Battery developer Britishvolt said June 22 it has extended its partnership with Warwick Manufacturing Group, or WMG, at the University of Warwick by another two years to develop electric vehicle battery cell technologies.
Provides exact deal value. Instead, it said it was a multi-million-pound project which aims to bring Britishvolt up to speed on as well as for further applications both in the UK and elsewhere in the world.
The two companies will expand on an initial 12-month project signed by the parties and will see the additional two-year program of work cover battery cell development and optimization, including small-scale manufacturing to produce battery electrodes and cells using Britishvolt target materials sets, formulations, and cell designs.
These would then be tested as per the protocols agreed with Britishvolt, it added.
Britishvolt CTO Allan Paterson said: “The battery science, advanced materials, and cell prototyping expertise and capability at WMG has directly, and positively, supported our battery technology development program; the support has provided an excellent foundation for the company to grow into as we seek to scale and commercialize our technologies and allow us to continue developing our products.”
WMG, which is part of UKRI's High Value Manufacturing Catapult, has been investing for the last 10 years in research and development to enable Britishvolt, along with other UK battery businesses, to be internationally competitive now and in the future," said Professor David Greenwood, CEO.
Battery metal prices remain buoyed by strong demand, most notably from the EV sector. Platts assessed spot battery-grade nickel sulfate minimum 22% nickel, maximum 100 ppb magnetic DDP China June 21 at Yuan 41,900/mt ($6,254.20/mt), up 23.6% since the start of 2022, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.
Britishvolt broke ground on its lithium-ion battery gigafactory last September, with a planned investment of GBP3.8 billion (USD4.7 billion). Phase One production is slated for 2024, with the site a planned, four-phase, ~10 GWh buildout.
It also intends to construct a second 60 GWh gigafactory in Quebec and is negotiating with the Canadian government about its expansion plans.
Britishvolt, at the end of May, formed a partnership with logistics real estate operator Prologis to invest more than GBP 200 million to build a battery cell scale-up facility in the UK's West Midlands, with an initial output of 1.2 GWh and space for a second line expansion.
The facility would be close to the WMG, Faraday Institution, UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, and the Advanced Propulsion Centre, and create a Battery Corridor to strengthen the UK's battery ecosystem, and that focus would allow Britishvolt to develop new cell formats, formulation and electrochemistries to increase cell performance and reduce cost.
Britishvolt also said earlier that it aims to have an official A-sample battery cell to market in 2022 already, which it believed would aid in further speeding up commitments from its customer base.
It has produced the pre-A battery samples at the WMG, and is now scaling these up and testing at commercial scale at the UK battery industrialisation facility (UKBIC) in Coventry.
