Smart Battery Circularity - Circul8

The transport sector is a critical player for achieving the European Union’s commitment to being climate-neutral by 2050. The electrification of vehicles, which holds significant potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, has been increasing at an exponential rate. Electric vehicles (EVs) are normally powered by lithium-ion batteries, which degrade over time, losing up to 20%-30% of their capacity after the vehicle’s expected service life. Although 70%-80% of the battery’s power remains, due to safety reasons, the battery can no longer be used in vehicle applications at this point. As several metric tons of EV li-ion batteries will have reached their end of life by 2030, it is imperative to retain the value of these retired EV batteries through a circular approach.

The greatest environmental and economic benefits of battery circularity can be achieved if batteries are first reused and then recycled after their so-called first life. In Europe, several vehicle manufacturers are exploring such emerging market opportunities in partnership with electric utilities as well as specialist third parties, installing used batteries primarily in different kinds of energy storage systems, ranging from small residential systems to larger containerized grid-scale solutions. All our industrial partner companies-namely, Volvo Construction Equipment, Epiroc, Svealandstrafiken, Northvolt Revolt, ABB, Kpro, IBM, Cling Systems, CanaryBit, Payer-have also acknowledged such business opportunities with battery circularity.

However, they face several layers of issues and many uncertainties, making success difficult to realize. Accordingly, due to the complexity and many unanswered questions, the uptake of EV battery circularity has not yet been fully established in industries, despite being a potential revenue and profit contributor. The battery industry must implement specific preconditions for deciding on the best strategies for circularity.

Specifically, the industry should develop:

(1) information on battery performance and status;

(2) common platforms to collect, analyzse, and share battery life cycle data across companies; and

(3) a deeper understanding of the changes in the current, linear business model elements and collaborations.

Hence, we propose three important areas that will contribute knowledge to the synergy component of the proposal, i.e., smart battery circularity (Circul8). They are Digitally enabled circular business models, Digital twin platform for circular battery services, and Smart battery performance monitoring. Considering the synergies within these three scientific areas, this project will contribute to battery circularity performance in the Swedish industry. The overall goal is to maximize the circularity of EV batteries in the industry by applying advanced digital technologies, which could improve the Swedish manufacturing industry's competitiveness and support its efforts to achieve electromobility in a sustainable way.

Project objectives

The main objectives of Circul8 are as follows:

• Establish a novel framework to maximize EV battery circularity based on evidence gathered from the Synergy project related to innovative business models, digital platforms, and smart performance monitoring.
• Develop and implement digitally enabled CBMs for EV batteries considering repair, reuse, and recycling options to benefit both the individual companies and the ecosystem actors.
• Develop a scalable digital twin-based platform to enable analytics for fleets of batteries with the aim of optimizing battery use throughout the lifecycle.
• Develop methods and tools to facilitate the monitoring of an individual battery and fleets of battery packs using multi-model approaches in order to capture relevant information (RUL prediction, anomaly detection, etc.) to support decisions at the individual battery and fleet levels considering both technical and business KPIs.