In 2024, Battery Council International (BCI) are celebrating their 100^th anniversary. BCI is the leading trade association for the North American battery industry, with the mission to promote the responsible manufacture, use, and recycling of batteries for energy storage applications, as well as to represent the battery industry on environmental, health, safety, economic, and other governmental policy issues.

Many key lead battery players from North and South America gather every year in the USA during spring in the BCI Convention to update the market trends and run important networking around lead acid battery components. This year, the convention took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was the busiest gathering ever, with more than 800 people attending the conference. The program was diverse, with market updates, technical presentations and various posters about interesting research made in different US National Laboratories.

Our project partner Hollingsworth & Vose (H&V) had a booth in the convention where their customers, partners and suppliers could stop by and exchange information with their team. Our lead battery solution development expert, Nicolas Clement, was representing LoCEL-H2 at the event, taking the opportunity to present the LoCEL-H2 project with a poster and demo cell at H&V’s booth.

He said: “When I did my first BCI conference 24 years ago, I would never have imagined that after all this time I would still be involved in such a passionate industry that continues to grow and evolve for a better future.”.

“Most of the feedback I got about LoCEL-H2 was around the very original approach taken to generate and store hydrogen with the same cell, which is something the standard lead acid battery manufacturers are not familiar with. I got several questions about the economic aspect of the project which was obviously of high technical interest, but challenged for its business viability. My takeaway is that we must continue to communicate around LoCEL-H2 and take every opportunity to show how good the impact can be of such a project for developing countries.”.