Battery passport tracking: how to land a digital passport across national boundaries?

Author: Shensuo news center source: Gaogong lithium battery

Entering 2023, battery passport has become a new trend in the industry.

In March, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde times, as a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress, submitted a proposal on "carrying out research on China's power battery passport and supporting policies, and strengthening the life cycle management of battery products".

He pointed out that China's battery passport should be researched and designed as soon as possible according to the actual needs of carbon footprint, ESG, recycling and traceability, and echelon utilization.

Recently, in the face of the investor's question of "how to make it easier for end consumers to better use power batteries", Ningde times reiterated that since battery passports are the digital twins of physical batteries, consumers can use battery passports to see clearly the "past and present" of their batteries and clearly compare the good and bad of batteries.

At the electric vehicle hundred people's conference forum earlier this month, Liangrui, vice president of Xinwangda, also pointed out that "the battery passport is essentially a data management system for the battery life cycle, which will bring greater transparency to the global battery value chain."

So, what exactly does the battery passport include? Why has it become a topic of concern for leading enterprises at the current time? What is the significance for the transformation of the global lithium battery industry?

Battery passport originated in Europe

The battery passport can be understood from both narrow and broad sense.

The battery passport in a narrow sense is an industry initiative first proposed by the global battery Alliance (GBA) in 2019.

Founded by the world economic forum, GBA is the first battery Association of a global nature. Its members cover all aspects of the battery industry chain, and European giants such as Eurasia resources group, Glencore, BASF and Volkswagen are the most active.

Since 2021, battery passports have been recognized in the G7 group, OECD and other international high-level meetings; In 2022, the German Ministry of economy granted 8.2 million euros to local associations, including BMW, mierko and BASF, to develop industry standards for battery carbon footprint and put battery passports on the substantive agenda.

On January 18 this year, at the world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, the global battery Alliance (GBA) released the concept verification results of battery passport for the first time.

It is worth noting that the reason why battery passports are named passports rather than identity cards is to highlight their effective cross-border mobility. Therefore, it is very important to establish a global unified certification standard. This is especially true when the battery passport is linked to market access.

According to the new battery law of the European Union, from 2026, all newly purchased electric vehicle (EV) batteries, light vehicle (LMT) batteries and large industrial batteries with a single capacity of more than kwh must have a battery passport to enter the European market.

However, the formulation of transnational rules inevitably involves the inequality of discourse rights in the industrial chain. From the perspective of the membership structure of GBA, the current battery passport is still a multinational project dominated by the EU background.

How to ensure the fairness and inclusiveness of the battery passport and avoid it becoming a regional green trade barrier?

To answer this question, we need to look at the significance of battery passports and the work that has been done by all parties from a broader perspective.

How to define battery passport

According to the GBA official website, the battery passport aims to provide "all stakeholders involved in the whole life cycle" with detailed battery manufacturing history and use information. Its significance lies in the following aspects:

Record the proportion of renewable energy and recycled materials used in the battery production process, so that the purchaser can review and normalize the carbon index standard;

Record the health of the battery, upload cloud data and timely issue fault warning to users to extend the service life of the battery and carrying tools;

Trace and score the historical information of the battery, accurately display the remaining capacity, and facilitate effective circulation in echelon utilization or secondary sales scenarios;

This coincides with the understanding of Liangrui, vice president of Xinwangda. At the electric vehicle hundred people's meeting, Liang Rui pointed out that although the data system of the battery passport looks very complicated, it actually revolves around two main lines, one is the quality management of the whole life cycle of the battery, and the other is the carbon management of the whole life cycle of the battery.

In order to achieve these two goals, Liang Rui put forward three suggestions:

The first is to take measures to control the quality of the whole process of R&D, raw materials, suppliers' incoming materials, production process, customers' finished products and after-sales.

The second is to establish a quality integrated digital platform to organically integrate the quality system, business data and information system to achieve end-to-end quality management.

The third is big data management for the whole life cycle of battery. For example, the design, manufacture, operation, vehicle maintenance and inspection, OTA dynamic management and other links of the power battery should build a system of condition assessment and safety early warning. These data can provide strong support in vehicle insurance, secondary transaction, echelon utilization, etc.

