Emerging Battery Technologies to Boost the Clean Energy Transition

The transportation and mobility sector are witnessing a significant transformation, with a growing focus on sustainability and reducing the environmental impact of transportation. One of the most notable trends in the industry is the shift toward electric vehicles (EVs), which produce zero emissions and are becoming a more viable option due to the reduction in battery costs and advancements in charging infrastructure. Another trend is the rise of ride-sharing services, which offer convenient transportation options, particularly in urban areas. Additionally, 5G technology is set to play a crucial role in shaping the future of mobility by enabling connected and autonomous vehicles, improving transportation efficiency and safety, and providing new opportunities for innovation and growth in the industry. The continued development and expansion of electric vehicles and ride-sharing services are expected, along with the integration of autonomous and connected vehicle technologies. Other trends like micromobility options, mobility as a service (MaaS), and the possibility of hyperloop technology are also likely to shape the future. This chapter will discuss the electrification of mobility, e-mobility, and future trends, the importance of 5G technology, and the future of mobility.

The global market for batteries is rapidly growing, leading to significant material requirements to build up an in-use stock of batteries for mobility and stationary applications. One strategy to secure the material supply for batteries and simultaneously reduce the life cycle environmental impacts of batteries is the implementation of a circular economy for batteries, chiefly lithium-ion battery materials. In a circular economy, material cycles are narrowed, slowed, and closed to form cyclical or cascading material flows instead of linear take-make-waste schemes. The most common measures to implement a circular economy are so-called R-imperatives: refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, remanufacture, refurbish, repurpose, recycle, and recover. By implementing these R-imperatives, batteries can be designed to provide the highest functional value with the lowest material requirements. Their life is prolonged by repair and remanufacturing activities, and the valuable materials can be recycled through various processes. Legislative initiatives like the EU Battery Regulation and technological development foster the implementation of such a circular economy for batteries.

This chapter describes recent projections for the development of global and European demand for battery storage out to 2050 and analyzes the underlying drivers, drawing primarily on the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2022. The WEO 2022 projects a dramatic increase in the relevance of battery storage for the energy system. Battery electric vehicles become the dominant technology in the light-duty vehicle segment in all scenarios. In the electricity sector, battery energy storage emerges as one of the key solutions to provide flexibility to a power system that sees sharply rising flexibility needs, driven by the fast-rising share of variable renewables.

The ongoing decline in the cost of battery packs is crucial to this. It enables electric vehicles to compete on cost with their internal combustion engine counterparts in more and more use cases while making stationary battery energy storage a cost-competitive choice for the provision of flexibility and secure capacity.

The projected rise in battery production leads to a strong increase in demand for critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, copper, or manganese. Increasing the supply of these critical minerals in lockstep with demand is essential in order for battery costs to continue to decline.

This chapter provides an overview of energy storage technologies besides what is commonly referred to as batteries, namely, pumped hydro storage, compressed air energy storage, flywheel storage, flow batteries, and power-to-X technologies. The operating principle of each technology is described briefly along with typical applications of the technology. Additionally, insights into the ecological footprint of the different energy storage systems are presented.

With the growing push toward decarbonization of the electricity generation sector, more attention is paid to storage systems that can assist renewable energy sources (RES). Due to their variability, intermittent RES (such as wind or solar radiation) do not allow a power production distributed uniformly over the short term up to the mid- and long term. Storage of renewable electricity can significantly contribute to mitigate these issues, enhancing power system reliability and, thus, RES penetration. Among energy storage technologies, the potential applications of battery are discussed in this chapter. Focus is placed on applications related to battery energy systems integration in both power systems and electric transportation means.

For grid integration, bulk energy services, transmission and distribution network support, and capacity firming coupled to highly variable RES plants are addressed. Regarding transportation applications, electric mobility and perspectives on the interaction of electric vehicles (EVs) with the electric infrastructure are presented and discussed. Finally, this chapter addresses issues related to EVs’ battery aging and their dismission and exploitation as second life batteries in stationary applications.

Batteries play a key role in the electrification of many applications, covering a wide range from mobility to stationary (including grid-integrated utility) and portable batteries in consumer electronics. As different as these application areas are, the suitable battery technologies are also very different. It is hence not surprising that the battery market is highly fragmented into segments with different technological requirements and growth dynamics. This chapter provides an overview of the growing battery market and its segments and outlines the specific requirements for battery technology in each segment, including cost parameters. Also, the current technological advances and driving forces for market development (most of them connected to transformation of energy systems toward renewable-based electricity) in each segment are discussed.

This chapter explores the future trends in the battery market and analyzes the mutual interdependence of market demands and technological advances. First, most recent market volume projections are summarized, and the related uncertainties are described. Next, the interaction of foreseeable developments in battery technologies and demand scenarios is discussed along most relevant battery use cases. It turns out that current KPI expectations on the demand side and projected KPI on the supply side do not fully coincide yet. However, the market introduction of novel cell chemistries as well as improvements in cell design, manufacturing processes, and advanced material recycling concepts bears large potential for improving the efficiency of the overall battery supply chain and reducing costs. This chapter concludes that technological research and development, collaboration within the battery industry, public funding, and a stringent strategic research agenda are essential to secure the accelerating market growth for batteries.

