At the intersection of the energy transition and the sustainable products revolution, the battery supply chain is one of the strategic hubs of the green revolution in the economy. Its more sustainable and circular management will be increasingly essential both to ensure an effective transition to electric mobility and the use of renewable energy, and to meet the new ambitious European standards to make sustainable products the norm.
The Battery Pass project, launched on April 25^th by a consortium of German companies and global players in the sector, is based on these assumptions. The goal is to develop an interoperable and open standard data collection platform that will be the basis for the digital battery passport.

A consortium for a digital battery passport

Lead partner of the Battery Pass project, which is part of the Circular Economy Initiative Deutschland, is the innovation accelerator SYSTEMIQ GmbH, leading a consortium of eleven global industry organizations, research institutes and providers of digital monitoring and data collection services: FIWARE Foundation, acatech – Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften, AUDI AG, BASF SE, BMW AG, Circulor GmbH, Fraunhofer IPK, TWAICE Technologies GmbH, Umicore AG & Co KG, VDE Renewables GmbH. Associated partners also include names such as the Global Battery Alliance (GBA), GS1 Germany GmbH and RWE Generation SE.
“Sustainable batteries are a key element for environmentally, socially and climate-friendly electromobility,” explained Michael Kellner, state secretary of the BMWK, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. “With the digital Battery Pass, we are getting a big step closer to this goal: Important data, such as the climate footprint or information on the conditions of raw material extraction, repairability and recyclability, will be securely stored in it and exchanged among the economic actors along the battery value chain, creating transparency around the electric car battery”.

More circular electric mobility

Within the next three years, the consortium aims to develop a set of technical approaches to implement a European Battery Passport, analyze their feasibility, and demonstrate to stakeholders the commercial and public value of the concept. Battery Pass will be able to contribute both to the calculation of the mandatory CO2 footprint of a battery and to the control and assessment of hazardous substances, improving the impacts and life cycle costs of the product.
The results will mainly be used in the automotive sector, but the ambition is to pave the way for other product passports in different sectors as well.
“Data-enabled lifecycle management of vehicle batteries is central to strengthen the effectiveness of the EU battery and automotive industry,” commented Tilmann Vahle, head of SYSTEMIQ's circular mobility platform. “It will not only accelerate the scaling of the number of electric vehicles, but will also ensure a productive and environmentally sound use of valuable vehicle traction batteries. This will help EU nations and companies to achieve their climate targets, generate high-quality jobs and reduce import dependencies.”

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