CATL and UL Solutions Join Forces to Advance Battery Safety and Performance

On January 17, Chinese battery giant CATL and global leader in applied safety science UL Solutions announced a new MOU for strategic cooperation to help create safer deployment and use of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and electric vehicle batteries.

As the key part of the agreement, CATL’s battery laboratory will kick off the process to achieve UL Solutions witness test data program (WTDP) status to test to UL 9540A, the Standard for Test Method for Evaluating Thermal Runaway Fire Propagation in Battery Energy Storage Systems. Once achieving WTDP designation by UL Solutions, CATL will be entitled to conduct WTDP tests at its test facilities under the supervision of UL Solutions personnel, thus improving the efficiency and shorten time to market for battery products certification and testing.

CATL has already been qualified by UL Solutions through the WTDP designation, to test to UL1973, the Standard for Batteries for Use in Stationary and Motive Auxiliary Power Applications, UL 9540, the Standard for Energy Storage Systems and Equipment and UL 2580, the Standard for Batteries for Use in Electric Vehicles.

EnerOne, CATL’s flagship outdoor liquid cooling battery system, and EnerC, CATL’s containerized liquid-cooling battery system, have received the latest version of UL 9540A test report, making CATL the first company in China to receive test report of such kind at the cell, module, unit and installation level by UL Solutions.

Both parties will also leverage their expertise to carry out in-depth cooperation in further exploring lithium-ion battery safety and offer insight towards developing BESS and EV battery standards. The two companies will also collaborate to explore carbon footprint reduction and other sustainability efforts.

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On the same day, CATL signed a new partnership agreement with NIO. The partnership will also involve coordination of supply and demand, overseas business expansion, and cooperation in business models based on long-life batteries. In addition to a new supplier, NIO is developing its own batteries.

CATL predicts that in 2022, it achieved a net profit of 29.1 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) to 31.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 82.66%-97.72%, while the adjusted profit was about 26.8 billion yuan to 29 billion yuan, up 99.37%-115.74% year-on-year.