In the first instalment of the “Road to Circular Batteries” blog series, we’ll explore what a digital battery passport is, how it works, and who’s leading the charge towards this new shift.

In today’s technology-driven world, we are steadily moving towards a world powered by clean energy, and batteries are becoming more than just another piece of technology. Instead, they’re the heartbeat of electric vehicles, renewable power storage, and the broader shift away from fossil fuels.

But behind the making of every battery lies a long and complex story. A story that spans continents, supply chains, and environmental impact. It’s not always an easy story to follow. That’s where the digital battery passport comes in: a quiet but powerful tool that helps us understand not just what a battery does, but where it’s coming from and where it’s going.

In the first instalment of the “Road to Circular Batteries” blog series, we’ll explore what a digital battery passport is, how it works, and who’s leading the charge towards this new shift.

What Is a Digital Battery Passport?

A Digital Battery Passport is a structured, digital record that travels with a battery throughout its entire lifecycle. It holds complete, standardised data about that battery, starting from the origin of the materials it’s made from, to how it’s manufactured, how it performs, and what happens when it is discarded.

It’s not a physical tag or sticker. It’s a secure, digital file linked to a unique battery ID, accessible to authorised parties (such as manufacturers, regulators, users, service technicians, recyclers, and second-life users). It works exactly like a physical passport, travelling the battery throughout its lifecycle, keeping track of the entire travel history from origin to end of life.

A Digital Battery Passport not only functions to meet the regulatory requirements but also to support businesses, governments, and customers in making data-driven, environmentally conscious decisions.

How Does Digital Battery Passport Work?

1. Digital Identity: A Unique Fingerprint

Each battery gets a globally unique ID (usually embedded as a QR code, NFC tag or RFID chip), physically attached to the battery casing.

This acts like a digital fingerprint. Each one is different from the other. Scanning the code pulls up its digital passport, which sits in a secure, interoperable database, often powered by blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) to ensure that the information is tamper-proof and traceable.

Think of it like scanning a boarding pass at an airport, but instead of your name and seat number, it shows the battery’s chemistry, carbon footprint, and charge history.

2. Data Ingestion: The Lifeline of the DBP

The actual success of the battery passport comes from the data it collects throughout its journey. This includes key pieces of information from :

• Raw material suppliers

​Where was the lithium, nickel, or cobalt mined? Were the sources ethical? Were ​human rights respected?

• Manufacturers

​Where was the battery manufactured, which processes were and what materials ​were used?

• Environmental Impact Metrics

​What was the carbon footprint from production to distribution, including the ​ ​emissions during mining, manufacturing, and logistics?

• Battery Chemistry & Design

​What type of cells does it use (e.g. NMC, LFP), what’s the form factor (prismatic, ​cylindrical, etc.), capacity, voltage, and structural configuration?

• Usage and Performance

​Information about charging cycles, depth of discharge (DoD), state of charge ​ ​(SoC), state of health (SoH), temperature history, and other performance ​ ​ ​indicators.

• OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)

​How was the battery installed? What kind of vehicle or product is it powering?

• Battery Management Systems (BMS)

​These are the “brains” inside every modern battery. They feed data like charge ​ ​cycles, temperature ranges, voltage fluctuations, and health degradation.

• Repair & Maintenance Records

​Data on any maintenance or refurbishment history, safety incidents, and ​ ​ ​replacement of modules.

• Reusability & Recyclability Information

​Information about remaining useful life, dismantling protocols, what materials can ​be recovered, the impact of recycling, and environmental safety data.

This data is often carried through secure APIs, IoT networks, and industrial data platforms, and structured using standardised taxonomies (such as those being developed by the Global Battery Alliance).

3) Security and Privacy: Who Has Access

Since the data retrieved from DBP has the potential risk of being commercially sensitive (Example, Tesla vs. BYD) or personal (such as driving habits), the passport uses a role-based access model:

• Regulators monitor compliance and footprint data.
• Consumers observe health and usage metrics.
• Manufacturers track the repair and warranty records.
• Recyclers take disassembly instructions and material composition.

The data is encrypted and stored according to EU GDPR and similar frameworks, ensuring privacy, sovereignty, and trust across borders.

What Makes Digital Battery Passport Mandatory?

The European Union is taking the lead in this initiative with new rules and regulations which will shape the present and future of the Digital Battery Passport. New regulations will require digital passports for most batteries by 2027.

These regulations are expected to impact not only EV manufacturers but also producers of industrial and stationary energy storage batteries over 2 kWh.

Industry leaders across the automotive, energy, and technology sectors are already investing heavily in infrastructure to support battery passport implementation. The goal is not just to be compliant with the regulations, but as an opportunity to drive innovation, optimise asset performance, and create more sustainable business models.

How is BASE Advancing Digital Battery Passports?

The BASE Project (Battery Passport for Resilient Supply Chain and Implementation of Circular Economy) is contributing heavily to the mainstream adoption of Digital Battery Passports. As part of a broader effort from the EU, BASE is developing a robust and interoperable framework to ensure standardised, reliable battery data across the entire value chain with 4 real-world implementations.

The project aims to support compliance, enhance transparency, and enable more efficient reuse, repurposing, and recycling by integrating AI-driven insights, circularity metrics, and harmonised ESG indicators.

BASE is working closely with industry stakeholders to validate practical solutions, and speed up the implementation of battery passports at a large scale.

Final Thoughts

A clever, forward-thinking solution, the DBP guarantees that each battery tells its complete story. From origin, health, performance, and environmental impact, all are monitored by the DBP from the time raw materials are mined through years of use and, finally, recycling or reuse.

The Digital Battery Passport offers us an opportunity to evolve our linear consumer-focused economy and take the first step towards a circular economy with wiser choices and impactful actions.