Dr. Florian Degen, Prof. Dr. Martin Winter, Prof. Dr. David Bendig, Prof. Dr. Jens Tübke (from left to right)

Dr. Florian Degen (Fraunhofer FFB) , Prof. Dr. Martin Winter (MEET Battery Research Center), Prof. Dr. David Bendig (Institute for Entrepreneurship) and Prof. Dr. Jens Tübke (Fraunhofer FFB) recently published their article "Energy consumption of current and future production of lithium-ion and post lithium-ion battery cells" in the renowned journal Nature Energy. 

In September 2023, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAZ) reported on the four authors' study. In their article, the authors provide empirical evidence, based on extensive data, for the fact that the electricity consumption of battery cell factories would multiply to 130,000 gigawatt hours per year by 2040 under current production processes. This would be equivalent to the entire current electricity consumption of countries such as Norway or Sweden.

However, researchers at the University of Münster and experts at the Fraunhofer Institute are confident that innovative, energy-efficient manufacturing processes and battery designs can reduce electricity consumption by up to 66% in the future. This offers a significant opportunity, particularly for Germany, which faces high energy costs.

The authors would like to thank in particular the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. for kindly supporting their work.

The full text of the study can be viewed at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01355-z