The Digital Battery Passport

The future battery passport is an official document (analogous to an identity card) that follows a battery throughout its entire lifecycle and contains information from manufacture to disposal.

As a practical example, consider the scrapping of an electric car whose battery is given a second life in a photovoltaic system. That battery would receive a new battery passport, which is linked to the original one to ensure digital traceability.

In essence, the battery passport is a specific use case of the Digital Product Passport, which is being developed under EU initiatives for more sustainable product design and stronger circular economies. The battery passport is part of the European Union’s strategy to improve product sustainability by introducing digital product passports, as defined in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).

The battery passport applies to traction batteries, industrial batteries, and batteries for light vehicles, each with a capacity of 2 kWh or more. The data of such batteries must then be digitally represented (as a so-called "digital twin") so that they can be made available interoperably across the value chain, for example to the manufacturer’s customers.

The primary advantage for companies is greater data transparency. This not only contributes to the EU’s overarching goals of promoting a circular economy, reducing carbon footprint, and achieving climate neutrality, but can also simplify internal business processes, enable better decisions, and possibly lead to cost savings.

The battery passport is designed to accelerate digital efforts of participants along the battery value chain, ultimately ensuring interoperable data provision. In sum, data input from as many participants in the value chain as possible is required.

Only in this way can the battery passport display valid data, enable meaningful battery recycling, and ultimately serve as a functional example of a circular economy.

Concerns around the battery passport generally fall into areas such as time pressure, the need for a performant and scalable system landscape, IT security concerns, or excessive regulatory burden. Especially for medium-sized companies, complexity and implementation costs are often seen as challenges. Additionally, the expected benefits are still difficult to quantify precisely.

Further influencing factors include differing interests in technological, business policy or national contexts. Nevertheless, due to binding EU regulations, companies will not be able to avoid adopting the battery passport. Because achieving long-term climate neutrality requires taking the first steps now.

The consortium project Battery Pass, co-funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, aims to develop both content and technical standards for implementing the Digital Battery Passport, and to illustrate these via a pilot project.

At Hannover Messe 2024, a demonstrator was also presented. Through involvement of industry, technology and academia, the project ensures that the battery passport is feasible for industrial stakeholders while reflecting the ecological and economic advantages of the Digital Product Passport.

Under the EU Battery Regulation, binding implementation is expected from 2027 onwards; in the best case, preparatory steps should begin immediately.

A wide range of actors stand to benefit from the battery passport and the data it contains. In addition to end users, manufacturers (OEMs), recycling companies (in the context of battery recycling), environmental organisations and even governments or regulatory agencies benefit from increased data transparency.

The value of implementing the DBP varies depending on the stakeholder. The so-called “value assessment”, i.e. evaluating benefit scenarios per stakeholder group, is under investigation by the consortium project and is expected to be explored in depth by end 2024. For recycling companies, it is already assumed today that around 20 % of process costs could be reduced, provided the relevant data for each battery is available.

In summary, the battery passport is a milestone on the path toward a more sustainable world, higher recycling rates for critical raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper. Beyond regulatory pressure, recycling holds significant potential to evolve into a viable, profitable and sustainable business model.