In engaging for the transition to e-mobility as a part of its environmental policy, the European Union (EU) is pursuing an ambitious strategy of autonomy for the battery supply within Europe.  With the establishment of the European Battery Alliance in 2017, a number of start-ups and joint ventures between automobile makers and battery makers backed by the EU or governments of the member states are announcing one after another the constructions of battery cell factories in Europe. 

How do long-standing European battery manufacturers, in fact very few, observe this current trend? 

IRuniverse (MIRUPLUS) had a chance to interview Mr. Patrick de Metz, Corporate Environmental and Governmental Affairs Director of SAFT Group and asked him a wide range of questions from the company’s current and future business focus, the impact of the new EU Battery Regulation whose proposal was published in last December on the industry, to its connection to Japanese companies. 

While many companies increasingly focus on batteries for EVs whose demand is predicted to sharply increase, pushed by the EU policies and legislations, the business focus of SAFT does not seem to be influenced by this trend. We witness a firm confidence of the long-established company backed by its specialization in highly demanding sectors such as aerospace or military.

Q:  Could you tell us your company’s current focus for battery technologies and the battery market? 

A: I am of course here, speaking on behalf of SAFT, which has the company’s headquarter in France, with 40 manufacturing facilities across Europe, North America, Asia, we have   approximately 4,000 employees, and the focus of the company is the high-performance industrial butteries. So, we are not at all in the business of consumer batteries, neither are we in the business of stater-batteries for automobiles, and we are not in the business of traction batteries, either. We focus on high-performance industrial batteries, so the market which has aerospace, rail transportation, back-up power, critical missions, critical applications, critical industries, some military equipment, several highly demanding markets. 

When it comes to battery technologies, our business is based on almost ten different battery technologies, chemistries, but the key ones, three are three battery technologies. Nickel based batteries, which we use essentially for back-up power in critical applications, where can be either very significant assets or possibly human lives at stake when we talk about back-up power, we mean, absolutely guarantee back-up power, in the typically difficult environment, either temperature, high or low temperature, difficulty to do maintenance, remote locations, you know, this kind of environments. 

Another technology which we use is lithium primary batteries. We use them typically to provide a small amount of energy over many years, 15-20 years for the applications such as smart meters, IoT ( Internet of Things), devices whereby you hook up batteries in a location you cannot connect equipment to the grid. 

And the third technology we rely on is lithium-ion batteries which are well-known for its energy density and cycling ability, which opened markets that previously were not impossible to serve with existing technologies. Typically, we use them for industrial off-road vehicles, aerospace applications where power-density and long cycling are important as well as large energy storage devices that are grid-connected. So, these are essentially three main chemistries. We have few other chemistries for the niche markets. 

Q: Could you tell us your company’s future focus? Are you going to shift more towards EV batteries? (e.g., ACC: your recent establishment of a joint venture with Groupe PSA)

A: Yes, the company, talking about SAFT, is clearly focusing on high-performance industrial batteries. We do intend to stay in those highly demanding industrial markets.  We have no intention to move either to the consumer battery business nor do we want SAFT to move into electrical vehicle batteries. 

However, you are right, we have decided to jointly establish a separate legal entity, separate from SAFT, called ACC, Automotive Cells Company, which we founded 50 to 50 with PSA Group and Opel which is focusing on traction batteries for electric vehicles. But this is clearly a separate entity. You are talking to me, I am representing SAFT not ACC.  So, for this question, you would have to discuss someone from ACC.  SAFT is focusing industrial batteries!

Q: Could you tell us your company’s battery recycling engagement? 

A: Before lithium-ion batteries started to be placed in the market in significant volume, let’s say, 10 to 15 years ago, we already had, I would say, very aggressive policy to assist our customers, providing them with end-of-life solutions for their batteries, to dispose the batteries in an environmentally friendly way.  Back in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, we started proposing to our customers take-back and recycling for their used nickel-cadmium batteries, whereby we organized recycling through the network of recyclers with which we established a long-term commitment, recyclers in Europe, in Asia and in America. We do organize transportation of used batteries from about 30 different courtiers over to those three areas. Those recyclers are fully dedicated to nickel-cadmium battery recycling. 

Now we are replacing nickel-cadmium batteries with lithium-ion batteries, we are certainly looking at providing services to also assist customers in having environmentally friendly solutions for end-of-life lithium-ion industrial batteries. 

Q: Do you still work with the Nippon Recycle Centre?

