Element establishes battery testing leadership in North America with the acquisition of Energy Assurance

Element Materials Technology (Element) has acquired Energy Assurance (EA), one of the leading independent battery testing operators in North America.

Based in Gainesville, Georgia with operations in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, EA provides performance testing services for battery and battery-powered products using over 3,000 cycling channels and more than 200 environmental chambers. Its comprehensive suite of services and industry leading expertise lies within the performance, safety, regulatory, and abuse testing areas for small, medium, and large format cells, modules, and packs. This includes safety and regulatory services and certification to local and international standards, product analysis, and risk quantification.

The business complements Element’s existing network of laboratories already supporting the energy transition market and the growing demand for higher performance batteries. This demand is being driven by some of the world’s leading connected technology, automotive, medical device and energy storage businesses and is expected to exponentially grow with the increased adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and utility-scale Energy Storage Systems (ESS), both of which are key segments in the renewable energy usage space.

Rick Sluiters, Executive Vice President, Americas at Element, said: “We continue to build expertise and capacity to support our customers in their energy transition journeys. EA’s wide experience within the battery sector, extensive customer base and focus on customer service fits very well with our strategy and perfectly complements our existing expertise in connected technologies and transportation sectors.

“With most companies now thinking about renewable energy and sustainable energy driven solutions, the acquisition of EA gives us a strategic advantage in all our core end markets for our business in North America.

“We see this as a unique opportunity to become a clear leader in the sustainable energy delivery market, while simultaneously helping to reinforce our broader sustainability agenda.”

Cindy Millsaps, CEO at EA, added: “We are excited about joining Element as together we pursue our shared goal of becoming the best and most trusted testing partner for the Energy market. We look forward to this next phase of growth for the company and believe that being part of Element will further enable our team to drive growth in market shaping battery technologies and influence positive change in the area of sustainable energy storage and delivery.”

EA is accredited by ANAB, UL and SGS and is certified by global testing body, TUV SUD. It is a member of the IECEE CB scheme as a certified bodies test laboratory, and the business will be the first to be approved to test to Soteria standard in 2022.

Element provides testing for battery use, including the customized safety, failure analysis, and R&S testing of lithium batteries, for a variety of industries including medical devices, power tools, automotive and mobile devices. Both environmental and mechanical testing of batteries, combined with charge/discharge cycling of cells, temperature monitoring, pressure monitoring, flow monitoring, and data collection, follow leading standards to help bring safe, quality, and compliant products to market.