Commoditisation of Li-ion not necessarily a direct parallel with solar, manufacturer says

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Electrovaya completed the acquisition of its manufacturing subsidiary, Litarion, in 2015. Image: Electrovaya.

The prospect of the ‘commoditisation’ of lithium-ion batteries is not likely to be as clear-cut as has been seen in the PV industry, one manufacturer has said.

Electrovaya’s business development director Kunal Phalpher spoke with sister title Energy-Storage.News at the Electrical Energy Storage show in Munich, co-located with Intersolar Europe. Phalpher, who has a background as an engineer and in technical sales, said that while there has correctly been an awareness from hardware providers that advanced batteries are likely to be differentiated more on price in the future as the technology continues to scale and become ever-more ubiquitous, the parallels seen with the PV industry do not extend as far as many have assumed.

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“I would say if we compare it to solar where everybody said modules are a commodity, I’d say the chemistry in batteries is more finicky,” Phalpher said.

“There’s more recipes, there’s more ability to differentiate on technology. Iron phosphate was interesting, then NMC, then something else might come along. A solar module, there’s more quality differences – the glass, the frame, the paste and other materials but the core that makes the energy is the cell. That’s really become commoditised.

For the full story on Energy-Storage News, click here.

8 October 2024
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
PV Tech has been running an annual PV CellTech Conference since 2016. PV CellTech USA, on 8-9 October 2024 is our second PV CellTech conference dedicated to the U.S. manufacturing sector. The event in 2023 was a sell out success and 2024 will once again gather the key stakeholders from PV manufacturing, equipment/materials, policy-making and strategy, capital equipment investment and all interested downstream channels and third-party entities. The goal is simple: to map out PV manufacturing in the U.S. out to 2030 and beyond.

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