"The Automotive Technology Transfer of Energy Storage Thermal Strategies (ATTESTS) project is bringing together industry and academic experts to assess the feasibility of developing competitive high C rate battery modules through advanced thermal management, extending battery lifetime and power density. Imperial College London's in-depth understanding of the varied degradation mechanisms that shorten the life of battery cells has enabled them to pioneer novel cooling strategies. These cooling solutions can be implemented at modular level and the principles have been demonstrated through laboratory testing (TRL3). One of the key features takes into account the layered structure of lithium ion batteries and uses a homogenous cooling strategy that reduces degradation in hotter layers.

Rolls-Royce (R-R) has been working with Imperial to investigate the benefit of Imperial's solution for high C marine applications. R-R supplies the complete marine electrical propulsion system including the battery package. APC targets for automotive also highlight high C as an important requirement for Automotive EV drive cycles. R-R and Imperial are submitting this proposal to attest the feasibility of Imperial's solutions for high C applications and to assess the suitability for automotive applications. The project proposes to support this assessment through a specific 12-month testing programme. This programme will test commercially available automotive battery cells that are specifically targeted at high C automotive and marine applications with and without Imperial's thermal management solutions (TRL 4). R-R and Imperial have worked in collaboration before and their unique blend of skills across battery cell, module, packaging and application know-how will enable a robust feasibility into more effective and reliable battery systems supporting both marine and automotive applications. To support the future exploitation plan the work will be disseminated and further supported by visits to the UK automotive industry."