TheEuropean Union’s Battery Passport, which will make all of the...

TheEuropean Union’s Battery Passport, which will make all of the components ofdevices placed into the market traceable, will be a useful tool for investorsin energy storage, Energy-Storage.news has heard.

The digitalpassport system is being introduced as part of the European Union’s (EU’s)Batteries Regulation and as such, compliance will be mandatory. The regulationcame into force in August last year, broadly welcomed by the energy storage industry as representedby prominent trade associations.

The rulesinclude requirements on things like carbon footprint labelling and recycledcontent, supply chain transparency and health and safety labels. The regulationis considered a key part of delivering the EU’s Green Deal package.

Thepassport is perhaps the most radical aspect of the regulation from atechnological point of view, requiring QR codes to be put on components andmaterials that give access to crucial data on the batteries.

While thatshould give transparency and accountability on everything to do with howsustainable the equipment’s manufacture and materials are, the passport willalso be crucial for investors, Maher Chebbo of Univers toldEnergy-Storage.news.

Chebbo wasamong the panelists speaking about the topic this morning at the Energy StorageSummit EU, hosted in London, UK, by our publisher Solar Media.

Ahead ofthat session, Energy-Storage.news spoke with Chebbo, who is managing directorfor Europe at Univers (formerly known as Envision), a digital decarbonisationsolutions provider.

Thepassport is necessary, Chebbo said, because: “we want to trace end-to-end thewhole history of the batteries, from the initial design to the manufacturing tothe [expectation once it is placed] on the market”.

Chebbo hasfor the past three years chaired a European Commission (EC) group on the“digital use cases, digital technologies needed to make the batteries of Europecompetitive and innovative”. The passport was decided as one of seven keytechnologies with the potential to do that.

Alsospeaking on the panel this morning were Patrick Vrank, project lead on theBatteries Pass Consortium which is delivering the passport and RichardWagstaff, head of project development at UK-headquartered energy storageinvestor-developer Gore Street Capital.

Projectengineer Vrank offered updates on the development of the passport. A majormilestone was reached last Spring when the first content guidancewas created, and Vrank encouraged the audience to visit the Battery Pass website for the latest information.

Wagstaffsaid meanwhile that the passport and the wider Batteries Regulation were verywelcome, particularly as the fund Gore Street manages has mandates of its ownto meet sustainability criteria. The regulation would help Gore Street stay inline with that, although of course, the implementation may be a complexproposition and Wagstaff said questions remain about the timelines forimplementation and how that would affect upcoming procurements.

Chebbo toldEnergy-Storage.news in the interview beforehand that the passport will trackand display data that includes “identification data, basic characteristics, andalso the context how the battery lives, for the performance and thedurability”.

The latter,he said, will enable the industry to extend the battery lifecycle to “as longas possible”.

“So thatrather than saying this battery will live for eight years, it could live maybefor 12 years, and extend the performance of the battery as well, that it couldcharge more, be more effective in the discharge as well.

In otherwords, while the passport will place some burden on the industry to comply,there will also be definite advantages in terms of helping investors betterunderstand how batteries can be used in various use cases, their expectedlifetimes and ultimately their investability as an asset.

“Everythingis correlated here. So, the insurance companies, the investors battery energystorage system (BESS) assets, they’re expecting to have a decent IRR out oftheir investment. Whether it’s 5%, 7%, 10% of the investment, and to be able tosee the bankability of the battery energy storage project, you need tocalculate the whole capex during the development phase,” Chebbo said.

“Then whenyou commission the BESS, you have all the OPEX and all the expenses on a yearlybasis of the BESS. All of that, you need to calculate it. You need to know howlong the life of the battery is. You need to know how much capacity you coulduse and the performance. How much are you going to spend on the maintenance ofthe battery? The battery passport will help in the repair, measuring andpredicting the end life, it will also help in the health of the asset. It helpsalso in the safety,” Chebbo said.

“Sodefinitely, this is crucial for the bankability calculation that you would giveduring the business case at the beginning for an investor.”