December 6, 2019: Advanced Battery Concepts, the US bipolar battery developer, announced on November. 27 that a seventh lead battery company — unspecified but Asia-headquartered — had acquired licensing rights to its GreenSeal technology. This is the seventh licensee agreement and the second new licensee in 2019.
The licence gives battery manufacturers the right to make GreenSeal batteries on a non-exclusive basis. It also secures rights to any future bipolar lead technology developed by ABC.
Edward Shaffer, CEO and founder of Advanced Battery Concepts, told BESB at the ILZDA conference in Mumbai that the new licensee was further proof that his product was ripe for mass adoption.
The new licensee, the name of which is held back by a non-disclosure agreement, joins six existing firms — Crown Battery, Clarios, EnerSys, Exide Industries, Trojan Battery Company, and Monbat.
Separately at the ILZDA conference, Dipak Chaudhuri, president of R&D at Exide Industries, said his firm was in the final stages of testing on a manufacturing line before mass deployment. Exide is the largest maker of automotive batteries in India’s huge energy storage market.
“Exide is well positioned to rapidly install scale capacity and bring this technology to India,” said Shaffer. “We’ve managed to get energy storage down to $0.17/kWh and we see that $0.06/kWh will be achievable. Given that peaker plants produce electricity at $0.02-0.03/kWh, energy storage with bipolar batteries will become a game changer.”
Shaffer says the bipolar battery design means that 46% less lead is used in their manufacture with an extended cycle life of up to three times.
ABC is based in Clare, Michigan and was founded by Shaffer in 2009.
