Every leap forward begins with a dawning realisation that nobody has thought of it before. For Stian Sagholen, founder and CEO at battery technology solutions provider, KLVR, the lightbulb moment arrived when he began to try and count just how many AA batteries were being used in his own corner of the media and entertainment environment. Sagholen co-runs a small production company, touring with Swedish and Norwegian artists. With 10 audio engineers and around 75 channels of wireless equipment, things had reached a stage where equipment and infrastructure had become somewhat professionalised. While looking for ways to reduce costs, he began to consider batteries, and realised there was no process in place. “We still went to IKEA to buy shopping carts full of disposable batteries,” he says. “Even if you don’t think about the economics or environment, it’s crazy.”
It quickly became apparent that the number was huge – worse still, being a cheap, easily available and throwaway item, stringent procurement processes were rarely in place. Nobody really knew how many were being used. Given the vast number of portable devices that rely on AA batteries in the field, why, thought Sagholen, had nobody considered this before?
A recent study conducted by Norwegian grant organisation Kulturrom estimates that the country’s media and entertainment industry uses more than a million disposable batteries every year. By a process of extrapolation, it becomes apparent that the global scale of the issue is likely to be astronomical. Battery wastage has not escaped the attention of the EU, which has directly addressed the issue in its Battery Regulation 2023/1542. The commission is in the process of assessing whether non-rechargeable batteries should be phased out by 2030.
Recognising a ‘Kodak moment’
Committed to achieving ambitious sustainability goals, Norwegian broadcaster NRK was quick to see the light. Erik Løvgren, head of innovation at NRK provides an analogy, “It’s like pencils. It’s such an everyday item that you don’t have to go through a whole procurement process – you just go and buy them.” His lightbulb moment came when he realised the problem spread throughout the entire organisation. The number was likely huge and he, too, began to realise that nobody had thought about it before.
It’s a huge problem but one that has proved difficult to quantify, as Sagholen explains: “Whenever we talk to people like Erik and others using a lot of batteries, they tend not to have the number, because it’s one of those running expenses where you go and buy 1,000 batteries here, 200 there. Then some audio engineer goes to Walmart and buys 25 to get through a gig. These all add up and you don’t really have good accounting systems for how many batteries you actually use.”
The obvious next question was why haven’t the industry’s major players done anything about it yet. Here, both men are circumspect but hint at the idea that the big-name manufacturers have adopted an ‘if it ain’t broke’ approach, whereby proprietary systems are provided with little thought given to compatibility and interoperability. While these systems work well for studio-based equipment or large OB trucks, there has historically not been a solution available for smaller, more versatile systems such as microphones, headsets and hand-portable camera systems. Solutions that exist in the market are aimed at consumer devices. With a lower voltage output, they are not designed to cope with the requirements of professional live production.
As Løvgren explains, it is a large and growing market, which is exemplified by NRK, “NRK is a national broadcaster and we have, I think, 52 regional offices all-in-all, from a one-man band to a whole studio like here in Oslo, and everyone has some sort of recording device. It feels like a Kodak moment.”
Developing the solution
Having identified the problem, Sagholen set out to overcome it. Outlining the basic architecture of the solution, he explains, “technically, there’s a lithium-ion cell that is inherently 3.7 volts. To adapt that to a 1.5 volt need, there’s a chip inside the battery that lowers the output voltage. That chip emulates the discharge curve of alkaline batteries, meaning that the ballistics or internal battery measurements in, for example, a Sennheiser microphone will actually show the normal steps of the discharge curve. You can follow the status on wireless workbench software and the engineer gets the same feedback as before.” This answers a question posed by a lot of engineers, used to the alkaline batteries that fit the microphones. “Today, when they switch to rechargeables,” he continues, “they are seeing lower output voltages. They can’t trust them. They don’t know exactly when they will stop working.”
Replicating the discharge curve and ensuring engineers can trust the measurements has been a key factor in the design of the KLVR Charger Pro, which includes a facility enabling charging levels to be monitored on networked devices via a software interface. The single unit rack mounted battery charger can handle up to 48 AA Li-Ion 1.5 batteries (which are included) at a time, or combinations of AA and AAA simultaneously. The product debuted at September’s IBC show, where its simplicity of design attracted much industry attention.
Charger Pro offers a win/win for users. In addition to the cost reduction aspect, reducing battery wastage can help organisations meet their sustainability targets. For NRK, which has a stated aim to halve its carbon emissions by 2030, the benefits are obvious. “It’s the small steps,” says Løvgren. “Everything adds up… We use all kinds of calculators. We used albert [the screen industry organisation for environmental sustainability] early on, and the BBC calculator. We’re now using the Green Producers Tool so we are reporting on everything we do. As a broadcaster, we are committed in Norway, and really hoping other broadcasters will follow.”
Both are of the opinion that the EU will continue to expand the regulations over rechargeables. From 2027, consumer electronic devices will be required to use rechargeable batteries and a forthcoming battery passport scheme is aimed at tracing individual batteries throughout their lives, from production to recycling. Sagholen and Løvgren agree that some form of deposit scheme would be a good idea, as an incentive to drive further recycling.
And what of the future in battery technology? Sagholen ponders the question a moment. “Sodium ion battery packs are already in use in some larger applications,” he says, adding that he believes miniaturisation is the next logical step. “The challenge now is that the real estate in an AAA battery is too small, so you get lower capacity with lithium ion. I think that’s going to be solved within a couple of years, maybe, and that has a lot of implications for production and supply chains, because sodium is available basically everywhere. That’s the next step, yeah.”
This article is taken from TVBEurope’s October/November 2024 issue, which is available to download and read for free here.
