How to make the most of your battery with Stephan Rohr (Founder & Co-CEO at TWAICE)

Interesting piece here is that it's even not often required to get out of like the specification of the cell manufacturers because there is already so much optimization possible within those windows, which are not used currently. So I think that's, like, one is really the pressure on the cell manufacturers I think they are just too dominant and they are too much into scale. They don't care about it, and they ship it. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the asset owner integrators have to live with it. But there is already, like, a lot of, like, optimization potential within those windows, And then there are, like, additional concepts, so to provide additionally longer performance guarantees for batteries by relacking the midwestern piece, but also on the other hand, having an additional partner, which can take some risk like insurance cover, companies.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back for another installment of transmission.

In today's episode, Quentin is joined by Stephan Raw, founder and co CEO of twice. If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider hitting like and subscribe. It really helps us reach a wider audience. And with that, let's jump in.

Stefan, thank you very much for coming and joining us on the podcast. If during this podcast, you can hear well, it's Thanksgiving. Right? We're recording on Thanksgiving.

So if you can hear loads of noise downstairs, that is an amazing Thanksgiving dinner being put together by my wife and toddler. So just first one is a dis disclaimer. There's lots of noise and banging downstairs. It's arguably worth it.

For me anyway. Thanks for having me. And, like, unfortunately, I'm I'm not at your place, right? Showing me the I think that things give you a good party.

Are you guys we're gonna talk all about the business in a second, but you guys you you're set up in Chicago. Right? Your an office in Chicago. You've got people there, and you're you've got a pretty big presence in the US now.

What? Chicago like?

So, yeah, I mean, like, we are rich in in Germany, Munich, but recovering whole Europe. And since one and a half years, also, like, operating in the US market, and like our our office, our core teams in Chicago based, but we also have people like in Florida, Texas, now also really covering especially your energy storage market heavily in the US. I think two years back, it's not like, a secret, right? The inflation reduction act changed things heavily. So now we're like following the investments in energy storage space. So that's also like why we started really investing heavily in US market, and we'll continue that next year as well.

And let let's talk about twice. You guys have been doing this for quite a while now, and it's a really interesting space, which is looking at physically how batteries are performing, not what we do, which is just talk about how much money they're making or what they're doing in the markets. You guys will do it looking at the engineering side. Do you wanna just talk for a second about the company, your journey, what you do there, what the vision is, all the, you know, all the good stuff?

Yeah. So, yeah, absolutely.

So we started, more or less, like, ten years back. And I started into the battery space in twenty thirteen, fourteen, I started with my PhD and, like, there was like a large battery research grant from where, like, Germany tried to build up, like, battery research in in Germany, and what we created in two thousand fourteen is like a first two hundred kilobatt hour energy storage. It was like one container.

And you can imagine, like, during that time, we call it grid storage.

Now it's like more like two hundred megabits hours. So very tiny one. And It was called energy labor, and we did research how different, like, grid services, c and I services, like, how they're impacting the storage of around lifetime, about health, about safety, and really did research about how can we improve, like, the energy storage asset in two thousand fourteen.

And then, like, we just continued our research and in two thousand seventeen, eighteen.

So we did that at the T u Munich, I, and my co founder, we realized that there was not really like an battery analytics provider out there in the market. So who really is a third party provides analytics software, to, like, energy storage companies, but also electric weed companies, And there were some companies out there which built their energy storage or built electric vehicles, maybe some kind of like in house developments but not like a third party provider. And that is actually what we went off in two thousand eighteen, really like founding twice to provide analytics software to, on the one hand side, really derisk the storages, derisk the assets because, as the whole market is scaling up, there's, like, a lot more on safety on availability, your health, and which you need to solve to make more money also from you guys flowing into the assets.

And secondly, also, like, this whole industry is still very nascent. Right? So you have to create tools and and processes and also services to really optimize it. Right?

So you bring an energy storage life with, like, whatever frequency service, and then a couple of years down the road, it's changing to some other operating modes. How does this impact lifetime? What do we have to expect from the technical asset So this is like things we helped to discover. And so that is what we started in twenty eighteen.

And, yeah, then we kicked it off and really try to unlock the ramp up of the battery industry with our analytics services. And the good thing was in two thousand eighteen is that we were really like the first mover in that space of battery analytics, because the people we approach during that time, we're more focused is energy energy storage really makes sense or electric vehicles really make sense. And we were already part of, like, how can we optimize it? So it was early.

Was nascent, but also this first mover that has to really build a significant team and get really, like, a big significant support from investors and to get there where we are right now. And so the company's roughly ten years old, you say. And how can we put some figures on it? How big is the company?

I mean, I must say you guys have raised a lot of money. Right? You owe seventy million euros or maybe even more than that. So you've got a lot of firepower to build something really big.

Yeah. How big is the company, and how big is the vision?

So, I mean, like, we we started in two thousand fourteen with, like, our PhDs and then really create company around five and a half years back in two thousand eighteen. So it's companies really five and a half years old, but we are, of course, working on this topic for around ten years now. And so we are currently a team of our hundred thirty five people and and growing. So I would say really like, the most significant team on battery analytics, if you will find in Europe in the near the US market.

