The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK, a research institute in Berlin, is participating with the Battery Pass Consortium to design and implement the technical standards of the EU’s digital battery passport. The passport will be required by the EU Batteries Act for new traction batteries, two-wheeled-vehicle batteries and industrial batteries with a capacity of over 2 kWh that are marketed in the EU, starting in February 2027.

The passport’s purpose is to ensure transparency and sustainability in the battery value chain, reduce environmental impacts, and encourage secondary use of batteries. At the Hannover Messe industrial trade exhibition in late April, Fraunhofer IPK researchers will present a draft technical reference standard designed to enable battery passports to be implemented in a way that is scalable and interoperable.

Taking the form of a software system where all data is stored in distributed data spaces and responsibility for the data is decentralized, the passport will support seamless documentation of a battery’s life, from raw material extraction and production to use, reuse, and recycling. It will fully document supply chain data, including such factors as carbon footprint, working conditions for raw material extraction, battery materials and components, hazardous substances contained, resource efficiency, performance and service life, battery status, and information on recyclability and repair. It will also include disassembly instructions to facilitate secondary use of as many components as possible.

Regarding the passport, Professor Thomas Knothe, a researcher at Fraunhofer IPK, says, “By providing verified and verifiable information, it can create transparency, support second-life uses or optimize processing by recycling providers. This supports the development of sustainable business models along the battery value chain while complying with relevant sustainability and ethical criteria. The aim is to reduce child labor and pollution in countries where the raw materials are produced and keep track of the export of old batteries, for example.”

Source: Fraunhofer