First Greek “smart” battery for households in February 2018

An attractively designed working model of the first Greek-designed lithium ion “smart” battery for households will be ready for domestic consumers in February, 2018, Vasilis Nikolopoulos, the co-founder and CEO of Greek firm Intelen Inc has told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) radio station ‘Praktorio 104.9 FM’.

Greek media report that in his interview to the radio station, Nikolopoulos explained that the battery prototype, along the lines of those designed by Tesla in the US or Mercedes in Germany, is a result of the collaboration of two Greek firms. His team is working with young Greek researchers at the Demokritos research center, who have set up a specialised company and developed a new lithium ion electrode enriched with graphene, which has superior power storage behavior. This technical innovation is combined with software to create a smart battery and this is where Intelen comes in, he said.

“We are contributing the algorithms we have created, years ago now, in order to make and have ready, in the first third of 2018, a prototype battery that we will also test in Greece,” he explained.

A smart battery would allow households to store up energy when prices are low and then use the stored power when prices are high.

The “smart” element of the battery, he noted, was managing the stored energy in ways that dovetail with each consumer’s domestic consumption patterns and minimize energy costs. Consumers could combine the battery with solar power panels, or cheaper off-peak power rates, to minimize their power consumption costs.

For the time being, the cost of the lithium ion batteries remains high, Nikolopoulos pointed out, meaning that some sort of incentive or subsidy is needed to make the investment economically, viable for households.

He noted that new laws and European directives after 2018 will introduce fluctuating power prices to Greece, with the cost of power varying throughout the day. A smart battery would allow households to store up energy when prices are low and then use the stored power when prices are high.