And we raised, like, seventy five million dollars so far, and and it's really there because I think they're, like, when the industry is scaling, you need to really provide professional commercial software to the industry. Right? And, we from the beginning were, really focused on building a partner, a professional partner for the long term and for scale. Because when you look at energy strategies, there will be live ten, fifteen, twenty years. And no one want to see like your analytic provider going out of the market two, three years from now. So really building it for the long run was always very important for us from the beginning.

And then you just always, like, underestimate how much effort it is to build, like, commercial, battery analytics software. You need to level, like, a lot of PhDs and a lot of, like, data scientists and software engineers to remerching it together and provide proper commercial software, which you can integrate, which is usable, which throws the inside out of the assets. You have to take a lot of different cell chemistries. All those kind of areas need to, like, really require a, like, a massive investment. And then additionally, a lot of our customers in touch on that at the beginning are not only like in Europe, but also like US markets. So you to go also like global very or like international very fast. So this, of course, also requires investment and up front investment in So that is what we did the last five and a half years now.

And in in the research, before we had this conversation, I was doing some research on you guys and what you've been up to And what's evident is we're very privileged in a lot of a lot of your customers, also our customers, and what we're noticing is that as with any technology adoption curve, there's a, as the technology matures, it moves from being a speed and cost of capital play, it does something a bit more sophisticated.

And I think really the winners in the world of anything to do with batteries I think the winners really are starting to differentiate based on data and being an informed operator and, you know, optimizing the resources they already have rather than the cost of deploying more resources. I think that's kind of it happens, you know, having a wind, happening solar, happening in all sorts of things. But it's really exciting because there are a lot of different ways to use, particularly in battery cells. There's a lot of different ways to use different types of of data to have a comp I'm not mostly competitive advantage. That's a bit strong, but to increase ROI.

So you guys are based in Munich. Are you talking to me right now from Munich?

So, like, I'm talking to your, yes, from Munich. And so the company is roughly five five years old. You've raised load of money. You're doing all this analytic stuff.

You've got PhD's data scientists. You've got physical assets. You're doing tests. You're doing, you know, scientific, or the scientific method, if you like, at this stuff.

What's the What's the value prop? What do you guys do for customers? Why do they come to use you guys? So I think I really would connect it to your, like, statement before.

I think that what what happens now, what happened with wind and solar, and now also that translating to energy storage is that first of all, everyone wants to, and that's a bit different with energy storage than it is with wind and solar. First of all, label also want to have, like, a save operation. So they will really want to make sure that the energy storage are safe, which they are deploying and operate safely. So really derisking it, really helping them understand when there are certain things coming up in the future which impact, like, the, the safety of their storages.

And the second thing is, and that is actually playing very much into what you have mentioned is. We call it, like, availability. So when you look at, and you will also, like, publish more or publish things on that is helping, like, helping the asset owners utility companies, but also integrators in the energy storage market to really increase the availability of their energy storage assets.

Why? Because, I mean, like, as the more energy storage assets are getting deployed, people realize that maybe the storages are on, but not always available and partially available. And that creates and this directly cuts into their profits and to their profitability. Right?

And so really helping them to derisk their assets for safety, but on the other hand, really helping them to increase availability of their assets that is what we are doing. And maybe just from a logic, how we do that is we really connect to the energy storage assets. So we take data from the energy storage assets. It's like from the scada system, EMS, battery management system.

So the data which just gets pulled out from the energy storage, assets, and we process those kind of data to draw insights out of it, which then helps like the asset owners or utility companies to replace certain components or to improve the balance mechanism. So really, they're helping them to get actionable insights out of, like, their assets based on the data which they already have in the assets. For you guys, who's the customer? Because there's a lot of people involved in the value chain.

Right? So we're in, of course, in this conversation, we're gonna talk about grid scale batteries, but you guys, you look at electric vehicles, buses, there's a load of stuff maybe we'll touch on that later, but let's just think about grid scale batteries. You mentioned a point now about availability.

You know, you guys will will know that in the US, especially in Texas, availability matters a lot more than European markets because there are so few days where you make so much money. And I can I completely get it there? But is the customer that asset owner or is it the cell manufacturers? You know, is it Samsung SDI or CATL, is it the cell manufacturer, or is it the asset owner, or is it the bank, or is it the O and M provider?

I mean, who who who uses you guys? So in in grid scale energy storage, which is like one major, market area for us, it's either the integrator So who builds the assets like the, like the OEM or the asset owner, backslash, Ipp backslash utility company. So there's a lot there's a lot of acronyms in here. A lot of acronyms.

So let's go to the first one, so an integrator. What can you give some examples? What kind of company is an integrator? Wints, for example, Fluence.

Okay. And you have, like, the asset owners, which are, like, which owns and operates, and the assets It's a second piece. It's like, for example, M and A, Goldman Sachs in the US market who builds up these storages and operates them. And then there is also, like, utility companies, of course, involved because they are a bit different than the asset owners, but, of course, they also like now growing their contribution energy storage assets and own them.

And for both parties, like, for the integrators and for, like, the asset owners and utility companies, we provide this, like, analytics suit to derisk the storage assets also help them to improve availability.

