Dual Use Batteries: Where Do They Stand Today?

Contrary to this basic fact of life that ‘Energy is limited, use it well’ humans are doing a little in saving it. It is fast becoming a trend of buying ‘use and throw items’ including batteries. When I was reading something in newspaper I came across this interesting concept called Standard dual use batteries. Well actually the concept is old but I came across some facts and examples that I want to share with you all.

The dual use battery is a type of battery that can be used in automotives as well as other applications. In simple terms we can term them as multi-purpose. The most common example is the Lithium ion batteries.

I would like to share an example with you of Mr. Ric Fulop, the vice president of ‘A123 systems’. Mr. Fulop is a MIT graduate who co-founded this company with a grant of $1, 00,000. In today’s date, A123 is the only supplier of Li-ion batteries to ‘Black & Decker’ and eyeing to make the industry into a $6 billion venture.

Well this was just off the topic example I wanted to give you. The thing I wanted to stress from it is that how would it be if we can somehow design this battery for both grid and automotive consumption? In this way we are able to tap two different markets the one being automotive and the other domestic.

If we consider electrical energy we can distinguish it in two different parts i.e. power and energy. Energy is the potential of any body or material while power is the ability or the rate of usage of that energy. In case of electric vehicles the power requirement is 2 to 4 times the energy. But in the case of other automotive the power requirement is 5 to 10 times greater. So in other words we require power rather than energy for automobiles because these are the machines we accelerate to 100 Kmph in 5-7 Seconds.

Now the question arises, why to use dual battery systems? The answer is simple. If we use these we can significantly bring down the cost of PEV batteries. The Tesla roadster of Tesla motors has done this successfully. They use Li-ion battery and call it as 18650. This is because of the fact that the cell used is 18mm in diameter and slightly larger than regular AA batteries 65mm in length. So the combination is called 18650. The cell being small in dimensions, it contains a limited amount of energy. So even in an event of failure, the damage will be much less. Just to mention you the fact, Tesla roadster has about 6800 of these cells and the total weight of battery let alone the vehicle is a whopping 450 Kg.

Now, as you might have noticed, there is a huge gap in the power-energy ratio of Grid and hybrid vehicle sectors. Hence many people oppose the basic ideas of the usage of standard dual use batteries. And they also have a good reason to criticize, no doubt. They are on the right side of technology. But the coin also has other side to it. Because no one can predict future and any bizarre thing can happen. I will show you how.

People can use a combination of high energy batteries with capacitors for the conventional PEVs. There are many OEMs which are running on profit with existing technologies. Layman does not understand the difference between the terms ‘energy’ and ‘power’ and both are inter-convertible by slight jugglery of mechanisms. In simple words, it does not matter much in monetary terms whether we use the word power or energy. However both are costly. So there is always a chance of a mobile boom as in Bharat and we can never tell how and when a technology not so useful today can become the future. We are still in infancy as much as PEV is concerned and we can always expect the Industry to make use of the concept of ‘Standard dual use battery’ advantageously that to at a cheaper rate. Who knows?

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