Battery Test Facility with Dr Peter Miller, Chief Engineer - Battery

We recently opened our new Battery Test Facility at our Proving Ground in Bedford, UK. Our facility consists of 12 large battery pack chambers, each with 500kW cyclers and supporting infrastructure. It is the UK’s latest, and biggest, private investment in independent battery testing.

Dr Peter Miller, Millbrook’s Chief Engineer - Battery was heavily involved in the planning and execution of the new battery facility.

What is the key benefit of Millbrook having the new battery test facility on its well-established Proving Ground?

Having the new facility on site means that we have been able to leverage the skills of our existing teams to create a large, state-of-the-art facility in record time.

What have been the highlights of the build of the Battery Test Facility for you?

For me, the obvious highlights were running the first customer test just before Christmas and then signing off the last test chamber for customer use. It’s an amazing achievement that, in just over a year, we have transformed a patch of bare ground to a fully functioning facility run by a highly skilled team, which is what we have today.

How much of a talking point has the new facility been with customers?

The Battery Test Facility has generated a lot of publicity which has helped to significantly grow our battery and electrification business globally. As a world-class facility it has already attracted new customers to Millbrook.

Our customers want to be able to test as much as possible in one location to reduce development times. We have already received positive feedback from customers about the range of testing that we can do here.

How has the Battery Test Facility been supported across the company?

We have been testing batteries and electric vehicles for a long time, but are seeing significant growth in this area. To support this growth we have developed a training course, focusing on high voltage battery safety, which has already been attended by over seventy of our employees.

Millbrook Revolutionary Engineering, a Millbrook company with offices in Michigan and California, provided the automation equipment for our new facility. This shows how valuable our global collaboration is.

How do you see our battery testing capabilities increasing in the future?

Our Battery Test Facility has increased the scale of our battery durability testing dramatically. However, as the industry grows, we must continue to enhance and expand our existing facilities. Our new facility was designed with this in mind.

To find out more about Millbrook’s battery testing capabilities, contact the team via info@millbrook.co.uk visit www.millbrook.co.uk.