And I think the thing is, like, when you look at, for example, availability, it's important for both sides because like the asset owner and utility companies lay exactly how it described it, right? So you have, like, certain hours, a month where you make your monthly revenue. Right, for example, or certain days where you might make your, like, yearly revenues. So this, the storage has to be hundred percent live and not partially available. So really discovering that early replacing things also already when you, like, in the commissioning phase. So that's crucial.

Then on the other hand, it's also like the integrators, of course, need to solve those issues. So they are O and M teams. They're they have to They have like maintenance cycles. So they have to get smart around. When do they, like, when do they schedule in those replacements?

I have to get proactive, right, because customers, they don't want to see, like, their systems not available when, like, the peak is coming. Right? So really helping also the integrators to get smart in terms of and let make the the the track less rolling, but also like getting more to their customers on those topics. And also, like, I think everyone acknowledges in the whole industry that grid scale are still not no touch system.

So they They are still, touchy systems. You have to still still keep a lot of doing on maintenance side and helping them to prove that is also crucial. But at the end, it's all about, like, derisking it and increasing, for example, availability topics, and then this affects both parties. So it's not what you have mentioned.

The cell manufacturer, it's really like those two parties which are crucial for us.

And I've got to ask a question. So how does it actually work? What do you guys, and talk to me like of a five year old? What do you guys actually do?

So I I get the idea, right, where you get loads of data from load of batteries and put it all together and you do AI and whatever, and you figure out how to schedule maintenance and when to replace cells and that is really valuable to folks who own batteries. I get that. But in the detail, how does it actually work you know, what data do you pull? How do you pull that data?

Are you really are you allowed to? Does cell manufacturers even give you the data that you need? You have to do some kind of working around the edges? Does it affect warranties?

How how do you do what you do?

So very good question. So in general, When you look for example at energy storage assets, they get like constructed, commissioned, implemented, and then go live into like the operational mode. And usually, we come in at twice at this early phase. So when, like, the integrator and or EPC companies, like, really constructing the sites, putting the storage asset there, and going through the first commissioning phase and then entering into the operational phase.

And that is usually how we onboard our analytics which means it's connected to their, like, scada system or, like, their data transfer system, like EMS and It also mostly contains the information which the battery management system provides. So every battery has like a battery management system, which gets the temperature current voltage, data, so more or less the the stupid battery data, temperature current voltage, and transfer that to, like, VMS and to, like, some scada systems and getting it over. And this is actually where we onboard, like, our analytics and then we can provide insights or in the commissioning phase and in the operational phase.

And to give you some examples, right, to what it what it what it basically is. Right? So When you when we get the data, for example, in the commissioning phase, you can detect with our systems. If, for example, like you have this large containers of a lot of battery, modules, racks, cells in those containers.

And you need to detect, for example, if they all con contact the right way, So they all, of course, like, they have a, they have a connector from cells to a module and from module to one rack. And from a rack, and they're all connected. And what you can see already is that, of course, of due to quality issues, for example, not they are not all connected the same way. And this automatically connect your system. We process it data.

We clean it the data. We get rid of, like, anomalies and those kind of things. Then we apply our algorithms and models to it, and then you can immediately see, for example, that certain modules in this container are not right connected.

And then they even can see that we've thermal cameras afterwards when they get into the container and see that it, for example, generates more heat and then they identify certain modules, through our software, which they can replace before the storage goes live. When they would not do that, They will see that maybe like in six, twelve, eighteen months, and this exactly costs, for example, availability issues.

So wouldn't the equipment manufacturer? So let's say you bought a system from fluent or, you know, Tesla or whatever? Wouldn't the equipment manufacturer do that themselves?

So, you guys are representing the asset owner in this, and you, you know, so so the asset owner can do their own checks without the conflict of interest, let's say, of if you're a supplier and you're also checking your own homework.

Yeah. So I think it's it's a very fair comment. So I think in in general, both parties are interested, right? So Because, like, when you in this phase of this handover and this commissioning phase, it's actually beneficial for both parties to identify issues as early as possible supervisor because it's for, like, the asset owner.

I mean, they they invest in millions, hundreds of millions in those assets. They really want to make sure that they get what they bought But also the integrators for them, it's like the best period to exchange things because it's cheap. The truck is already rolling to the sides, they don't have any, like, annoying customers because, like, they have not the storage that are not available or they have some challenges afterwards. So it's a beneficial phase for both parties.

And what we do is we help the integrators on the one hand side, but we also help the asset owners to understand the assets. Into detail. And then either like both parties or one party draws a conclusion out of it, but it's actually in quite important face, and beneficial face for both parties to get the transparency around it. And there are a lot of examples where you can throw the insides out of, like, out of the the data.

And then it's onboarded, and then it's really like about the continuous monitoring of those systems.

That's the second phase. Well, I was gonna ask you about that. So we just talked about, essentially, site acceptance testing. You could actually do it at the factory too, couldn't you?

And then you could see you could determine what the difference was between in in delivery and transit. But so you do site acceptance testing through data, and that's great. And then you get the the seed of approval. I guess, do you offer that a seed of approval, you know, a a stamp saying Yes.

This is okay. And then it moves to the operational phase. How about the ongoing phase? What does the data tell you there?

