electrified.veronika

08/09/2026

Everyone thinks chips are the bottleneck for AI. They're not. Up to 9% of all US electricity could go toward one single purpose by 2030: powering AI. Not homes. Not factories. Paul Charles calls it grid law. The pace of AI is no longer set by GPUs. It's set by how fast we can deliver power, transmission and cooling. And increasingly that means batteries, sitting right in the rack, conditioning power millisecond by millisecond.

26/08/2026

Battery recycling is still the Wild West.

Not in a romantic way.
In a nobody has settled on a process yet way.

There is no single accepted route from a used pack to recovered material.
Shredding or dry shredding.
What counts as good black mass.
Where the value actually sits.

All of it is still being argued out, company by company.

And here is what makes that hard.

Every company works on one piece of the chain.
But every choice they make lands on somebody else.

How you shred decides what the separation step can recover.
How a pack is designed decides how long dismantling takes.

The decision is local. The consequence is not.

So my idea was always the same.
Bring it all together and look at it together.
Who is doing what, and why.
What the different processes actually are.
And how each choice moves downstream.

That's why I built Electrification Academy.

Not to make you better at your one step.
To show you how the whole battery ecosystem fits together.

If that's the view you've been missing, the link to join is in the comments.

25/08/2026

Electrification Academy didn't start as an idea.
It started as a pattern I couldn't stop noticing.

I spent years in corporate automotive.
Then six years ago I went out on my own, consulting across the battery industry.
Manufacturing. Module and pack development. Electrochemistry. Recycling.

Coming in neutral, project after project, you start seeing the whole board.
Not just one square.
Most people only ever see their own step.

That's exactly why I built Electrification Academy.

What's the one connection in this industry you wish more people understood?

If this sounds familiar, hit like and tell me in the comments.
Want to see the whole board too? Join us: https://www.electrification-academy.org/joinus

24/08/2026

20/08/2026

🔋 I will be at ICBR 2026! 🤩

Excited to announce that I'll be joining the International Congress for Battery Recycling in Berlin (Sept 9–11) where decision makers shaping the future of batteries come together.

Beyond the sessions and networking, I'm especially looking forward to the exclusive plant tours to BLC – The Battery Lifecycle Company, LRP Autorecycling and BMW Group, a rare behind-the-scenes look at how the industry actually operates.

As someone who's passionate about helping professionals understand battery development, manufacturing & recycling, this is exactly the kind of event I look forward to all year. The decision makers you need are already here, will you be too?

Come and meet me on Thursday, September 10! Let's talk all things batteries!

📍 Berlin, Germany
📆 September 9–11, 2026

Will I see you there? Drop a comment or reach out to connect.

18/08/2026

🔋 What actually happens to a battery after it reaches the end of its life?
Battery recycling is much more than simply shredding an old battery.
There’s a full process behind getting from an end-of-life or rejected battery back to valuable, battery-grade materials.
At Electrification Academy, we’ve mapped out the process step by step:
→ Assessment & Transportation
→ Incoming Inspection & Storage
→ Discharging & Dismantling
→ Mechanical Battery Recycling
→ Material Recovery

Each stage has its own technologies, safety considerations, questions, and providers involved.
From testing and sorting to safe discharge and dismantling, all the way through shredding, material separation, and chemical or thermal recovery — understanding the workflow helps us see where each technology actually fits.
I’m excited to keep building these workflows with the people working across the battery and electrification industry and make the process easier to understand, stage by stage.

🔗 Explore the full Battery Recycling & Reuse workflow:
https://electrification-academy.com/workflows/battery-technology/battery-recycling

10/08/2026

What a week! 🤩 We got to see a huge slice of the battery value chain in person, from manufacturing through to recycling, with a close look at battery safety best practices along the way.

No matter which facility we walked into, the same day-to-day questions came up. Which battery are we dealing with. Who touches it, and how. What happens if it goes wrong. How do you prove it's right. How do you get new employees up to speed quickly and keep operations safe from day one.

