Batteries Not Forgotten | Green Energy News

September 15, 2002 – Vol.7 No.25

BATTERIES NOT FORGOTTEN.

Some may think that battery electric vehicles are dead, and with that battery technology can be ignored. Not so.

The world’s fleet of hybrid electric vehicles is growing steadily - all of them have large battery packs. Fuel cell vehicles are expected to be hybrids also in need of batteries (or perhaps ultracapacitors.) There is also a large and growing world fleet of specialty electric vehicles - anything from airport tugs to forklifts to Neighborhood Electric Vehicles - all of which will continue to use batteries for the foreseeable future.

It makes sense then that the better the overall performance of the battery the better the overall performance of the hybrid, fuel cell or specialty electric vehicle.

After testing its battery technology in real world applications since 1999, and research and development dating back to 1994, AVESTOR of Canada will begin commercial production of its lithium-metal-polymer (LMP) battery. The first production batteries will be for the telecommunications industry, with those for hybrid and electric vehicles soon to follow.

The LMP battery, which is made up of a series of layers of four proprietary materials (each material layer less than 100 microns thick) is solid state (without a liquid electrolyte) and is one-third the size and one-fifth the weight of conventional lead acid batteries of the same capacity. According to company information LMP also appears to outperform popular nickel metal hydride NiMH batteries

A new AVESTOR plant in Boucherville, Quebec can produce up to 120-megawatt hours of batteries each year, but can be expanded to produce up to 600-megawatt hours annually. AVESTOR now employs about 100 at its headquarters / research and development center with an additional 125 in the production facility.

The company is a joint venture of Hydro-Quebec and Kerr-McGee. Visit the LMP battery and AVESTOR at http://www.avestor.com/