So, I mean, at the ongoing phase, it's it's the similar thing. First of all, like all storages are like batteries. So, like, they have like electrochemical batteries and they are degrading. So they lose performance over time or, like, lose capacity over time.

So first of all, it's really helping, like, the asset owners or also integrators to understand how batteries are degrading over time, and that highly impacts on how you operate them, like which kind of grid services you, like, is it like more, like, whatever frequency control or is it more, like, more intraday trading, whatever, impacts, and where you place the store is in which kind of HVAC system. So cooling system is applied impacts highly degradations. So helping them to understand how the perf tests are degrading and also helping them to optimize it. Right?

So for example, have to lift the HVAC system a bit and get less degradation out of your system. Or on the other hand side, for example.

So that's one, like, it's the health integration part of it. Secondly, safety monitoring, So even if you have checked it and approved and accepted, right? There are always, like, trends anomalies popping up in this, like, large container parks which are unforeseen. Right?

And to really monitor that and make that predictive to see really like when certain trends in certain cells and modules are really like behaving abnormal and really surfacing that up. That's the crucial piece as well. So we ensure the same operation. But then the third thing is really are coming back to the availability topic is there are a lot of things now when you see in the market, A lot of likely assets which are now currently deployed are LFP systems, for example, like massively more and more, and There, you in general always have the challenge of, like, proper SOC calculation, which impacts everyone in the market.

And really, like, identify, Just just on that. So you're saying it's are you saying it's more difficult to calculate state of charge or state of health on a LFP type of cell rather than an NMC.

Hundred percent. So When you look at SOC estimation, and usually state of health estimation is based on SOC, so you first of all they have to do this. So see estimation, and it's a way more complicated with LFP systems than it is with NMC. Why is that?

It's more technical, but it's like You have this. It's called open circuit voltage. So it's like this curve, how the battery is like discharging. And the thing is with LFP so flat, So even if you're like, if fifty percent SOC or fifty five percent SOC, the voltage are not really And that's a challenge.

So, and then you would like to measure the system and you see it's like your three point five voltage or three point five voltage but it can be like fifty or so it's really hard to detect and And measurement error. There's a scalable measurement error, yeah, issue. And then now the tricky part comes in, this curve is changing over lifetime.

So most of the manufacturers have put in, like, a standard, like, table initially, but the thing is it's changing our lifetime. So it makes it more off over years, and that is really great, which is created off challenges. And it's totally the reason why it's, you know, you have an old iPhone and you're like, hold on. It says I've got a hundred percent battery, and of course it only lasts two hours. I I we're not necessarily talking about LFP there, but it's a it's the same principle, right, which is if you're using if your lookup table, if you like, for your converting measurements into actual usable numbers like SOC, Soh is is static, then you've got a problem.

Hundred percent. And look, I mean, it come just from a customer, meeting like two weeks back and they're like a it's a four hundred megawatt hour system. So a quite large one. But he said, like, we have zero percent SOC, and I pulled another fifty megawatt hours out of the system the next couple of hours.

Wow. Isn't that dangerous, Stefan? Isn't that so can you just talk a little bit? We're going well off piste here, but I think our listeners up there that they can pretty technical, vanilla stuff.

So let's do it. So you can just talk a little bit about this idea that you have to keep battery cells between five percent and ninety five percent or ten percent and ninety percent or twenty percent and eighty. There's a band. Right?

There's a there's utility mind, battery cells, there's a band where you wanna keep state of charge between those numbers. And if you go outside of that, then lots of problems happen. Could you just talk a little bit about what that is why it's there and how significant you think it is. Because for some of our listeners who own and operate grid scale storage, they may be operating to quite restrictive bands.

And they may be wondering, if I could really just open this up a little bit more, give my trader or optimizer a bit more capability, you know, what what could we do? And is it worth the risk? Could you just talk about that for a minute? Yes.

Absolutely. So I would even like separate this question to ports. Right? One, one is every battery should be for every cell, chemistries, there are like certain windows where, like, they are degrading less and where, like, they really like, form safely or, like, form safely.

Thing is it, it also can change over time again, and that's a tricky piece. And that's the one thing. And the second thing is, A lot of where, like, there are some areas which can get safety critical. The the thing is by now connecting back what I have mentioned before is When you look at this energy storage asset, and then the, for example, SOC calculation is not proper.

And then you have, like, an imbalance system. So like some cells in the systems or it's like eighty five percent, some are at hundred percent, for example. And then the control system has really hard work to balance those systems. And that can lead that certain cells get pushed over those limits, unless you get safety critical.

So Even if, like, the bands from the asset owners are, like, put in the right manner so that it doesn't impact the batteries in the long run, and it's less degrading, the imbalances of the systems can be still very safety critical because like the battery management system is not handling the the the imbalances and then the control system pushes everything up, but Yeah. Not one of the other modules and cells up because it's already at the limit. And this can and then additionally you have some sensor offsets and those kind of things, and this can be, of course, very safety critical. So this is actually where the safety element There's also a I'm just I'm this is probably an example of what how my brain works.

