Electric Power Systems launches its EPiC battery module range for multiple markets, including eVTOL

Elec­tric Pow­er Sys­tems released its EPiC bat­tery mod­ule this week and pro­vid­ed more details dur­ing an eVTOL Writ­ers Group inter­view organ­ised by the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety.

In a ses­sion mod­er­at­ed by Gra­ham War­wick of Avi­a­tion Week, EP Sys­tems’ co-founders Nathan Mil­le­cam and Randy Dunn and Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer Michael Arm­strong pre­sent­ed the new tech­nol­o­gy to lis­ten­ers, and also par­tic­i­pat­ed in a Q&A ses­sion at the end.

The fam­i­ly of ener­gy, pow­er, and ultra pow­er mod­ules pro­vide solu­tions for all-elec­tric, hybrid-elec­tric and micro-hybrid appli­ca­tions. The bat­ter­ies’ mod­u­lar, scal­able designs pro­vide a more effec­tive and effi­cient way to deliv­er uncom­pro­mised elec­tric pow­er.

Mil­le­cam, who is also Elec­tric Pow­er Sys­tems’ CEO, said: “The EPiC Fam­i­ly is a major step for­ward in advanc­ing elec­tric propul­sion for air­borne appli­ca­tions. Our mod­u­lar plat­form allows air­craft design­ers the abil­i­ty to cre­ate inno­v­a­tive new air­frame con­cepts as well as revi­talise lega­cy air­frames. I want to thank the entire EP Sys­tems team for their inno­va­tion, hard work, and tenac­i­ty in bring­ing this con­cept to mar­ket.”

The EPiC bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy address­es some of the most preva­lent road­blocks to advanced air mobil­i­ty, includ­ing safe­ty, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, cost, weight, and infra­struc­ture. The EPiC bat­tery mod­ules are light­weight and low-cost and plan to be FAA and EASA-cer­ti­fied to the high­est indus­try safe­ty stan­dards.

Describ­ing the EPiC mod­ules dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion, Dunn said: “The mod­ules them­selves are not com­plete bat­ter­ies. They’re intend­ed to be put togeth­er in a series to cre­ate a high volt­age string, kind of like build­ing blocks going into a sys­tem that would be put togeth­er to cre­ate string or mul­ti­ple strings to com­plete an entire ener­gy stor­age sys­tem.

“There are some addi­tion­al sup­port­ing ele­ments that go in there, but for the most part, these mod­ules them­selves are ful­ly con­tained as sub-bat­ter­ies that can linked togeth­er to form larg­er sys­tems.”

Dunn showed a graph­ic which showed the dif­fer­ent con­fig­u­ra­tions of the com­pa­ny’s mod­ules, which includes being stacked togeth­er with bat­tery man­age­ment elec­tron­ics on either side for safe­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the air­craft.

Anoth­er con­fig­u­ra­tion sees the bat­ter­ies stacked with a ven­ti­la­tion plenum on top to take ther­mal run­away and pipe it out of a com­mon vent out­side the air­craft. A final one is a small­er con­fig­u­ra­tion for an APU which would be a sin­gle bat­tery of only 28V with inte­grat­ed elec­tron­ics built into it.

“It just shows the vari­ety of appli­ca­tions and con­fig­u­ra­tions we can achieve with this stan­dard build­ing block. We believe these three mod­ules and types cov­er quite a wide range of air­craft and needs for our cus­tomer base,” Dunn said.

“This includes the emerg­ing eVTOL mar­ket, retro­fits, elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of exist­ing air­craft, new devel­op­ments in fixed wing and tra­di­tion­al air­craft too. It’s a good offer­ing to get com­plete bat­tery sys­tems put togeth­er quick­ly to sup­port our cus­tomers, who are usu­al­ly fran­ti­cal­ly try­ing to put togeth­er a bat­tery sys­tem to achieve a goal and move their pro­grammes for­ward.

“They can use our prod­ucts know­ing they are cur­rent­ly in cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with the FAA and EASA right now, and we’re already gone through the most crit­i­cal safe­ty tests for ther­mal con­tain­ment, as well as shock and vibra­tion tests. We’re now in the process of going through the for­mal­i­ties to get them cer­ti­fied with the FAA.”

EP Sys­tems pro­vides high-pow­er scal­able pow­er­trains that are cer­tifiable for elec­trified avi­a­tion. It devel­ops ener­gy stor­age sys­tems, DC fast-charg­ing sta­tions, and elec­tric propul­sion prod­ucts for Aero­space, Defense, Auto­mo­tive, Marine, and Indus­tri­al Trac­tion indus­tries.

The EPiC TSO is esti­mat­ed to reach com­ple­tion in Q2 of 2022 and EP Sys­tems is cur­rent­ly work­ing with numer­ous launch cus­tomers to inte­grate the sys­tem into their air­craft. Com­pa­nies it is already work­ing with include NASA, Boe­ing, Safran, Bell Tex­tron and Embraer. Boe­ing and Safran invest­ed in EP Sys­tems in 2019, to enhance its research and devel­op­ment, ener­gy stor­age, and elec­tric propul­sion capa­bil­i­ties.

EP Sys­tems already has numer­ous bat­tery sys­tems cur­rent­ly pow­er­ing flight demon­stra­tor vehi­cles, includ­ing NASA’s X‑57 and Bel­l’s Nexus air taxi.