National Research Priority

Lithium-ion battery currently becomes a new worldwide trend supported by the development of green living in our society, especially for transportation and energy storage for renewable energy resources. These two sector has become the biggest foreign income. Specifically lithium-ion battery become an option because because of its lighter weight than non-lithium battery such as Lead Acid, NiCd, etc. However, in term of cost, Lithium-ion battery is more expensive. This higher cost is basically due to its limited use and limited supply. Other than that, all its raw materials are not yet able to be produced in Indonesia. Even though battery consist 60% from total production cost of energy storage for renewable energy and electric vehicle. If we don't handle this issue fast, then we can lost more income opportunity. On raw material side in producing lithium-ion battery, we will need a lithium (<10%) and the rest in non-lithium. Non-lithium materials are nickel, alumina, manganese, ferro, phosphate and other natural resources that is abundant in Indonesia. Based on these fact, Indonesia has a big opportunity to become the main supplier for Lithium-ion Battery raw materials in the world, even we can be the key players in this lithium-ion battery business. Because of the high economic value, we would need a high priority research activity. The early research until production scale-up has been done. Some research facility and business entity have develop this research intensively such as Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS), LIPI, BPPT, BATAN, BSN, B4T, PT Pertaina (Persero), PT LEN Industri and MIND.ID. For the next research, we can proceed to industry scale up that can provide for public needs.

To speed up this process through National Priority Research (PRN) for enery and Lithium-ion theme for enery storage and fast charging station. These program will be conducted for 5 years (2020 – 2024) with goals to fulfil battery cell production for Indonesian market whether for Stationary (100%) or Electric Vehicle (75%) also providing a domestic fast charging facility by 2024.

To achieve it, there will be 6 groups of concentration with each different task to fulfil the needs to be a business supply chain of Lithium-ion battery, they are (1) Technology development and production of Cell, Module and Pack, (2) Development and production of active material, electrolyte and coating to support Lithium battery, (3) Development and extraction of natural resources as chemical compound to produce active material, (4) Battery testing for Cell, Module and Pack, (5) Monitoring system, safety and communication, and (6) Fast charging system for electric vehicle. Each groups together will conduct an integrated research to achieve the final goal of Battery PRN in 2024.

To achieve a sharing facility and human resource to be an entity to scale up the research to industry, this synergy is essential to be a model for the next integrated research development.