Yes. I think the safety issue is an issue, but to me, the thing that goes in my mind is there's opportunity that's left on the table here, which is, you know, your you may be using the lowest common denominator if you like as the measurement you might you may be saying you've got eighty five percent charge in your battery system and actually only one of a thousand is eighty five and a restaurant a hundred and you're still clipping it at eighty five. And then all that bit on top is money left on the table.

A hundred percent. And I think that's exactly playing into what you have mentioned at the beginning, right, this ROIS team improvement. So there's like a very technical component to it, but at the end of the results, you can get squeeze more out of your energy storage assets. When your SSCs, for example, calculated right way, right?

Because otherwise, you always have to build additional safety levers on top of it you can't get as close to the the barriers and boundaries as you like to. And this is actually what we do in the operation interface helping that was helping the acid owners to understand it. By, for example, more advanced SSC calculation, and they can see also, like, upfront if their SOC calculation is off, for example, and then I can adjust it accordingly. The analog I'm thinking of here is a bit like if you go and buy a car and you can remap it, Some cars, you know, there's a lot of Japanese cars, for example, where you can remap the engine, you can get a few horsepower out of it.

And basically, you can do it within the warranty. You can get away with it. And then there's other cars where you can't do it. I mean, if you're going by going by a caterham track track car, you can get another thirty forty horsepower out of it and stay within the warranty by remapping it.

And my question is, so I'm a bit of a car nerd.

My question, is it the same with battery cells? So can you go to algae and algae say, you know, if you use twice and you wanna eke out a bit more value, then that's okay. But if you go to a different provider, say, CATL or BYD, they say, no. Our numbers are the right numbers. If you go of this, you're outside your warranty. Because there's there's some really there's some conflicting forces here technically and commercially.

How does that all fit together? Yeah. So, yeah, it's a very reasonable question. So at the end, it's how is a market set up currently?

You have like this large dominant settlement effect plus LG, CATL, Samsung, Panasonic, Panasonic, SK, and so on. But it's like, it's not like too many out there and like a a small portion of a very large market share. And you're a hundred percent right. They give certain warranties on their battery cell and ship it And most of, like, the energy storage companies, they just have to live with it.

Right? And as soon as they go out of, like, their Windows which the cell manufacturers say they should operate them, they will lose warranties or void warranties or also their concepts of penalty cycles. So you get, like, specific amount of cycles per battery. And when you were, like, for example, overcharge or over, like, too high temperatures, then they get penalty cycles so the number of cycles get reduced over time.

So there are very interesting concepts in the market, but at the end, you currently either you take own risk, the maintenance settlement effect just doesn't take an additional risk. The interesting piece here is that it's even not often required to get out of, like, the specification of the cell manufacturers because there is already so much optimization possible within those, windows, which are not used currently. So I think that's like One is really the pressure on the cell manufacturers. I think they are just too dominant and they are too much into scale.

They don't care about it. They ship it Yeah. Yeah. Or leave it. And then the asset owner integrators have to live with it, but there is already, like, a lot of, like, optimization potential within those windows.

And then there are, like, additional concepts. So for example, what we have launched a couple of years back with munich read together So to provide additionally, like, longer performance guarantees for batteries by really, like, in the monitoring piece, but also on the other hand, having an additional partner, which can take some risk like insurance cover, a company.

I was gonna ask you about that. So what about insurance companies? What's the relationship? I'd imagine I'd imagine that there is a massive opportunity for asset owners.

And also for your business, in working with insurance companies to use this data in a more in in a commercially reliable way. So what how does that work? How are you thinking about the relationships between insurance companies and data and what you guys do? Yeah.

So it's so in in general, there are, like, plenty of opportunities on, like, data insights, battery analytics, and linking it to any form of derisking, and insurance is more or less derisking it. So it's the same value proposition.

So we're working on that for quite a while to really, like, provide additional value to, like, the asset owners or integrators. And there are more or less currently two major use cases. One is really like what I just mentioned is performance guarantees. So, like, empty grader, for example, not only wants to, like, they get eight years of warranty from the cell manufacturer, but they can't win the deals because they have to provide ten, fifteen years.

So they try to push the boundaries and provide, like, twelve year of performance guarantees but that creates, of course, additional liability for them. And this must be de risked through insurance comp companies. They don't understand if this additional like, lifetime is even possible. So they need to have an insight of, like, battery analytics and predicting lifetime.

And that is what we do together with unit b currently as well. And a second use case is a completely different one, but also linked to insurance. It's really like fire insurance or like property damage insurance. So, like, when you like ensure your assets, property damage and fire insurance, then, of course, helping, like, as an additional safety layer, if those storages are like behaving or performing correctly and helps insurance companies to get more comfortable with taking more risk on energy storage assets.

And it's a great thing, right, because when we really work together like this, then it also helps to unlock that more money flowing into ecosystem and more money flowing into energy storage assets because I think that is what we all together need to achieve, right, to get the big money into assets.

And the big is, usually where they are like the risk averse ones. So we need to maybe make sure to derisk it so that the really like the big monies can flow into energy storage assets.

When I'm hearing you talk about the company and what you guys are doing, I can't my mind can't help but thinking about product stuff. Think about product stuff a lot, and So a lot of what you build is quite similar to what we build. So it's data feeds, it's lots of data cleaning, some analytics tools on tops. It's lots of visualizations.

