10 Software-Defined Battery Use Cases
Software-defined batteries (SDB) built on the Tanktwo Battery Operating System (TBOS) can take on many forms, such as:
String cells: Individual battery units are “poured” into a tank and self-organize to achieve maximum packing density. In the tank, the String Cells form electric circuits, working as a single battery pack without any human intervention. This form factor enables operators to swap cells in minutes for round-the-clock operations (e.g., EV fleets).
Battery burger: A cable-less, stackable, modular solution that allows operators to stack battery modules like Lego blocks. They can create a battery bank of any capacity or of different characteristics without electrical skills, enabling faster, safer, and lower-cost upgrades and maintenance.
TBOS also offers extreme redundancy and reliability, ideal for critical infrastructure and military applications. For example, we’ve created a battery pack for a prominent military contractor. You can literally shoot a hole through the pack, and it’ll automatically rewire the cells to continue operations. Here’s the case study.
Our technologies are built on advanced Battery AI and Battery Security principles and supported by our innovative Dycromax™️ Architecture to deliver capabilities even battery industry veterans deem impossible.
Let’s explore how SDB can be a game changer in various applications, including battery energy storage systems (BESS), mobility, logistics, customer support, aerospace, industrial equipment, and more.
1. Enhance battery energy storage systems (BESS) implementation
BESSs boost resiliency and continuity amid the transition to renewable energy sources. However, traditional battery technology has many constraints, limiting today's BESSs’ ability to support demanding use cases.
On the other hand, Tanktwo’s SDB technology provides the flexibility to meet shifting performance requirements, improve thermal management and safety, enhance integration and interoperability, and support scalability and serviceability. Additionally, it can address lifecycle considerations, including warranty coverage, risk allocation, operations and management strategies, repowering/system upgrades, and end-of-life management.
The ability to collect and analyze data and leverage insights for automated, real-time response supports various monetization models, financial structures, and portfolio economics. Finally, our battery security architecture facilitates the electrification of critical infrastructure.
Download the white paper, “How To Optimize BESS Development, Maintenance, and Performance with Advanced Battery Technology.”
2. Support transition to new battery chemistries
Some older systems still use lead-acid batteries due to the high upfront cost, complexity, and time-consuming process of transitioning to lithium chemistries. Since our technology can support mixing and matching cells of different ages and chemistries, system owners can orchestrate a staged transition from lead-acid to lithium batteries by gradually phasing out lead-acid ones as they reach end-of-life.
Additionally, the gradual transition makes it financially possible for more individuals and organizations to modernize their energy storage solutions without the high upfront cost of the traditional and costly “all or nothing” approach.
Read the case study on this practical application.
3. Mitigate battery supply chain challenges
From battery material availability to geopolitical uncertainty, battery supply chain issues can create bottlenecks that limit our ability to advance electrification. Meanwhile, the transition to newer, more environmentally-responsible, and more resilient chemistry is limited by traditional battery technology’s inability to mix and match cell types and ages.
Our technology allows product builders and operators to use new or different chemistries on the fly, giving them unprecedented agility to expand capacity and innovate. They can also source cells based on availability to control costs and minimize supply chain issues without being locked into a particular supplier.
Read this post on how TBOS acts as an insurance against supply chain fluctuations.
4. Enable proactive customer support
TBOS can flag upcoming failures and create reports for proactive actions. For example, equipment vendors can track the health of every cell in a battery pack and identify those requiring replacement.
Since our Dycromax Architecture allows mixing cells of different ages, a vendor can simply drop a replacement cell in the mail and instruct the customer to make the switch before any unpleasant surprise happens. This proactive approach also eliminates the need to send back the equipment or dispatch a technician, lowering costs and minimizing downtime.
Moreover, our Battery AI algorithm learns as it gathers more data to deploy ever-improving software — allowing our customers to see further into the future and address issues in a targeted manner.
Read this post to see how we can help lower costs, reduce support tickets, and improve customer satisfaction.
5. Implement multimodal EV delivery fleets
A well-managed multimodal EV delivery fleet allows companies to improve operational cost-efficiency, reduce resource usage, shrink their environmental footprint, and contribute to solving traffic and pollution issues, especially in urban areas.
However, traditional battery solutions pose challenges to maximizing these benefits because of the high cost of new vehicles, complex inventory management, extended downtime, and hidden environmental costs.
On the other hand, SDBs support cost-effective retrofitting, forward, backward, and sideways compatibility, and granular optimization with real-time data insights. Additionally, TBOS can charge from and output at any voltage without any conversion process. This capability enables operators to run EVs with virtually any output requirement from a single technology platform for utmost simplicity and efficiency.