Intake, lifting, weighing, storing, assembling, dismantling, discharging, packaging — so much we can all learn from each other across companies and teams, so everyone stays safe. 🔋

Huge thanks to Great Lakes Recycling, Prime Energy Contract Services, Fire Rover, Applied Spectra, Inc, and Ansell for supporting this trip and opening your doors to us. 🙌

Elizabeth Gibbons Barber, CDGP and I can't wait to share everything we've learned through our upcoming battery safety program.

This program is supported by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy as part of the NextCycle Michigan initiative.

Thank you as well to Bill Koetting, Doug Verkeyn, Sean O'Kane, Andrew P. Storey PhD, Will Schmidt, and Ryan Fogelman for being part of this journey.

03/08/2026

Everyone in batteries is an expert. That's exactly the problem. 😅

I've spent over a decade working across different parts of the battery industry, and I kept noticing the same thing:

Everyone is brilliant at their own piece.

🔋 Cell manufacturing teams know manufacturing.
⚡ BMS engineers know BMS.
♻️ Recyclers know recycling.

But very few people can explain how one decision impacts the rest of the battery value chain.

👉 A design choice at the cell level can make recycling simple—or nearly impossible.
👉 A module design decision can completely change the testing strategy.

Those connections are often overlooked.

That's exactly why Electrification Academy exists.

Not to teach you your own specialty better—but to help you understand how the entire battery ecosystem fits together, so the decisions you make today still make sense three steps down the line.

If you want to understand the whole system, not just your part of it, join the community here:

🔗 https://www.electrification-academy.org/joinus

Electrification Academy is free to join, with battery professionals from across the value chain already inside.

17/09/2025

Today I’m at the opening of the Matthew‘s Development Center in Vreden, Germany — kicking off the Energy Summit 2025. 🤩

Matthews Engineering brought together an amazing group of professionals from OEMs, battery cell makers, R&D, and academia. We’re here to talk technology and processes, see the machines in action, and exchange ideas.

I’m honored to give the keynote and guide the audience through two full days — with expert sessions, panel discussions, and a guided tour of the new machines and tools.

Today’s focus: battery cell manufacturing, specifically electrode production — the most energy- and cost-intensive step. Sessions ranging from powder processing and transfer coating to new architectures and smart current collectors. The red thread → how dry electrode processes can scale across chemistries to enable robust, high-quality battery cells.

Really looking forward to learning from the experts and continuing the discussions. And a big thank you to the Matthews team for creating a place where ideas can be tested and scaled — from lab to real production. 🔋

21/03/2025

On our way back from this year’s International Battery Seminar – and wow, what a week.

This year felt different in the best way: the conversations were more intentional, more focused, and genuinely meaningful. Without the noise that sometimes comes with massive trade shows, the connections we made here were thoughtful, insightful, and full of substance. A big thank you to everyone we had the chance to speak with — familiar faces and so many new ones, too.

Three quick personal highlights:

1. My interview with Celina Mikolajczak

Chief Battery Technology Officer at Lyten.
Celina truly stood out as someone deeply committed to making the right kind of impact in the battery industry — no hype, just solid action. I can’t wait to share more from that interview soon!

2. A next-level VR/real-world experience at the IKA – Laboratory, Analytical and Process Technology and Dec Group booth.

Imagine walking virtually through a cell manufacturing line, seeing inside each machine, and understanding exactly what’s going on — while the actual mixers and equipment stand right there next to you. This was one of the moat impressive demonstrations of technology and accessibility I’ve seen at a show like this. It made the complex tangible.

3. A noticeable focus on battery recycling.

There was a clear emphasis on battery recycling this year-more than I have seen in past editions of the show. The conversations around it had a sense of urgency but also revealed hoch much unclarity exists: what’s happening in the market, when action is needed and how exactly we do it.

Next week, I’ll share a deeper dive into the trends, technologies, and takeaways from the show — especially around battery recycling and scouting innovations, as we gear up for the launch of Electrification Academy in just a few weeks.

Let’s keep the momentum going.