Birmingham start-up Aceleron has launched Circa – an advanced, completely reusable, lithium battery pack designed for use in homes, businesses, e-bikes and the electric watercraft used by lifeguards and rescue professionals.
Aceleron is the brainchild of two people with a passion for batteries, Dr Amrit Chandan and Carlton Cummins, and started life in 2016 in the University of Birmingham’s business incubator, the BizzInn.
The two founders set up the company with the vision of upcycling used electric car batteries for affordable energy storage in the developing world.
However BizzInn mentoring and support encouraged the founders to elaborate their business plan and explore additional markets.
Dr James Wilkie, Director of Enterprise & Innovation at the University of Birmingham, advised on how the founders’ expertise could be purposed to develop a product that would gain market access, and how to scale the business effectively.
Aceleron designed both the Circa battery pack and the process for its manufacture from scratch during their BizzInn residency.
The business partners dissembled thousands of used lithium batteries and figured out a better way to build lithium batteries.
The performance of these serviceable packs was then assessed in a rigorous testing programme to provide the evidence that they could perform to exacting industry specifications.
The result is a serviceable, upgradable, refillable, long-life battery that can be used in electric watercraft in the UK, or a remote small-holding in Africa.
The Circa battery pack has an integral management system that extracts all the energy individual battery cells, a cooling system that allows the battery to adjust its internal temperature (to ensure optimal performance), and advanced communications so battery performance to be monitored in real-time from a distant location.
Aceleron is now headquartered in Bull Street, Birmingham, and runs operations in the UK, East Africa and the Caribbean.
Submitted on 16/08/2018
