MONBAT and Advanced Battery Concepts sign memorandum targeting full-scale commercialization of bipolar lead batteries
Corporate
CLARE, MI, USA and SOFIA, BULGARIA – Joint Release
Advanced Battery Concepts, LLC. (ABC) and Monbat AD agreed on a product development program for the design of a commercial bipolar battery, based on ABC’s patented GreenSeal® technology, for mass scale production at a future Monbat manufacturing 1 Gigawatt (GWh) facility to be built in Bulgaria. Forecast for the investment is about 16M EUR. (approximately U.S. $17M).
In the first stage of the program, Advanced Battery Concepts will produce, in its expanded Clare, MI plant, the so-called “Alpha Samples” of Block B batteries. Block B is a 48-volt, 32 amp-hour industrial battery, aimed at Telecom and Battery Energy Storage Systems (“BESS”) applications. The batteries will be delivered to existing Monbat clients and special projects requiring “BESS”, for on-site deployment, thus supplying the necessary data for the future mass-scale production. Monbat has intensively tested prototype Block B batteries since 2019, in the company’s certified testing laboratories.
Bipolar batteries will offer significant advantages in the industrial battery sector, improving performance, durability, and cost of production/acquisition and at the same time reducing lead and weight, while remaining fully recyclable.
Monbat’s aggressive adoption of the GreenSeal® technology for next generation products is important for more than just economic reasons, said Edward Shaffer II, Founder and CEO of Advanced Battery Concepts. While the bottom-line results are important to Monbat’s business, there are three additional benefits that are important to our companies. Providing energy storage products and solutions that are environmentally, socially, and economically responsible are vital benefits of ABC’s GreenSeal® bipolar battery technology, he continued. As Dr. Shaffer stated, GreenSeal® technology through efficient manufacturing processes and material utilization has a reduced carbon footprint compared to other energy storage products and is a chemistry, based on the lead industry ecosystem, making it part of the most recycled products in the world.
Monbat is determined to become the first mass scale producer of bipolar lead-acid batteries in the world. GreenSeal® technology will offer vital benefits for industrial battery clients. The demand for more efficient BESS and more stringent environmental requirements in terms of circularity and less greenhouse gas emissions are about to find optimal solutions in the joint product, developed by ABC and Monbat, Viktor Spiriev, Monbat CEO stated. ABC GreenSeal® batteries use less lead, as Dr. Shaffer pointed out, which provides a triple advantage. It is aligned with these vital benefits by reducing cost and transport and reducing raw materials content for the same energy thereby reducing the need for additional mining, metallurgy, and refining processes.
About Advanced Battery Concepts
As a global leader in bipolar battery invention and manufacturing, the company has developed an extensive portfolio of patents and trade secrets, benefitting its licensees and other customers, termed GreenSeal® Technology. This technology delivers improved battery performance at lower production costs for traditional lead batteries while also enabling application to other advanced chemistries.
https://advancedbatteryconcepts.com
About Monbat
Monbat is the 4TH largest lead-acid battery producer in Europe, holding leading positions in starter, industrial and deep cycle battery segments in 70+ markets around the world. The lead-acid business is a vertically integrated business model with operating production and recycling facilities in Bulgaria and Tunisia (Monbat AD, Start AD and Batteries Nour) and recycling plants in Romania, Serbia and Italy. The recycling division of Monbat enables the efficient vertical integration with the lead-acid segment, being an innovative provider of lead and lead alloys and re-granulated polypropylene.