But then the thing that you guys have to do is a bit different to us as you have to make judgment calls about lots of different datasets, which we don't do. We we don't do judgment calls. You guys do judgment calls. And why I think I wanted to just ask you about that is I would expect that you have to walk a thin line.

By the way, we've gone completely off all of the bullet points. I sent you that we're gonna talk about. But but I hope that hopefully that's cool. We could edit it out if you want to, but so my my my thinking is I'd imagine you have to walk this thin line in there's like a pragmatic line, because if you're doing alarms and notifications, for examples, for customer, customers.

Yes. If you're doing alarms and notifications, for example, for customers, last thing you wanna do is bombard your customers with loads of alarms to the point where the problem with alarms in technology. Right? If you have too many alarms, people just ignore them or they turn them off.

And you also don't wanna be this Cassandra or, you know, Town Crier software solution, which is constantly telling you, everything's going wrong. Everything's going wrong. The future's bad. The future's bad.

You know, you need to spend money. You need to maintain. You need to do this. You need to do that.

But on the other hand, it's also your responsibility and your whole brand as a company to get that right and to make sure that your customers are informed operators.

And that you notice things in software before they could notice things themselves.

So how do you think about as a company level and as a pro it's a bit of a deep conversations, but as a company and as a product builder, how do you think about getting that balance right? Yeah. Yeah. So That's a very good good question and a lot of, like, yeah, product related topics in here.

So I think Look, I think what our use is that we, like, I mean, we are a hundred thirty people, and I think we are like a seventy, eighty battery, like, engineer software product people. And I think what we put on the table is domain expertise. Let's call it like this. And I think it's our duty to transfer this domain expertise to our customers.

And because coming back, we have mentioned before, where do you operate your batteries safely or that they are not degrading slower.

That is what we can answer, and we need to transfer that to our customers. The thing is how we do that and we invest it heavily into to provide that a bit at scale. So, really, like, you have the data feed in and then you have, like, analytic platform or analytics factory, which then really translate into actionable insights, notification alerts, but also recommendations.

And that is, like, coupled with, like, a very strong customer success team, which also contains battery engineers and data scientists, which really partner up with the customer because you have to fine tune the notification, the alerting, you really like the customer also needs to get trust into the systems, right, when get a notified when not So I think it's a very strong collaboration, but also I think one key is really investing heavily into providing those actionable insights at scale because otherwise we can't, like, go forward in in the support industry when they are really ramping up and they do currently like one storage after the other.

So that's also a critical piece. And the third thing is you're right. I think we need to be that we just need to state the domain words. That's part of our business model.

So when you look at in Munich, next door, we have checked, for example, a large battery research center laboratory where we also, like, invested heavily in into, like, capabilities to advance our domain our analytics capabilities. For example, when you look at future cell chemistries, we have already like several of, like, next generation cell chemistries in our laboratory. To understand where they operate the best way, where not, where are they safe or not. And I think that is also like one part of our business to understand that domain expertise made the judgment call embedded in actionable insights and delivered to our customers, but it's not easy.

It's not easy. I bet. I wanna ask you some cheeky questions now. So you guys have got a lot of data from a lot of different asset types, stationery assets, EVs, all sorts.

So you you have this kind of macro view of lots of different types of assets that are operational or commissioning or whatever.

Do you have some, like, quick wins? So for our listeners who might be thinking about specifying sites or specifying assets or commissioning them or operating them, Of course, you know, you could plug your software and say, you need to have the best software and you need to be doing battery analytics, but separate to that. What are some quick wins that people can make?

So that's a very interesting question.

So, I mean, the typical answer is always in in bat with batteries, there are not too many quick quids.

So because, like, there is so much differentiation of cell chemistry, cell provider in asset owners, different operating modes. So the thing is that there's so much technical complexity in this asset. Which is so different to, for example, wind and solar. Maybe it has been in the past, but so It's tough to answer.

I think I mean, at the end, when you go one step back, it it also highly depends on, for example, cell chemistries of those assets. Right? And when you look at the current trend to LFP batteries, everyone holding or like a lot of people in the industry think, I mean, a lot of people in reason now they're safe and that's that's a sure bet. But even that, it's not hundred percent right and true, right?

Because there is like a cell l f p cell is not an l f p cell, right? Depends on cell manufacturer on the quality processes and so on. So I think it's there is no, not a lot of weak winds in my opinion, the real, like, crucial pieces, I think the commissioning face is critical. So in terms of, like, money, invest, an outcome, This is like a a phase where both parties really win, and it's also when you go one step back, it's actually crazy.

You would invest like hundreds of millions in energy storage assets.

And this handover period and this installation period is more like still let's call it, like, in in good words, and a process for improvement, how they they assess or check there currently. So I think that is really like a good starting point, even if you don't like to in live monitoring afterwards, but that's a good start. Good thing to start.

By the time you're on-site and you're doing commissioning checks, the whole program is at your month late, right? And loads of things have happened that you never and then the whole project is squeezed at this point in commit commissioning is like the hardest job because it's it's really important and everyone from the program manager to the bank to, you know, that whatever is squeezing your time frame. So you thought you had three weeks and you've actually got, like, two days. And it's it's always happens.

