial capacity despite having been cycled many times and only receiving infrequent
recovery cycles.
Figure 7: Discharge terminal voltages during a high-rate pSoC cycling test adapted from
(Furukawa, 2013). The control battery frequently peaks, indicating that it cannot continue to
accept charge. Under the same conditions, UltraBattery cells rarely or never refuse charge.
UltraBattery technology responds rapidly and can ramp much faster than any conventional
generator, following the regulation control signal accurately and providing a better service to
the system operator.
If the storage technology can provide both high- and low-rate charge delivery, as
UltraBattery can, then power quality functions can be performed by a dual-purpose system
that is primarily installed with another purpose in mind. So an UltraBattery storage solution
providing network peak shifting, or providing industrial or residential energy management,
could be simultaneously earning revenue selling power-quality services to the grid operator.
UltraBattery storage units are fully compatible with traditional UPS batteries in data centers,
and can operate in continuous charge and discharge to provide grid services, offering a new
source of revenue for what is today a cost only investment for data center operators.
The widespread presence of backup energy in data centers today presents a substantial
potential buffer for the grid, and an enormously valuable, already-existing resource that
UltraBattery technology can unlock to support variability management and accelerated
renewable integration.
HEV in courier fleet 5,000 driving miles per month with very
Arizona, USA
operation little cell degradation