Batteries are central to the global push for electrification and decarbonization of our transportation and energy infrastructures. Innovations in battery technologies, being the key enablers, are indispensable in addressing the surging demand for electromobility and seamless integration of renewable energy sources into the power grid. For this cause, we need sustainable batteries that consistently deliver competitive performance throughout their life cycle.

Presently, mainstream battery technologies encompass a variety of chemistries—lead, lithium, nickel, and sodium based. These have a considerable potential for further advancement, driven by a range of application requirements. Yet, it’s clear that no single battery chemistry or technology can meet all the diverse challenges posed by different end-user applications. These challenges span across attributes like high power and energy density, longevity, cost-efficiency, excellent safety standards, and minimal environmental impact. It is through innovative materials, cell component design, and cutting-edge battery management systems that we can enhance service life, performance, and safety.

In the ensuing subchapter, we will emphasize how electrochemical storage systems are typically tailored to match the unique requirements of each application. In essence, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution when it comes to battery technology.

The growth in the electric vehicle (EV) and the associated lithium-ion battery (LIB) market globally has been both exponential and inevitable. This is mainly due to the drive toward sustainability through the electrification of transport. This chapter briefly reviews and analyzes the value chain of LIBs, as well as the supply risks of the raw material provisions. It illustrates some of the global environmental and economic impacts of using materials such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel, in both their original and secondary usage and final disposal. To assist in the understanding of the supply and safety risks associated with the materials used in LIBs, this chapter explains in detail the various active cathode chemistries of the numerous LIBs currently available, including the specific battery contents, how the batteries are grouped into families, and the supply risks associated with the materials used. A detailed description of the three existing recycling processes and material yields from each recycling process is given. This is followed by a discussion on the challenges and opportunities that come with each of these recycling processes. There is an overview of battery recycling regulation in the three major markets, China, the EU, and the USA; and how they impact one another. Finally, we highlight the safety issues associated with the transportation, processing, and recycling of LIBs with a focus on the primary risks of LIB fires and how to prevent them. This chapter concludes by summarizing the key findings of this work.

Battery technologies are expected to strongly contribute to the global energy storage industry and market. Among the several promising battery technologies, Li-metal batteries, all-solid-state Li batteries, and beyond-lithium systems are discussed in this chapter. Li metal represents a key anode material for boosting the energy density of batteries, but the formation of Li dendrites limits a safe and stable function of the system. The use of solid-state electrolytes allows a safer battery operation, by limiting the electrolyte flammability and dendrite formation, yet the performance is insufficient because of slower kinetics of the lithium ion. Possible solutions against these critical problems, especially through the discovery of new materials, are here discussed. Moreover, other innovative technologies based on Na, Ca, and Mg, so-called beyond-lithium batteries, are presented. Insights into these emerging battery systems, as well as a series of issues that came up with the replacement of lithium, are described in this chapter. Focus is particularly placed on development of battery materials with different perspectives, including performance, stability, and sustainability.

Global battery demand for stationary storage is expected to increase up to more than 2500 GWh in the next 10 years. In this scenario, the redox flow batteries (RFBs) and metal–oxygen (air) batteries (MABs) represent a strategic alternative to LIBs.

RFBs and MABs share a unique feature: unlike conventional LIBs and conventional batteries that are made by two solid electrodes, separated by an electrolyte/separator assembly, and that are hermetically sealed, RFBs and MABs can be considered as “open systems.” Besides the specific electrochemical processes that drive RFB and MAB operation and that will be discussed in the next sections, the open architecture of RFBs and MABs provides an inherent advantage vs. the closed batteries in terms of safety. Indeed, dangerous internal pressure and/or temperature rise that accidentally take place in case of battery failure can be mitigated.

In the following, the most recent developments of novel open battery architectures are presented, while promises and challenges of these open systems are discussed.

Traditionally, environmental, economic, and social impact assessments of technological innovations have been conducted retrospectively, which means assessing the present or past impacts of products and services. However, for the evaluation of future aspects of technological developments, alternative assessment methods are needed. Prospective assessment is a future-oriented method that can be used to assess environmental, economic, and social impacts. Prospective assessments, like retrospective assessments, provide guidance to decision-makers, including technology developers, policymakers, and manufacturers. Despite the benefits offered by such assessments, a standard method to follow when conducting a prospective assessment presently does not exist.

This section focuses on the methodological challenges of prospective assessments for the evaluation of the impacts of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on emerging battery technologies. Four key challenges of prospective assessments are defined and discussed, being data availability and quality, scaling issues, uncertainty management and variability, and comparability. Each of these challenges is described, and existing methods are suggested to mitigate the challenges. The section concludes by emphasising the need for harmonised and standardised methods when communicating results related to prospective LCAs. In addition, studies need to address the key challenges identified to improve the wider acceptance of results amongst stakeholders and decision-makers.

