Deutsche Telekom joining up with Energy Web, new ‘green’ battery technology for electric vehicles and 6G energy efficiency requirements are on the week’s technology radar.
Deutsche Telekom joins up with Energy Web
That the mobile telcos are becoming increasingly important players with not only communications but broader solutions in the energy sector has been highlighted once again with the joining up to the Energy Web Foundation by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom’s subsidiary Deutsche Telekom MMS.
Energy Web, a developer of blockchain, aka web3, technologies for distributed energy resource applications, relies on its ecosystem of sector and IT players to validate the EW Chain.
Deutsche Telekom MMS is the IT service and consulting subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom with a range of services for the energy sector and growing interests in the IoT and web3.
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Dirk Röder, Head of Deutsche Telekom’s Blockchain Solutions Centre, says the collaboration shows that blockchain technology can be an important tool in the fight against climate change.
“Deutsche Telekom is not only securing the energy grid, but also accelerating progress towards climate targets while promoting renewable energies,” he asserts.
Jesse Morris, CEO of Energy Web, adds: “Established, trusted digital infrastructure providers like Deutsche Telekom are key players when it comes to helping some of the world’s largest energy companies digitise in order to manage increasingly renewable and complex energy systems.”
Energy Web is by no means the only web3 participation of Deutsche Telekom MMS and just days before the company announced itself as a validator of the Polygon public blockchain. Polygon’s is an Ethereum-based ecosystem offering a range of solutions for developers.
‘Green’ EV batteries from Innolith
Swiss-German battery technology developer Innolith has announced the commercialisation of a new battery technology for electric vehicles and other e-mobility applications that is designed to cut costs and increase vehicle range.
The I-state battery technology is based on a high voltage, high conductivity liquid inorganic electrolyte. This higher voltage than traditional lithium-ion cells enables higher utilisation of cathode capacity through the usage of nearly 100% of the available lithium versus 80% for the Li-ion.
This in turn enables a significant reduction of cathode metals used in the cell and thereby reduces both the costs and weight of the EV battery pack – the latter by about 8%.
The I-state technology is also stated to enable stable cycling of manganese-containing cathodes with reduced content of the expensive nickel and under development are Mn-rich chemistries.
Innolith intends to license the technology through partnerships with automotive, industrial and battery companies and MoUs have been signed with five customers so far for a production requirement of 100MWh per year.
These MOUs are for applications across the off-road, aviation and mining sectors, and include an agreement with Xerotech, a leader in battery pack technology for heavy-duty non-road mobile machinery.
Innolith also has announced working closely with three of the 10 largest car companies and recently signing an MOU with one of the leading EV manufacturers.
6G – all about energy efficiency
While 5G is still emerging in many countries, the industry is already looking forward to a post-2030 6G technology, with new levels of capacity and latency that will support the imaging and awareness technologies that underpin the metaverse.
The Next G Alliance, which was formed to advance North American developments in 6G, has identified two key areas for connectivity.
One is for needs in areas such as massive and energy efficient collection of Internet of Things data, artificial intelligence/machine learning, optimisation for new classes of device, increased interoperability across public and private networks, and seamless experiences linking terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks to extend coverage.
The second is to enable new service offerings, with examples including sensing and centimetre accuracy positioning and tracking services, which could enable applications such as precise autonomous coordination between farm machinery and vehicles or the supervision of dementia patients living in their communities.
Energy applications are envisaged primarily within the environment of smart cities in areas such as energy supply but underlying all applications is the need for energy-efficient devices and sensors.
For example, the introduction of zero-energy IoT devices within the 6G timeframe will increase proliferation and device density and by orders of magnitude compared to the present. This in turn is likely to make cellular IoT an obvious choice for many developers, something not conceivable in previous generations of wireless communications systems, the Alliance has stated.
