A spinout from the University of Birmingham (UK)—About:Energy—has launched its battery design software platform: The Voltt. The Voltt will shorten R&D timelines, improve battery performance, and reduce development risk for battery cells and systems in automotive, aerospace and niche industries.

The Voltt is a comprehensive platform for use in battery design, testing, and optimization. It centralises data collection for battery design projects, and allows users to compare and analyse different battery types easily so they can make informed decisions about which cells are best suited their specific needs.

The Voltt will be offered in tiered subscriptions.

• An entry level predicts the electrical and thermal behaviours of the battery design;

• The explore level also predicts electrochemical behaviors including voltage current behavior and internal state of the battery; and

• The elevate level which has further features including degradation due to cumulative use and shelf-life, and customizable features cost modelling and supply chain, and scale-up, battery management and system design.

The launch of The Voltt was hosted at The Royal Academy of Engineering, and attendees included industry leaders, researchers, policy makers, and investors. The launch showcased the first version of the platform and the company's vision for its technology roadmap.

About:Energy’s battery models are undergoing a wide range of validation, including temperature, state-of-charge, and ageing. The characterization and modeling technologies brought into the platform were developed through research programs at Imperial College London, University of Birmingham and The Faraday Institution.

This includes research under Professor Emma Kendrick’s Energy Materials Group at Birmingham on advanced battery characterization to lower the cost of cell design and to more accurately predict the lifetime of electric vehicles. Professor Kendrick and one of her PhD researchers Kieran O’Regan co-Founded the company alongside others in 2021.

This announcement follows the recent news that About:Energy secured a £1-million government-funded project from the Faraday Battery Challenge program to develop its platform to predict battery ageing further. The project, in partnership with Imperial College London and Arrival, will increase the core capability of About:Energy’s software platform, improve battery lifetime, and decrease the carbon footprint of systems.