German company TWAICE provides predictive analytics software that optimises lithium-ion batteries’ development and operation, making complex battery systems more transparent, effective, and reliable. Here, TWAICE Sales & Business Development Manager Lucas Reinfeld discusses the company’s roots and how their solution will benefit the Japanese market.
Can you tell us a bit about the company and its founders?
TWAICE was founded by Dr Stephan Rohr and Dr Michael Baumann in June 2018 and is now the leading battery analytics provider with over 70 employees. Both Rohr and Baumann have a strong academic background in battery technology. They met during their doctoral research on batteries at the Technical University of Munich. Recognising the vast potential for battery analytics, they founded TWAICE.
Our software enhances the transparency and predictability of batteries. In effect, this increases the lifetime, efficiency, and sustainability of the products that power the economy of tomorrow. TWAICE’s core technology is the digital twin: software that combines deep battery knowledge and artificial intelligence to determine the condition and predict the ageing and performance of batteries.
How does your solution contribute to the Digitalisation and Decarbonisation of the energy sector?
Renewable energies can be volatile. Therefore, to ensure a consistent supply, excess energy needs to be stored in stationary energy storage facilities, to be available immediately when the supply of renewables falls short. Transparency into the ageing behaviour of the battery storage is key to delivering optimum performance. This is where TWAICE comes into play. Different use cases and operational constraints can have different effects on battery degradation. Our software provides the insights necessary to understand how batteries age, how long they will last, and which operating strategy will perform the best. This transparency results in the optimal operation of renewable energies. Second, the TWAICE software offers remote monitoring of battery storage, thereby contributing to digital working methods.
What is your company’s proudest achievement to date?
Besides having won several international awards, our proudest achievement to date is the successful completion of the Series B funding round in May 2021. Energize Ventures invested 26 million USD, bringing TWAICE’s total financing to 45 million USD. This investment is only the latest vote of confidence in TWAICE. Demand is soaring for high-performing battery technologies around the globe. Our solutions will help the battery industry to achieve scalability.
What specifically attracts you about the prospect of expanding to the Japanese market?
Japan’s island location affects the development of its energy market in two general ways: higher levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) due to lower competition, and the need for storage to compensate for the volatility of renewable energy supply. The TWAICE analytics software addresses these challenges by delivering valuable solutions to reduce both the operation phase (OPEX) and design phase (CAPEX) of these storages.
Based on the new balancing market introduced this year and the feed-in premium scheme next year, we believe the Japanese utility-scale battery market is set to grow significantly.
How will your solution/product help advance the Japanese energy sector?
Our software solutions optimise both the CAPEX and the OPEX of battery storage. While our simulation model library supports integrators in the development phase by reducing time to market and oversizing, our Cloud Analytics Platform offers a range of tools to support storage operators, commercialisers, and owners. Our Operating Strategy Planner, for example, predicts potential capacity loss and therefore opportunity costs based on ageing behaviour induced by different operating strategies, such as intraday trading or frequency containment reserve.
In the end, however, it is about making battery energy storage more reliable, sustainable, and above all, profitable.