Meet WaveTech: giving batteries a longer life

Energy Transition Norway has welcomed WaveTech as a new cluster member. The company develops technology that extends the lifetime and performance of batteries — addressing a problem that is more widespread than most users realise.

Replaced too soon

Most organisations that rely on batteries — whether at small or large scale — replace them based on age or hours in operation, rather than their actual chemical condition. In practice, this means batteries are frequently taken out of service and recycled earlier than necessary, even when they often still have capacity that could realistically be recovered.

WaveTech works primarily with businesses for which batteries are critical to operations: telecoms, data centres, energy storage, uninterruptible power supply, and industry more broadly. The aim is to help these organisations get more out of the batteries they already have — for longer, and with a meaningful environmental benefit.

Built on two decades of research

WaveTech's approach is based on more than 20 years of research in electrochemistry. This research underpins methods and systems that allow the company to assess what a battery is actually capable of, recover lost capacity, and extend its usable life. According to WaveTech, “Few, if any, others are able to do this at industrial scale with comparable results”.

A recent example illustrates the scale of what is possible. In a 90-day pilot with a global provider of uninterruptible power supply, WaveTech recovered capacity in 2,624 of 3,056 batteries that would otherwise have been sent for recycling. In a similar project involving typical telecom batteries from a recycling facility, 70.7 percent of the batteries tested proved suitable for capacity recovery.

A growing role in critical infrastructure

Batteries are increasingly considered critical infrastructure. As demand for battery storage continues to grow, extending the lifetime of existing batteries could help reduce dependence on new raw materials and make that infrastructure more reliable — which is the need WaveTech sees its technology addressing: managing batteries better, more sustainably, and more efficiently throughout the value chain. The company's ambition is to establish a hub in Norway, with Rogaland and Stavanger as a natural starting point — and ETN is seen as an important arena for supporting that work.

ETN looks forward to the collaboration ahead.

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