John Kim 0:00
Welcome back to another episode of power the network. I'm your host, Tim locker vice president of broadband for CBM. Today, our guest is Mr. John Kim. John is the director of utility and industrial battery sales for EnerSys batteries. And our CES is the world's largest industrial battery manufacturer. And they employ over 10,000 people worldwide. John's a super smart guy, and he's our go to person when it comes to batteries. Any question we have, we always reach out to John. He's a degreed engineer from Drexel University. And he's been in the business since 1986. Right out of college. So we're super excited to talk to him today, we have a great discussion about the history of batteries, and where they've come today and some of the new developing technologies. So let's get right into it with Mr. John Kim. John, we appreciate you coming in today and being on the
John Kim 1:02
show with us. Thanks. Thanks for joining us appreciate it.
John Kim 1:05
Starting off, I want to keep it really simple. Okay, what is a battery? I've been told that you have an interesting story about a toilet. Well,
John Kim 1:16
whenever I talk about batteries, people get overwhelmed. And they they say, you know, what's the battery? Oh, my guys, it's a real complicated device. And it's a great icebreaker, in my opinion. Because to describe a battery, and you start getting into chemistry and electrochemical mechanic and all that, it's way over Oh, yes, yeah. So I always start out and this something that one of my industry colleagues is the one who actually thought of this, and I'm borrowing his, I show a picture of a toilet. And, and then I say, well think of the toilet as a battery and battery system. Basically, toilet itself has water tank, and it has a water pipe that brings water in. And so water pipe, basically that water source is your charger. So energy or the water comes into the toilet, and it gets stored in the back of the toilet. And that's your battery, basically. And you're ready to use it until you're ready to use it. And what is it that you're using it for the load? The load, is it load, right? There's the diet. And and so if you have to take care of that load, you use the energy that's stored in that battery or in that tank to take care of the load. So the whole thing works together. The charging system, the battery and knowing your load is very important. Gotcha. According to the load, you size, the battery, according to the size of the battery, you size, the charger, and they all work together. So there's nothing complicated about how battery
John Kim 3:02
works. Gotcha. makes it simple. I
John Kim 3:06
bring it down to the most common denominator that most people understand which is the toilet.
John Kim 3:12
They will definitely change my habits from now on. I'll be thinking of that differently. So So you know, batteries have been around a long, long time. Yep. Are you familiar with the story of the Baghdad Battery at all?
John Kim 3:27
Yeah, there. I've seen pictures of it. Basically, people have many different opinions about what it was being used for. Some people say it's was for maybe electroplating, and so on. So you had this jar, and it's filled with copper and different minerals. And and it was basically the first known energy storage device, which is what a battery is. And and some people have found like drawings and things like that in the old Egyptian pyramids and stuff, which depicts these jars that people are carrying, and it's like lightning bolt coming out. And they think that was also some type of a battery as well. Do
John Kim 4:14
you think they were maybe trying to store the energy from lightning?
John Kim 4:19
Probably not the last guy who try that was success successful. He lived Ben Franklin lived, trying to harness the, you know, basically trying to prove that that's electricity. But I don't know if you want to capture the lightning in a bottle per se.
John Kim 4:34
You got to you got to take a cable up to the clock tower. I think if I remember the movie correctly, timing is inevitable. But yeah, I think the first functional battery then was come about sometime in the early 1800s. And then, you know, lead acid that we still use today back in like 1860 or so. Talk a little bit about how How batteries today have changed over the last 150 100 200 years. But then also, you know what? It's very basic and it's very similar to, right.
John Kim 5:14
So the father of lead acid battery is his Gaston Plantae. And in he made his first rechargeable led acid battery back in 1849 1859. Okay, okay, so he made his first rechargeable battery in 1859, basically put LED strips with rubber pad in between to separate the positive the negative plate, and then he put it into sulfuric acid, he was able to discharge and recharge and repeat that. So gas on Plantae is like first, the father of lead acid batteries. So that initial ingredient of the LED and sulfuric acid really hasn't changed since since back then. And so there have been advances with material meaning like the jar where the sulfuric acid and lead plates go into has changed. Earlier versions were like lead line type, material or glass jar, and in slowly transitioned over to some plastic material. And some of them are rubber based plastic. And so these days, the plastic that's used, or pretty much flame retardant or just regular plastic depending on what the customer spec asks for. And, and, and the whole idea is to make sure that none of that material incite sulfuric acid, which is corrosive lead, which we don't want getting into the environment or to stay within. Okay, so. So the basic ingredient hasn't changed. There have been advances in plastics, as well as the separator material. But the initial ingredient of lead and sulfuric acid still stay the same. Yep,
John Kim 7:16
very consistent. So, you know, obviously this technology has been around a long time. How How long have you been in the industry? And you know, where did you get your start? And what what brought you to where you are today?