And, yeah, there there there's some work to be done here. Could I ask you about specifics that commissioned though? Because, I'm always surprised by Some of the commissioning tests, which are relied upon, let's say. So take a step back a second.

If you're buying a hundred megawatt hundred megawatt hour system and you want it to be able to go from four charge to hundred percent to zero or nine percent to ten, One would think that at commissioning you would do a full power test, step test at, sustained full power to determine whether it can do that. But one thing that always surprises me is how few assets are actually commissioned that way. And a lot of them have got half power tests or quarter power tests, you know, twenty five percent or fifty percent over a longer period. And then you tick the box and say, yes, it has it's like one's a power test and one's an energy capacity test.

And there seems to be a blurred line where OEMs and the folks who build these things, they definitely wanna push you to the less stringent test. And there's usually a meeting in the middle.

What do you think asset owners should do there when they're being pushed by the system integrator or the OEM to do a less onerous test and time's running out, and perhaps it wasn't defined in the contract upfront properly or the specification properly, you know, what tests should asset owners definitely do?

So you're absolutely right. I think that the commissioning phase is it's an intense time for everyone involved there because everyone is, and and everyone is really pressuring to get the storage life and earn money. And There is no time. I think due to that, it's also so crucial.

I mean, we call it digital commissioning instead of physical commissioning because There's like a lot of, actually, even time you can win because you're right. There are a lot of those tests is are some companies that switch it on and it's on and okay then more or less it's accepted. So I think we are now in the next phase. And I think that is also what we'll see the next one, two, three years from now.

That all acid owners they have learned. So when they buy storage assets, they have a way more granular specifications in their acceptance, of the energy storage sites. I think there is not always a full tests needed in a, in, in, in, in those scenarios.

The thing is, it also even depends where you, like, like, it would, for example, state of charge you're doing the testings.

So there's like a lot more detail into it. What we do is we really work closely with the asset owners and even integrators to define also the the tests her site together because when there are, like, assets which are more into, like, very power driven applications, you should rather do more, like, powered driven, like, testings. But on the other hand, there was, like, some storage sites, which are really more on the energy shifting side, for example, the test can look different there in the in the best scenario to both parts of the equation, but that's, like, a matter of, like, time and everything.

So our goal and our domain expertise while we're sitting together again with the customer and also even define those tests and then draw the insights out of it. The good thing is, right, the data is there. It doesn't add additional time to the commission. It even reduces it often because they can act away faster.

Imagine like this example I've given before, where you re identify if the modules are connected the right way. If you have to do it afterwards with a thermal camera and go through the all these sites. And when you have seen them in Texas or in the US, like the hundreds of megawatt hours, it's a fun experience. So to draw that in service that up into the service in a, like, in a more optimized ways is crucial in the commissioning phase.

But I think it's like the maturity level of the industry Right? Now, everyone is moving more in the direction. It will get more digitalized. It will get more data driven.

Think that's just like a natural process. We will see current. Now I wanna talk about the future. So where are you guys headed?

What does the future look like for your business? You're expanding internationally. I can think of lots of different product add on that you could add on along the way. Be interested to know whether you're interested in, you know, putting physical hardware on people's sites or, you know, stay out of that.

Or whether you know that there's there's other things you're gonna build. But what does the future of the company look like? I mean, currently, we really focus on the energy storage and, like, the EU market, and we do that in Europe and in, in the US market or North American market because, like, both markets are really ramping up. And our core goal for next one, two, three years is really like supporting this ramp up period.

We're derisking it, increasing availabilities.

Really investing in our platform, we will not going forward put any hardware, like, on on sites because I think at the end, right all those assets get more and more connected and data is flowing. As we found it in two thousand eighteen, that was not the case. Honestly speaking, so that's was a good trend so that we know the data is also available. I think what will turn out and what will also make us success and where we already have invested heavily in the past is really building like an an analytics platform.

And what I mean with that is that we can really integrate with a lot of different stakeholders in the industry. So when you look for some all the trading companies out there, Everyone would wish to have, like, proper and better SOC calculation for their assets or SOH, but it has to flow into their system. They have to easily integrate. So we are just one piece of the puzzle, but I think we to lower the barrier to access those information from different parties in the ecosystem, then we'd be like one of the key advancements also like going forward the next one, two, three years.

So that's one thing. And I think what we also did well in the past and where we try to continue is really building a, I mean, Today, we really talked a lot about monitoring and cloud based analytics on energy storage assets.

I think it also gets crucial to build a provider along the life cycle. So for example, when asset owner's design assets or like an integrated science storage assets, to really also supporting them already with design decisions because that can, of course, also unlock a lot of things because they, I think with energy storage assets, like the decisions you make the early in life or like during the time phase have a very strong impact, on your profitability in business case going forward. So really also pushing more into that direction, helping them there as well through, like, lifetime simulations and on and other areas.

So really providing being a provider along the life cycle will be another area we will respond to. Alright. Now to the two questions that everybody gets The first one, this is your opportunity to plug. I do think you've done a bit of plugging throughout the episode, but if you've got something to plug, a big announcement, or something you're working on now is the chance.