The large-scale deployment of battery energy storage systems is critical for enabling the electrification of transport and the integration of renewable energy resources into regional electricity systems. Producing these systems, however, can impose various types and extents of environmental impacts and resource requirements. For relatively mature battery technologies, such as lead-acid, nickel-metal hydride, and certain variations of lithium-ion batteries, a robust life cycle assessment (LCA) literature exists that characterizes the environmental impacts and material requirements for these systems. Newer battery technologies, however, are constantly being explored, developed, and refined to improve upon the cost, durability, efficiency, or other performance parameters of relatively mature battery technologies. These newer technologies, including but not limited to solid-state lithium batteries, metal anode-based lithium batteries, non-lithium-based chemistries, flow batteries of different chemistries, and metal-air batteries, show promise from an in-use performance standpoint but do not yet have as robust of an LCA literature that characterizes their environmental impacts and resource requirements at scale. Here, we provide an overview of the present state of the art in the research literature of LCAs that characterize the potential environmental impacts and resource requirements of these emerging technologies as a basis for outlining needs for future research.

Sodium-ion batteries are considered compelling electrochemical energy storage systems considering its abundant resources, high cost-effectiveness, and high safety. Therefore, sodium-ion batteries might become an economically promising alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, while there are several works available in the literature on the costs of lithium-ion battery materials, cells, and modules, there is relatively little available analysis of these for sodium ion. Moreover, most of the works on sodium ion focus on costs of material preparation and the electrodes/electrolytes taken in isolation, without considering the costs of the whole cell or battery system. Therefore, the lack of a cost analysis makes it hard to evaluate the long-term feasibility of this storage technology. In this context, this focus chapter presents a preliminary techno-economics analysis on sodium-ion batteries, based on the review of the recent literature. The main materials/components contributing to the price of the sodium-ion batteries are investigated, along with core challenges presently limiting their development and benefits of their practical deployment. The results are also compared with those of competing lithium-ion technology.

In the design of open battery systems, especially flow batteries (FBs), power (P) and energy (E) may be scaled independently. Thus, the battery design is characterized by the E/P ratio. The resulting wide variety of battery systems requires a close linkage of technical and economic aspects in cost assessment. This subchapter provides an assessment framework for techno-economics of open battery systems designed as FBs.

The book chapter addresses the vulnerabilities and sustainability challenges in the battery industry, emphasising the importance of social acceptance in the context of a variety of applications. The battery industry’s environmental impacts, supply chain issues and geopolitical concerns are discussed, along with the need for just energy transitions and human rights safeguards. The role of batteries in energy storage, e-mobility and grid storage is explored, including the phenomenon of range anxiety in electric vehicles. The chapter underscores the significance of combining technical advancements with social factors for successful energy technology transitions and achieving sustainable battery value chain. Social innovation and acceptance issues related to battery technologies are highlighted, considering factors like socio-political, market and community acceptance. Overall, the text advocates for a balanced approach between societal needs, environmental conservation and technological advancements in the battery industry.

As the demand for batteries is continuously increasing, understanding their social implications becomes increasingly important.

This chapter points out the relevance of the social life cycle assessment (SLCA) to evaluate the effects on social issues of battery throughout its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to disposal.

In the first two paragraphs, the authors describe the main SLCA methodological tools and highlight that further efforts should be made on standardisation possibilities and the alignment to other life cycle methodologies, and testing of methods is necessary to overcome present obstacles and increase the applicability and interpretability results.

In the third paragraph, a literature review is carried out to highlight the main critical hotspots in s-LCA studies. There are many studies on the environmental impacts of battery production in the literature, but the social aspects have not been adequately explored or they are limited to social acceptance. Moreover, indicators related to social aspects are not standardised, due to the obstacles to collect data from the specific production sector for all life cycle phases. Identifying the social impacts of battery supply chain must necessarily include all life cycle phases, such as the extraction and processing of raw materials, the production of intermediates, the production of battery cells, the assembly of the battery pack as final product and the disposal or recycling. Further, the literature review highlights the necessity of more research to clearly define the possible social impacts of batteries, especially objective analyses that can clearly quantify the impacts deriving from the life cycle phases and that allow comparisons among different scenarios, which can be highly variegated.

Multicriteria decision-making theory has been widely used for sustainability assessment in the context of energy management. Although it is not a simple task, requirements are available in the literature to guide analysts performing this type of assessments. When it comes to emerging technologies, specific conditions such unknown impacts, lack of data, high uncertainty, etc., can increase the complexity of the task. Here we present an overview of the concepts of MCDA sustainability assessment, examples of existing studies in the field of energy storage, and a use case for the sustainability assessment of early-stage cathode materials for sodium ion batteries using PROMETHEE II. The results in this type of assessment serve as an indicative for further research and development of specific technologies/materials. Factors such as the availability of data and dynamic social contexts (e.g., political priorities) make sustainability assessments an iterative process. Systematic approaches and specialized MCDA software are necessary to support this task.