Spinout About:Energy has announced the launch of its battery design software platform, The Voltt, to shorten R&D timelines, improve battery performance, and reduce development risk for battery cells and systems in automotive, aerospace and niche industries.
The Voltt is a comprehensive platform for use in battery design, testing, and optimisation. It centralises data collection for battery design projects, and allows users to easily compare and analyse different battery types so they can make informed decisions about which cells are best suited their specific needs.
The Voltt will be offered in tiered subscriptions. An ‘entry’ level that predicts the electrical and thermal behaviours of the battery design, the ‘explore’ level also predicts electrochemical behaviours including voltage current behaviour and internal state of the battery, and the ‘elevate’ level which has further features including degradation due to cumulative use and shelf-life, and customisable features cost modelling and supply chain, and scale-up, battery management and system design.
The launch of The Voltt was hosted at The Royal Academy of Engineering, and attendees included industry leaders, researchers, policy makers, and investors. The launch showcased the first version of the platform and the company's vision for their technology roadmap.
The team's outstanding achievement to progress from ideation to a fully operational cloud platform, built on data obtained from world-leading characterisation and modelling, has been remarkable. The launch of Voltt marks the first milestone in a series of ambitious objectives aimed at revolutionising the approach to battery system design.
Gavin White, Co-founder and CEO of About:Energy
About:Energy’s battery models are undergoing a wide range of validation, including temperature, state-of-charge, and ageing. The characterisation and modelling technologies brought into the platform were developed through research programmes at Imperial College London, University of Birmingham and The Faraday Institution. This includes research under Professor Emma Kendrick’s Energy Materials Group at Birmingham on advanced battery characterisation to lower the cost of cell design and to more accurately predict the lifetime of electric vehicles. Professor Kendrick and one of her PhD researchers Kieran O’Regan co-Founded the company alongside others in 2021.
This announcement follows the recent news that About:Energy secured a £1m government-funded project from the Faraday Battery Challenge programme to further develop its platform to predict battery ageing. The project, in partnership with Imperial College London and Arrival, will increase the core capability of About:Energy’s software platform, improve battery lifetime, and decrease the carbon footprint of systems.
Gavin White, Co-founder and CEO of About:Energy, commented: “The team's outstanding achievement to progress from ideation to a fully operational cloud platform, built on data obtained from world-leading characterisation and modelling, has been remarkable. The launch of Voltt marks the first milestone in a series of ambitious objectives aimed at revolutionising the approach to battery system design.”
One of the most important aspect to accurate modeling is accurate inputs. About:Energy have the expertise in model parameterisation in addition to the models, and the Voltt encompasses both. Which means the user can access a wealth of information and insights required to make those decisions about battery design, choice or optimum operation.
Emma Kendrick, Professor of Energy Materials at University of Birmingham and Co-Founder of About:Energy
Pam Thomas, CEO of The Faraday Institution said: "Through the industry-directed research of our multi-scale modelling project team the UK has world-leading battery modelling tools. About:Energy was set up as a commercial vehicle to provide industry organisations with modelling capabilities and where the development of tools and parameterisation techniques are being refined further. The organisation is clearly going from strength to strength to strength, contributing to the Battery Parameterisation eXchange initiative, and further enhancing the UK’s battery development capabilities.”