A: Yes, this company located in Osaka is one of our partners. We have been in business with them, I would say, almost for 10 years now. It’s a reliable partner, we are very happy with the relationship, I hope they are happy also. We started small then have grown somewhat and can grow more. As I said, we have logistical partners in several Asian countries, and these partners receive batteries and use locations in several Asian countries, and they consolidate them to send them to recyclers. The Nippon Recycle Centre is the one of them. 

Q: To what extent the implementation of the upcoming Battery Regulation may have an impact on your company/industry? (e.g., new measures on the labeling system, recycled content, carbon footprint, a battery passport) Any specific strategy to reduce carbon footprint?

A: Well, at this time what we have in hand is a proposal of the regulation which is not a regulation at this point, and which bills the existing legal text called the Battery Directive. So, it is an extension of this Battery Directive which is foreseen at this point. We have this text published to the public in the mid-December. Indeed, this text takes over all the obligations already in place when it comes to end-of-life and extended producers’ responsibility whereby battery producers have to take back used batteries in Europe and have them recycled. So, all this EPR section is taken over from the existing legislation with a few additional requirements, stretched a little bit based on the experiences over the past 10 years. But the changes there are not significant. However, there will be, if the text is forwarded, some major changes when it comes to battery design. 

The intent of the regulators here is to push for batteries which over the time have better, better and better environmental performance. This is achieved through different requirements regarding carbon footprint in manufacturing those batteries, requirements regarding recycled content, requirements regarding a design for long-life, also a design for easy dismant lability and maintenance. The concept is “repair, recycle and repurpose”. And few others are in the same line. Yes, this will require that we gradually change the battery design. 

I want to say that we have been looking at the requirements, one key element for us is to implement a supply chain due diligence whereby we will need to monitor and rate our supply chain, whether vendors’ vendors do treat the environment and people who work with them well. 

We believe that we are quite well-positioned on these criteria. If I take an example of durability, typically as I indicated to you at the onset of the discussion, we are positioned in the high-end market whereby durability is a key performance. We ask customers and we design with this target in mind. 

When it comes to carbon footprints, surely, we believe in Europe in general and to some extent in France, we have clean energy available, I believe this gives us an edge on this target to reduce carbon footprints over some competitors and we need to keep working on this. 

Recycled content is something that is a little more difficult, especially for lithium-ion because the market is growing very fast, but as you know, the time, since they are placed on the market until they become waste, can be 6, 10, 15 years. So, having sufficient secondary materials to feed the manufacture of new products, it is going to be a challenge for at least 15 years. However, this is something that we have to build. 

Q: The proposals will remain mostly as they are or there will be major change or adjustments? How do you see it?

A: I don’t think the proposal is finalized yet. It needs a fine tuning. For example, typically there is a whole section which duplicates the REACH restriction process, and we do not quite understand why they need to introduce it into the battery’s regulation. Some elements of REACH Regulation which are already legislated. This is an example. There are other examples. So I can’t say that this draft regulation is finished. Yes, it needs to be adjusted. In general, the path forward we believe is interesting and positive. 

Q: Regarding the battery passport, the Japanese industry has a concern for intellectual property rights. How do you respond to this?

A: The battery passport has some elements which are still not so clear to us. But one clear element is a disclosure requirement of some information for different stakeholders. For example, there is a disclosure requirement on how batteries are made for recyclers. 

You know, in Japan, there is already a system whereby on batteries there has to be some labelling information that allows recyclers to sort batteries by chemistries in relatively high level of detail. This is a standard that the Japanese government has developed and implemented in the Japanese law quite some time ago. So having little more information on batteries to help European recyclers for proper sorting, possibly using a Japanese system does not seem unreasonable. But every information requirement would have to be looked at to make sure that it does not infringe on intellectual property rights. But I don’t think chemistry differences are the major problem. I think you can find the common ground with the Commission. Their line is very similar to the Japanese approach. 

Q: Would you be interested in partnerships with Japanese companies? If yes, with what kind of companies/in which sector? 

A: As far as I know, we do work with several Japanese suppliers. But, we do also work with other countries. When it comes to partnering with other areas, battery manufacturers, for instance, we have to look at a business by business approach, as I said already, we have three key technologies we really organized around five different businesses which all have their own markets, applications and needs. This will have to be looked at on a business unit approach. I can only encourage the Japanese battery industry to come to me, I can certainly place them in contact with a relevant person in our company. 

Q: It is nice to learn that you are open to a partnership. 

A: Yes, we are. Actually, we have a subsidiary in Tokyo, SAFT Japan. It is also another way of entry into the group. So, either through our Japanese organization or our European organization, two different ways to get in touch with us!

(Y.SCHANZ)