It can be seen that in the explanations of all parties, the battery passport finally appeared as an end-to-end, all-round "comprehensive service platform". With the help of this platform, purchasers can conduct quality management on the upstream supply chain, consumers can view product performance and make purchase decisions quickly, and relevant governments can trace the carbon footprint in the whole process

To complete such a huge project, the government and leading enterprises undoubtedly play an important calling role.

For the government, at the "China 5g+industrial Internet Conference" at the end of last year, the Ministry of industry and information technology announced the establishment of the national top node of the industrial Internet identity resolution system. This shows that the core infrastructure required for cross regional and cross industry data exchange in China has been completed.

At the beginning of this month, the Tianfu big data international strategy and Technology Research Institute led by Sichuan Province held a product conference in Chengdu, at which the China carbon footprint open platform (ccfop) was first unveiled, which includes the product carbon footprint online analysis system efooprint and the China life cycle basic database clcd.

While the digital infrastructure is gradually improved, Gaogong lithium battery has observed that many enterprises at the head of the industrial chain have actively deployed their layout.

Efforts of Chinese enterprises in battery passport

In addition to the mandatory access provisions of the new battery law, the European carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM, also known as "carbon tariff") was approved by the European Parliament on April 18. It is expected to be published in the official gazette of the European Union in the near future and will take effect 20 days after its publication.

It can be said that the battery passport will become a key factor for the success of domestic battery enterprises in going to Europe.

Therefore, the first batch of domestic enterprises that actively respond to battery passports are those that have a clear internationalization strategy and have created substantial achievements in going to sea.

In December 2022, Ningde times was elected to the new board of directors of GBA, with a term of office from April 2023 to December 2024, and served as a member of the supervisory committee.

In the same year, the German plant of Ningde era was officially put into operation, marking its local supply capacity. At the same time, the construction of a second plant in Hungary was also started.

Luoyang molybdenum, which has close cooperation with Ningde times, also participated in the GBA project. At the world economic forum in Davos in January this year, the first batch of electric vehicle battery passports displayed by GBA included the resource project jointly developed by Luoyang molybdenum industry, Glencore and Eurasian resources group.

On April 19, 2023, GBA officially approved shinwanda to join, and shinwanda became a new member of the organization.

In addition, Gaogong lithium battery learned from relevant people in greenmead that Wuhan power regeneration, a subsidiary of greenmead, is applying to join GBA and has continued to cooperate with Ningde times on the landing of domestic battery passports.

In July last year, greenmead issued GDR and listed in Switzerland, which has been approved, and will provide financial support for the construction of its European battery recycling project.

In terms of industrial chain empowerment, vision power Erdos Zero Carbon Industrial Park has laid out a zero carbon digital certification system based on the intelligent IOT operating system eNOS and the ark energy carbon management platform. While achieving 100% green energy supply, it also gives products in the park a "zero carbon green code" that is traceable, in line with various international standards and certified by authoritative institutions.

In other words, the industrial chain enterprises settled in the vision park can produce low-carbon and zero carbon products with international certification. It is reported that at present, many upstream and downstream enterprises, including FAW Jiefang and shengvanadium technology, have announced to settle in Ordos zero carbon industrial park.

In addition to the power battery industry chain, as one of the major uses of battery passports is to trace the historical information of echelon utilization scenarios, special research on battery passports has also been launched in the field of energy storage.

In March, Zhongtian interconnection signed a strategic cooperation contract with Zhongtian energy storage. Zhongtian Internet said that it would take the lead in realizing a complete set of battery passport solutions in China in combination with the properties of Zhongtian energy storage industry; Give the energy storage battery a unique identification through the battery passport, and break the barriers of MES, dual carbon platform, battery operation and maintenance management and other platforms.

Gaogong lithium battery believes that as the battery passport has become an international consensus across different tracks at home and abroad, more enterprises will take the lead in improving the identification of battery passports in specific regions and scenes in the future, helping to implement the internationally accepted unified standards.

It is worth mentioning that in order to ensure the openness, transparency and tamper resistance of the whole process information, the introduction of blockchain and artificial intelligence technology will become a rigid need, which also makes the battery passport show greater application potential in the future.

At the same time, under the background of increasingly refined and strict supply chain management of leading enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises upstream and downstream of the industrial chain will also participate in the formulation of battery passports as the main body of responsibility, so that they can truly "come from the industry and be used by the industry".

Reproduced in http://www.batterychn.com/newinfo-1014-2