The Battery Pass initiative has guidance for the content of a European battery passport in line with the EU Battery Regulation.
The guidance, which is based on assessment of the content requirements mandated by the EU Battery Regulation, covers no less than 90 data attributes that have been identified in the project for a battery passport.
These, developed with input from the broader battery community, in turn are grouped into seven ‘content clusters’ in line with the regulation.
Sophie Herrmann, Partner at system change company Systemiq GmbH and Programme Director of the Battery Pass Consortium, explains that the content guidance is intended as an asset for all participants of the digital passport ecosystem, from battery value chain actors to standard development organisations and other consortia and projects.
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“Digital battery passports can contribute to lowering the impacts of battery manufacturing such as greenhouse gas emissions, increase resource efficiency along the entire value chain, and better assure the upholding of human rights standards. They are a critical aspect of ensuring resilient supplies of critical raw materials for Europe’s mobility transition.”
Battery Pass
The Battery Pass is an initiative co-funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) with the aim to advance the implementation of the EU battery passport mandated by the Battery Regulation.
The three-year project, which launched in April 2022, is being undertaken by an 11-member consortium from industry, science, technology and auto manufacturing, with the objective of developing and demonstrating a battery passport.
In terms of the EU Battery Regulation, which is expected to enter into force in Q3 of 2023, the adoption of a battery passport for batteries for electric vehicles, light transport and industrial applications >2kWh would occur in February 2027.
Battery passport content guidance
The content clusters set out by the Battery Pass consortium are:
- General battery and manufacturing information – of interest for end-users as well as authorities in the context of tracing back liability and verifying compliance and can be largely based on standardised reporting such as unique identifiers or manufacturing codes.
- Compliance, labelling and certifications (included under 5 below).
- Battery carbon footprint – a key policy measure to enable decarbonisation in the value chain through transparency with the recommendation following the Global Battery Alliance’s GHG Rulebook to calculate ‘cradle to grave’ carbon footprints using company-specific data.
- Supply chain due diligence – helps to address social and environmental issues in complex supply chains and the due diligence report the only mandatory battery passport data point but further voluntary additions recommended.
- Battery materials and composition – key for logistics, dismantling and recycling companies as well as consumers, including information on battery chemistry and critical raw materials and on hazardous substances and their potential impact.
- Circularity and resource efficiency – to enable secure and sustainable access to critical battery raw materials, including removal and disassembly of batteries, recycling of materials and end-user waste management.
- Performance and durability – facilitates a comparison of batteries at purchase and the determination of the value for a second life and amounts to almost half of the data attributes but detailed descriptions in the Regulation are falling short.
Technical standards
This content guidance marks the completion of the first major phase of work for the project but the consortium has indicated it intends to continue to work on updates based on regulatory processes and new insights that emerge.
The consortium also intends to provide recommendations to the European Commission and to explore opportunities to become involved in secondary regulation.
The next major deliverable is a set of technical standards, followed by the demonstrator in virtual form by the end of Q1 2024 and the final version by the end of Q3 of 2024.
The battery passport is set to be the first digital product passport implemented in the EU.
Further product categories are planned to follow, including textiles, construction, consumer electronics, plastics, chemicals and the automotive sector.
