At Battery Show Europe to discuss third-generation smart batteries
3 December 2021
Hall 4 – Booth 460 is where you could find us at The Battery Show Europe, Europe’s leading show for the battery industry. The event took place from 30 November to 2 December in Germany (Messe Stuttgart), showcasing the very latest developments in materials, components, electronics, cell types, assembly and recycling.
Industrial electrification: the market trend
The Battery Show Europe was held in an international context where “electrification” is the buzzword for most sectors of industry, viewed as a tangible solution to maximise the efficiency of their products and improve their performance from a sustainability standpoint, for a lower environmental impact. Upgrading applications to make them smart and safe is the new M.O. for a growing number of OEMs and industrial machinery and electric vehicle manufacturers, a shift driven by the energy transition and innovation but also by Europe’s increasingly stringent emissions standards, so that even the sceptics have no choice but to go carbon-neutral.
The Battery Show 2021 has been the meeting place for the world’s leading players in the advanced battery manufacturing and technology industry, all coming to Europe to present their technological projects, do some networking and be at the forefront of the green evolution and shift to electric mobility.
Which sectors are more ready for electrification today?
Over their nearly 10 years of development, Flash Battery’s lithium batteries have been chosen by a large number of Italian and international players in the industrial machinery and electric vehicle segment that fully grasped the differentiating quality of our technology, with more than 500 different models made and exported throughout 54 countries worldwide. By focusing on the industrial market, we’ve had the opportunity to cater to the most diverse needs, from logistics, robotic automation, construction, agriculture and aerial platforms all the way to boating, airport ground support equipment and specialty machinery. In Europe, lithium electrification is now an undisputed fact in three sectors: agriculture, construction, and logistics & AGV systems.
In agriculture the trend is more evident in the winegrowing, livestock farming and urban green space maintenance segments. In the winegrowing segment, full-electric harvesting machines offer the same performance of combustion engine-powered machines with the added advantage of no CO2 emissions, zero maintenance costs and lower noise levels. In livestock farming, Flash Battery’s purpose-built lithium battery designs are widely used to electrify self-propelled feed mixers. These machines, in fact, require custom high-voltage batteries made to the mechanical and electronic requirements and structure of the application. Hybrid and full-electric solutions are also increasingly in demand for urban green space maintenance, especially for wood chippers/shredders, where lithium provides the benefit of zero emissions and zero noise.
The construction sector requires high energy density together with the high safety levels offered by LFP chemistry lithium batteries. This combination ensures the machine gets the appropriate autonomy for the specific performance. In fact, applications in this field are extremely energy-intensive due to the type of work they perform each day so energy management is a key factor during design to provide adequate battery run time and power. Riding on the strength of its expertise in all-custom projects, Flash Battery’s R&D team fast-tracked solutions that integrated a higher energy density into the already recognised safety of LFP chemistry, in order to satisfy the specific needs of this sector.
The logistics sector was the first to take advantage of lithium, which is very popular in Industry 4.0 production facilities that use integrated logistics. Lithium batteries need no maintenance so using forklifts, LGVs or AGVs with this technology allows industries to increase the efficiency of their operations. In addition, charging times are much shorter compared to lead batteries plus, with lithium batteries, you cut down on the operating costs associated with the use of lead batteries, such as the need to set up special charging rooms, automatic battery changing systems, and extraction systems to draw the gases discharged during charging (with the regulatory aspects this entails). These are just some of the advantages that Flash Battery brought to the AGVs and LGVs operating in the most important food, beverage and tissue factories around the world thanks to the partnership with multinational E80 Group.
At the Battery Show Europe we brought some examples of custom 3rd generation lithium batteries we have deployed in various sectors:
Sector
Ground Support Equipment
Electric Vehicle
Industrial Machine
Laser Guided Vehicle
Flash Battery
83,2 V – 840 Ah – 69,9 kWh
51,2 V – 300 Ah – 15,4 kWh
96 V – 560 Ah – 53,7 kWh
51,2 V – 200 Ah – 10,2 kWh
Safety, performance and high energy density: the distinctive features of Flash Battery’s third-generation batteries
Digitalisation and technological innovation are major drivers of energy transition, something our Research and Development department – which today accounts for 35% of the Flash Battery staff and is hard at work daily to develop electrification solutions that anticipate the demands of an ever evolving market – knows all too well. We are firmly convinced that innovation can be fostered mainly through a disruptive corporate vision and the Flash Battery technology we showcased at the Battery Show goes in that direction.
The 3rd generation cells deployed on our latest batteries have enabled us to considerably increase the energy density of the battery packs we produce for our customers (from 134 Wh/L to 207 Wh/L in just three years), combining it with the use of LiFePo4 (lithium-iron-phosphate), a chemistry that has been found to be the best suited to the specific needs of industry due to its extremely high safety levels and stability and the fact that it is available in high-capacity formats.
“Providing more energy density in a smaller space is one of our strengths, together with extremely high safety levels as guaranteed on all of the 15,000 batteries we have installed around the world. Our goal is to identify the safest and highest performing electrification solution for our customer’s specific products. For example, our R&D technicians don’t stop at just the theoretical study of the chemistries but go on to conduct several stress tests on the batteries to experiment with and improve performance”.
“The collaborative agreement with Flash Battery means to rely on ultra-high quality and highly customised products that integrate perfectly with the products we represent in the market today. For manufacturers in need of highly customised solutions, we will be able to offer lithium battery packs that meet the energy, mechanical and electrical requirements of the application. Plus a battery monitoring and management system that is one of a kind, a high-power balancing system, and plug-and-play charging solutions. This is all the result of the work of Flash Battery, a company that has been in the markets we are talking about for years; together, we can offer these markets even more customised and, especially, more complete solutions, enabling us to strengthen our work as system integrators”.
In a Europe that has its gaze set on environmental sustainability, the percentage of mechanised applications converted to lithium-based electric technology is around 5-10% today but is expected to grow exponentially in the short term. With advanced and continued R&D activity, strategic partnerships and participation in events and round tables that reflect Europe’s commitment to green technology, such as the Battery Show, we are definitely on the right track to create a winning electrification ecosystem in all sectors of European industry.
