Contact person
The Battery Safety Conference 2025
How do we enable safe electrification at all stages of the battery value chain? How do we support a strong and safe battery industry for a sustainable future? Welcome to an inspiring conference focused on battery safety!
Update yourself on the latest in the battery field, gain new knowledge and expand your professional network. The Battery Safety Conference is aimed at decision-makers, technical managers, operations managers, production managers, engineers and technicians. We welcome vehicle and powertrain developers, industrial players, energy storage companies, innovators and entrepreneurs.
Presentations and networking
You can expect keynote presentations, technical sessions and practical examples where leading battery experts will share their insights and the latest research. The day includes panel discussions with opportunities to ask questions directly to the panel. There will also be plenty of opportunities to build your professional network.
Focus areas
The conference focuses on achieving a safe transition to electrification. In the morning, we will discuss battery safety from a societal perspective, including standards and regulations. We will attend the latest research on thermal propagation, next-generation batteries, and battery testing in the afternoon.
Aim of the conference
The conference aims to unite people active in the battery field and promote cooperation between industry, authorities, and academia in Europe. The aim is to support a strong and safe battery industry for a sustainable future.
How to register
Register now to get the early bird rate!
The programme will be updated regularly, so watch this page and follow @Batteries at RISE on Linkedin.
Speakers
Programme
Speakers
Victoria Hutchison
Senior Research Project Manager , Fire Protection Research Foundation, NFPA
Roberto Pacios
Technology Manager of the Electrochemical Energy Storage Area, CIC energyGUNE
Dr. Roberto Pacios is the current Electrochemical Storage Technology Coordinator of CIC EnergiGUNE, where he leads the technological research groups devoted to Battery Post-Mortem analysis, ageing and Safety; and Cell Design and Manufacturing. He holds a PhD in Experimental Solid State Physics from Imperial College London and an Executive MBA from the University of the Basque Country, Spain.
He also currently serves as the BE/BEPA Safety Task Force representative which defines and integrate all safety related issues into the different battery research programs and roadmaps at European level.
Annika Ahlberg Tidblad
Technical Leader Battery Safety and Legislation, Volvo Cars
Judy Jeevarajan
VP and Exec. Director, UL Research Institutes
Dr. Judy Jeevarajan is Vice President and Executive Director for the Electrochemical Safety Research Institute at UL Research Institutes. With more than 28 years of experience in the area of batteries and a primary focus on lithium-ion, she specializes in battery safety research, including safety of aged lithium-ion cells and modules, thermal runaway and its propagation, characterizing fire, smoke and particulate emissions as well as fire suppressants for lithium-ion batteries, recycling lithium-ion batteries and consumer battery safety. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry (Electrochemistry) from University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa (1995) and M.S. in Chemistry from University of Notre Dame (1991).
Tom Hessels
Advisor Energy and Transportation Safety, Netherlands Institute for Public Safety
Tom Hessels MSc. works as an advisor and project manager at the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety (NIPV). His work focusses on battery safety, particularly on fires in electric vehicles, its corresponding extinguishing strategies and the safety aspects of energy storage systems.
Elna Heimdal Nilsson
Assistant Professor, Lund University
Elna Heimdal Nilsson has an educational background in chemistry and has performed extensive research on combustion chemistry of biofuels, before broadening her research interest towards Li-ion battery safety. At the technical faculty, Lund University, Elna is leading activities related to battery thermal runaway and fires, in a constellation that includes experimentalists and modelers. Elna is also the Lund University representative in the coordinator group of the Compel research initiative on the battery value chain, which also includes Chalmers and Uppsala University.
Programme
The Battery Safety Conference - How do we ensure a safe transition?
The day will consist of morning and afternoon blocks with slightly different approaches. While the morning presentations focus on standards and solutions, the afternoon will be more about innovations and sustainability. Both blocks sum up in panel discussions.
Battery Safety: Standards and solutions
Judy Jeevarajan: System-Level Perspective on Lithium-Ion Battery Hazards
This presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of the various challenges associated with lithium-ion batteries from a system perspective. It will cover the hazards and their consequences, as well as mitigation strategies to prevent these hazards. The talk will also include recommendations to reduce risks, which can be extended to other battery chemistries.
Tom Hessels: Battery safety in The Netherlands: challenges to make a safe transition
Electrification in the Netherlands is moving fast, and it will only accelerate further. This means an increasing number of lithium-ion batteries is being used. The big question is: how can we make this fast transition also a safe transition? In this presentation, Tom introduces some current developments on batteries in The Netherlands, which (regulatory) challenges this brings, and what fire safety research can do to support this transition into a safe one.
Battery Safety: Innovations and Sustainability
Roberto Pacios: Cell-Level Analysis of Fire Risks in Lithium-Ion Batteries
This talk will focus on the fire risks and hazards in lithium-ion batteries at the cell level. It will examine each cell component that can trigger thermal runaway effects, identify causes and consequences, and delve into current research strategies to mitigate these risks at the material, cell, and system levels in next-generation batteries.
Elna Heimdal Nilsson: Understanding thermal runaway and its consequences - challenges and goals in academic battery safety research
Research on thermal events in Li-ion batteries and the potentially resulting explosion or fire has been shown to provide inconsistent data on the composition of the vented gases. Understanding underlying mechanisms and resulting gas composition is essential for risk assessment and mitigating battery fires. In this talk, the state of knowledge on this matter is reviewed, and the significant challenges that need to be addressed by academic research are outlined. We also get a preview of new research that may be the first steps towards resolving essential research questions on Li-ion battery fires.