And then the second question is my favorite one, which is what is your contrarian view? The first, the plug. So first the block. So, I mean, at the end, we have, like, a lot of things to unblock going forward.

Right? I think it's really, like, for us, a lot of, like, Things are happening releasing on the availability side, on the safety side, on the health monitoring of energy storage assets, And I think one major crucial topic will be better SOC also for example traders because that really helps them to unlock more of the energy storage business case. So that's the plug.

Okay. And now the contrarian view, So what do you, Stephan? Believe that not everyone else believes? So I'm not sure if not everyone, but I think, look, what I continuously face is that, I mean, we're a battery analytics company.

We help them to derisk it and, like, understand the assets better. And we'll continuously face if it's still needed. Right? Because batteries are getting better and better all the time.

Right? And when you go one step back is I think that's a bit of a misconception because I always, like, explain it like you have, like, this, the, this spider graph And we've covering one area. And when you optimize in one direction, right, you pull it away from another functionality, cost safety lifetime, whatever. And I think when you look, for example, so that's one piece of it.

Right? So I think even if you optimize, get more saved to a more energy density, doesn't always come with less cost. Or when it comes with less cost, it doesn't mean that there's, like, better safety. And second thing is This whole industry is ramping up so heavily now.

So a lot of cells, which will be deployed in the next two, three, four, five years from now. Actually are built on manufacturing lines, which are not live yet.

Yeah. Yeah. See, elephant in the room. It's a living room. So, first of all, they have to be built. But on the other hand, they also have to ramp up and everyone knows the quality years of those lines and how long it takes and how much effort it is to really have very proper high quality sales in the market then. And so we will see that, so that there will be still incidents in a couple of years from now because it's just like a matter of, like, this ramp up, then the continuous improvement.

And And I think the third is also like when more newer cell chemistries are coming in, for example, now sodium ion or others, They they just add an additional layer of uncertainty because they are less used in the market. And so on. So really, like, this altogether really, I would say, is that for me, the thing that a lot of people think batteries are just getting better and that's done, and I think it's just not truth.

So last one on sodium iron, because this is a hot topic right now. It's sodium iron, it's got the same buzz around it, it's kind of like hydrogen three years ago, where everyone was like hydrogen's gonna solve everything. We're gonna put hydrogen everywhere. It's gonna safe and it's clean, and it's gonna it's like this swiss army knife thing. And, yeah, it turns out hydrogen ain't that. So sodium iron, are you really excited about sodium iron, or are you just really excited about it?

That is the definition of a leading question. I think. Yes. Absolutely. It is. Like, disclaimer is I don't I I have no affiliation with adhesive demand companies.

Good. The good thing is about hydrogen. In two thousand eighteen, as we found it twice, it was continuously conflicted with, like, if it's not hydrogen, which will make it in all those applications. So we luckily, like, past that past that stage.

And now the next one is popping up the Xuri mine. I'm I'm excited about it. Why? Because I think there is like a lot of benefits to it when it comes to to cost availability of resources.

And third, and that is actually why I'm most excited is, you can more or less use existing production lines to you to build sodium ion batteries. So because I think a lot of that next cell chemistries will, like, disqualify when they or not can build on, like, the production lines were, like, currently billions and tens and hundreds of billions is flowing into because they will not shift in two years from now. Right? So you need to really find some cell canvases, which you can put on more or less more easily, on an existing production lines.

So look, we, like, have already, like, in our laboratory. First, sodium ion batteries and do, like, measurements and really, like, testing them and figuring out how they are performing. And I I think We'll see them in some entry vehicles, in China. It's already starting.

The same happened with, like, batteries from by years back. So it's a similar trend. And secondly, I mean, just northward, I think, a week or so from now, announced sodium ion for energy storage assets, like larger pouch cells. So I think sodium has at least as only mine has at least the potential to follow like LFP, same trend as LFP batteries. It will still take a couple of years, but I'm very excited about this chemistry.

And how much cheaper is it?

It's so tough to say. I mean, at the end, it can probably get, like, thirty, forty percent less in that ballpark. Which is immense, right, in this industry.

Absolutely wild, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So can you go come from one hundred euros per kilowatt hours to nine sixty? So that's the the the curve you can get to, but it comes with a lot of drawbacks.

And I think so far first of all, yeah, then you're gonna overcome this drawbacks. And in the meantime, we will see some other interesting areas like, LMFP, for example, like some kind of version of LFP will at first enter the market and then maybe like afterwards. What was the acronym? LMFP? What does that mean? FP is like lithium manganese iron phosphate.

So it's like you add manganese to the cathode, So it it has actually, you can help to every, like, a high energy density, but with the same costs more or less. So we see now more and more application with LMS p, batteries. So I think that is also like another trend which comes up. It's l f p, but it's l m f p.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I feel so grateful to be in this industry. It is just so cool that we get to do this.

Alright. I wanna say a massive thank you, Stephan, for coming on the podcast. That was a blast. Looking forward to seeing you sometime in the US from the next over here.

If you're listening to this and you wanna find out more about twice, we'll put some links in the show notes and you can get on to Stephan and the team. And until next time, I want to say thank you and see you soon. It was absolutely a pleasure. Thank you.