Headline : ISRO offers battery technology to firms
Details :
The News
The drive for indigenously made lithium ion batteries on a large scale has got a push with the Indian Space Research Organisation offering its production technology to Indian industry.
Key Highlights
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre is offering to transfer lithium ion battery technology to competent Indian industries/start-ups.
Currently the batteries are imported mostly from China, South Korea and Taiwan.
The move to transfer technology will help Indian industry including start-ups to use power storage technology to produce a range of Li ion cells for many purposes, mainly EVs or electric vehicles.
ISRO will transfer its in-house technology to each qualified production agency for a one-time fee of ₹1 crore.
The move for setting up local production will give fillip to government’s plan to achieve 100% EVs in the country by 2030.
Lithium-ion batteries and their advantages
Lithium ion batteries are rechargeable batteries typically having lightweight Lithium cobalt oxide as the positive electrode and carbon in the form of graphite as the negative electrode.
Advantages
Light weight
Lithium ion batteries are generally much lighter than other types of rechargeable batteries of the same size.
High Energy Density
Good batteries are the ones that hold more energy per gram.
Lithium is also a highly reactive element, meaning that a lot of energy can be stored in its atomic bonds.
This translates into a very high energy density for lithium-ion batteries.
A typical automobile lead-acid battery weighs 6 kilograms more to store the same amount of energy than a lithium-ion battery.
In consumer electronics like mobile, laptops, camera etc I kilogram of Nickle cadmium batteries stores typically 60 to 70 watt-hours.
A typical lithium-ion battery can store 150 watt-hours of electricity in 1 kilogram of battery.
Minimum losses
A lithium-ion battery pack loses only about 5 percent of its charge per month, compared to a 20 percent loss per month for Nickle-Cadmium batteries.
Low Maintainance
Lithium-ion batteries can handle hundreds of charge/discharge cycles.
Relatively low self-discharge - self-discharge is less than half that of nickel-based batteries.
This is because they have no memory effect, which means that you do not have to completely discharge them before recharging.
Disadvantages
Ageing
Lithium ion batteries suffer from ageing at room temparature. Therefore in a typical consumer electronic batteries need to be be partially charged - around 40% to 50% and kept in a cool storage area. Storage under these conditions will help increase the life.
Transportation
Another disadvantage of lithium ion batteries is that there can be certain restrictions placed on their transportation, especially by air to protect against short circuits.
Cost
Lithium-ion batteries are around 40% more costly to manufacture than Nickel cadmium cells.
Why do we need to migrate to Electric Vehicles?
Though batteries deliver 340 times less energy than gasoline, the battery-run vehicles have an efficiency of nearly 85% compared to 20% of gasoline-run engines.
This means 85% energy can be used to run the wheels and only 15% is lost as heat.
Whereas in a gasoline engine only 20% energy of gasoline makes it to the heels; the remaining 80% is lost as heat.
Steps taken by government
Under National Electric Mobility Mission Plan launched in 2013 the government targeted to get at least six to seven million electric vehicles on the road by 2020.
Further in a bid to go green, the government planned to go all-electric in terms of new car sales in the country by the year 2030.
However, recently this target was reduced to 30%.
Revised National E-mobility Programme
Under National E-mobility Programme the Ministry of Heavy Industries recently gave its approval to the introduction of EV-based public transportation systems in 11 cities across the country.
National E-mobility Programme aims to provide an impetus to the entire e-mobility ecosystem that includes electric vehicle manufacturers, charging infrastructure development companies, fleet operators, service providers, etc.
Under this programme the Government targets to have 30% of vehicles in India as electric vehicles.
State-run Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) is responsible for procuring electric vehicles for the Government.
FAME Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India
Government of India notified FAME India Scheme in 2015, with the objective to support hybrid/electric vehicles market development and Manufacturing eco-system
The scheme has 4 focus areas
Technology development
Demand Creation
Pilot Projects
Charging Infrastructure