China: Zenergy Launches 320WH/kg High Density Aviation Battery, May Greatly Assist eVTOL Industry

Chi­na-based Zen­er­gy launched last week its 320WH/kg high den­si­ty avi­a­tion bat­tery, reports eastwestconn.com. This break­through may great­ly assist the nascent eVTOL indus­try.

While the com­pa­ny claims ener­gy den­si­ty of its new bat­tery is as high as 320Wh/kg, it can still meet “the high-rate dis­charge per­for­mance of 12C under 20 per­cent SOC, which solves the indus­try prob­lem that high ener­gy den­si­ty and high rate can­not be achieved at the same time,” explains the arti­cle. The com­pa­ny pro­claims, “This has become pos­si­ble and opened the pre­lude to elec­tri­fi­ca­tion in the avi­a­tion field.”

Not only will this help the elec­tric car mar­ket which now has mar­ket pen­e­tra­tion of up to 30 per­cent, but may great­ly assist the new Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) indus­try.

After much research, the launch of the Zen­er­gy Avi­a­tion Bat­tery sug­gests, “Trans­porta­tion will offi­cial­ly move from two-dimen­sions to three-dimen­sions.” The arti­cle con­tin­ues, “In the future, a large num­ber of heli­copters, var­i­ous types of drones and eVTOLs oper­at­ing in the air are expect­ed to be dri­ven by pow­er bat­ter­ies. From short-range to medi­um-range routes, from low-alti­tude tourism, spe­cial trans­porta­tion, to inter­ci­ty trans­porta­tion, and even to high-speed com­mut­ing in the city, there may be changes. And every change will open up a new mar­ket of mag­ni­tude.”

Zen­er­gy Man­age­ment Team

Apart from the obvi­ous reduc­tion of car­bon emis­sions, air­craft pow­ered by bat­ter­ies can increase ener­gy util­i­sa­tion by 60 to 70 per­cent com­pared with petro­le­um.

Tra­di­tion­al fuel is also more expen­sive than elec­tric­i­ty. Accord­ing to agency esti­mates, the hourly oper­at­ing cost of an elec­tric air­craft is 60 to 80 per­cent low­er. In addi­tion, tra­di­tion­al air­craft have seri­ous noise pol­lu­tion. The sound of an air­craft dri­ven by a pow­er bat­tery can be reduced to 60dB, which is 65 per­cent low­er than that of the fuel engine.

The arti­cle con­tin­ues, “In recent years, dri­ven by the demand for elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of vehi­cles, the ener­gy den­si­ty of pow­er bat­ter­ies has changed from 60~80Wh/kg in 2011 to today’s 250Wh/kg, an increase of around four 4 times with a pow­er per­for­mance improved more than 3 times. In terms of cost, it has also dropped from 4~5 yuan/Wh in 2011 to the cur­rent 0.7~0.8 yuan/Wh. There­fore, 320WH/kg is a fur­ther thrust for­ward in bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy. How­ev­er, unlike elec­tric vehi­cles, eVTOLs are more com­plex, where new chal­lenges are faced with elec­tri­fi­ca­tion.

The impor­tance of air­craft weight is far more impor­tant than elec­tric cars, so light­weight bat­ter­ies are essen­tial for the eVTOL indus­try. Also, the aver­age dis­charge pow­er is sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er, requir­ing bat­ter­ies with high ener­gy den­si­ty and high dis­charge rate. On top of this bat­tery com­plex­i­ty, the safe­ty require­ments are greater where it needs to meet the ppb-lev­el avi­a­tion stan­dard. In short, it is nec­es­sary to “have both” the con­tra­dic­to­ry body of high ener­gy den­si­ty and high pow­er of the bat­tery.

Dr. Yu Zhex­un, Chief Prod­uct Offi­cer of Zen­er­gy com­ment­ed, “To achieve both is tech­ni­cal­ly dif­fi­cult to achieve at the same time.” He con­tin­ued, “But Zen­er­gy has tak­en the lead in launch­ing avi­a­tion pow­er bat­ter­ies with high ener­gy den­si­ty, high rate, high safe­ty and fast charg­ing.” Adding, “These are the embod­i­ment of the ulti­mate per­for­mance achieved by our relent­less pur­suit of tech­nol­o­gy.”

In terms of ener­gy den­si­ty, Zenergy’s 320Wh/kg Avi­a­tion Bat­tery great­ly reduces its weight, and in turn makes elec­tric air­craft lighter and fly far­ther. In terms of fast charg­ing, the bat­tery can be charged to 80 per­cent in just 15 min­utes.

Zen­er­gy’s New Bat­tery plant Began Oper­a­tions in Chang­shu, Jiang­su Province, on May 9th, 2023 (Cred­it: chinadaily.com.cn)

To sup­port the company’s new bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy, Zen­er­gy also unveiled in May, a new 25 GWh facil­i­ty in Chang­shu, Jiang­su Province. Cao Fang, Chair­man of Zen­er­gy, said, “As Chi­na march­es towards its dual-car­bon goals, the com­pa­ny will strive to make greater con­tri­bu­tions through its inno­va­tions and prod­ucts.”

The Chang­shu plant is a “soft­ware-defined” facil­i­ty, which the com­pa­ny claims “can improve its effi­cien­cy by 33 per­cent and speed up response-time to client orders by 50 per­cent.”

Estab­lished in 2019, Zen­er­gy already has a rich port­fo­lio of prod­ucts includ­ing both pow­er and stor­age bat­ter­ies, with clients includ­ing SAIC, Geely and Chi­na Three Gorges Cor­po­ra­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.zenergytech.com

(News Source: https://eastwestconn.com)

(images: Zen­er­gy)