Our technology can support predictive maintenance to maximize safety at no extra costs and round-the-clock operations through efficient cell or pack swaps. Furthermore, the chemistry-agnostic technology is essential for future-proofing any systems and platforms.
Read this post to see how we help accelerate the electrification of logistics and supply chain.
6. Increase resiliency in aerospace applications
Most of today’s spacecraft energy systems involve batteries. They gradually deteriorate, and power output decreases over time. If one battery cell fails, systems often follow a step decay curve, removing a chunk of cells from the circuit and hastening the deterioration of the entire system.
Today, you can’t change anything once a spacecraft is launched. Therefore, aerospace engineers must spend an enormous amount of time planning and testing every component on the ground, including the battery and power system. These cycles take years, even decades, to complete. By the time a spacecraft is ready, the technologies often become obsolete.
TBOS offers unprecedented reliability, configurability, and data-driven insights to maximize the value each spacecraft delivers over its lifespan by increasing the energy storage system’s longevity. For example, ongoing system reconfigurability allows operators to bypass faulty cells with minimum impact on performance.
Moreover, TBOS enables operators to respond to shifting circumstances from afar and maintain complete control of the power system. Since ground control can change the system’s configuration on the fly, the mission isn’t locked into decisions made pre-launch.
This post explores how TBOS could help the Voyager space probe send data back for another few billion miles.
7. Electrify small delivery fleets in developing countries
Large delivery trucks aren’t always the most efficient solution for getting goods to consumers in dense urban areas. Plus, why use a 7-ton vehicle to transport a few small boxes in the last mile?
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Tuk-tuks — three-wheeled, motorized rickshaws are already widely used in many Southeast Asian and Latin American countries. They’re the perfect solution for moving small to mid-size packages through narrow and crowded streets.
TBOS offers a plug-and-play solution to electrify existing tuk-tuks, making it economically feasible to incorporate them into EV fleets at scale.
Operators can retrofit existing vehicles with our flexible battery packs to support 24/7/365 operations (i.e., perform a cell swap without the downtime associated with charging vehicles). Our technology also simplifies inventory management, supports just-in-time maintenance, ensures ongoing safety, and helps adapt to shifting regulations.
Read this post to see how our technology helps electrify EV fleets with ease.
8. Implement mobile energy-as-a-service (EaaS)
TBOS’s data-driven analytics capabilities enable real-time synchronization for minute-to-minute optimization, essential for any as-a-service model. Meanwhile, the increased reliability makes it possible to leverage distributed energy resources (DER) by ensuring that power is available whenever and wherever it’s needed.
Moreover, real-time big data and advanced analytics provide visibility, allowing participants in the ecosystem to understand patterns, predict outcomes, and maximize energy efficiency. For example, providers can use weather information to forecast solar and wind power generation. Meanwhile, users can choose to use power from renewable sources or buy and store energy when the rate is low.
Read this post to see how TBOS supports the software-defined grid of the future.
9. Address second-life challenges from the ground up
The shortest path to repurposing discarded batteries at scale is making it possible to mix and match packs, modules, and cells of any age, chemistry, and state of health (SoH) in an energy storage solution. However, traditional battery technology doesn’t have these capabilities.
On the other hand, TBOS eliminates the problems of mixing cells and the lack of physical and chemical standardization. Battery pack modules with some dead or dying cells remain perfectly useful since TBOS automatically rearranges connections so that non-functioning ones don’t render an otherwise functional series of cells unusable.
Additionally, TBOS’s battery analytics provides a value index for each cell in real-time. By treating batteries as an asset with a known value at any point in their lifecycle, we can match cells in an ecosystem with applications based on their SoH. Data analytics from SDBs enable the constant re-evaluation and redeployment to optimize how we use each cell, eliminating the second-life problem by squeezing all the useful life out of it.
This post explores how we help transition from a second-life mindset to a cradle-to-grave approach.
10. Retrofit industrial equipment to accelerate electrification
The cost of new equipment and the learning curve required for user adoption are often bottlenecks hampering electrification in the industrial sector. The shortest path to adoption is simple: Retrofitting existing fossil fuel-powered equipment with a flexible, modular battery pack.
Tanktwo’s solution can help lower upfront costs while minimizing adoption resistance and training time. Operators can use SDBs to eliminate over 90% of costs associated with such a transition because they don’t have to purchase new equipment or retrain the workforce. Our technology allows them to adapt their electrification strategy to the environment for which the equipment is built and the processes in which workers are trained.
Read this post to see how TBOS and SDB go beyond technology to address people and processes required by any business and industrial transformation to succeed.