John Kim 7:28
Oh 1859 is when I started along with guests on pumping? Well actually, in turn back then. Yes. I aged well. So with the with the batteries, I got my start in 1986. I was a co op student, I was going to school and engineering school in Philadelphia called Drexel University. Little plug there, go Dragons. So with with that, I got my first Co Op job with with the battery company. And they asked me back for the second stint. And following the second stint, they offered me a job with that job, I was testing material and plastic and so on in the lab, I was also tearing batteries apart and building batteries by hand. And I love doing that I never thought I would be getting into batteries. But that was kind of a segue into batteries. And so I spent half of my career since 1986. In batteries in engineering, and in slowly rolling and figuring out how Yeah, working in the lab and working as a project engineer for manufacturing side of it. And then slowly I transitioned to the dark side of sales and marketing. And and so second half of my battery career has been in technical marketing and sales. So my job right now is utility and industrial market overseeing the northern North America.
John Kim 9:01
Okay, so you have the whole continent or all all. All of us are utility. Yes. Okay, so So you're obviously very interested in the technical side, and you know, how all of it comes together, what makes it better? You know, for me, I was a fiber slicer. And so it helped me you know, in that sales, understanding what the customers going through and be able to help them How does your background and the batteries help you now in the seals role?
John Kim 9:32
So, when I learned about batteries and and how they're made and what goes into manufacturing, all that, and as on the engineering side, you know, you get sales guys coming in and trying to pitch you on different equipment and different material and so on. What I hated was when they get like, talk all technical and nothing that can relate to how they're going to be used, but they just know what the camera formulas are. And so when I got into into sales and product management role, I remember that and I try to make it as is easy to understand as possible. Break it down into layman's terms. And, and I try not to use real technical jargons and, and so on. So, I think that's helping people understand better, and they don't get overwhelmed when I do barre seminars and so on. Yeah, so although I'm doing, I have responsibilities for sales role, I also do seminars for, for, for analysis. And, and I use that background and remembering what I need to talk about, into, into what I do now. So
John Kim 10:54
I think I've sat through a couple of your presentations over the years, I'm sure so you know, so dealing with customers then too, I mean, obviously, if you sit and talk chemistry to me, you're going to you're going to lose, lose me,
John Kim 11:08
I can talk chemistry, if, you know, let's
John Kim 11:10
not get into that, but same same philosophy than with the customers, right. You know, keep it simple, keep it interesting or basic, right,
John Kim 11:18
and, you know, telling, from my personal experience, things that have happened and what I went through, and kind of weave that into battery talk. And, and that way people can understand things a lot easier from,
John Kim 11:32
you know, from my side of the house being, you know, in this in the sales role, and, you know, for the multiple manufacturers that we work with, you know, we're taking, you know, what the factories are telling us the manufacturers saying this product will do this. And then, you know, we kind of have to sort through, does it does it really right? You know, one of the one of the I think success stories with NSS is obviously they're SBS battery, the pure LED technology. And I got a good lesson in that I had a customer call me it was a telephone Co Op that had bought some as an SBS 60 They'd bought, what would it have been 1616 batteries, so there'd be four that go in, you know, each remote cabinet, right, and the manager at the time, installed, the batteries replaced batteries in two cabinets, and then didn't get to the other two. Something happened he left 26 months later, the new manager of this company called me says hey, I've got these batteries on the shelf. So there was eight of them but he says one of them one of them's no good, the voltage is low I've been 26 months those batteries etc on the shelf and seven out of eight were still good and you know we promote that those batteries will last two years without being charged. And I think that's a real testament to that product itself
John Kim 13:03
right and and not not only in storage those batteries have proved proven itself in real service life where these batteries were these pure lead we call them T ppl tin Plate Pure Lead these batteries they go into uncontrolled temperature outdoor cabinets and out in Arizona middle of Arizona heat and they're lasting eight nine years plus and and that's it really shows that how robust they are and in these simply pure lead batteries are has no inclusions in it, no impurities in it and the purity of the grid itself. And it has to be the grid that has to be the pure lead not oxide and things like that. So that's what what's really keeping those batteries lasting as long as they have in actual service life not just in the live environment.
John Kim 14:01
And that's the same technology then that's in the Odyssey line
John Kim 14:04
that is also in Odyssey line they're separate several several variations of it
John Kim 14:10
kind of how it's packed together right that's what I that's what I run in my boat I've got three of the i gets a PC 2100 or whatever size battery that is but yeah, I've got three of those in in my bass boat and I mean I'd never have any issues with them whatsoever.
John Kim 14:26
So that's what you do instead of selling selling fishing some
John Kim 14:29
sometimes. You know, people think that I fish more than I do but it's really not. It's really not as much as you think. I worked for a lady that really is you know she's really stringent and I really have a hard time getting getting really
John Kim 14:47
turned out about her. Yeah.
John Kim 14:51
It was put one time that there wasn't a lot of tread left on the tires I think is how it was said.
John Kim 14:57
Yes. I've been in the car with her Oh, I know.
John Kim 15:04
We're gonna have some good nuggets from this. Really quick, let me tell you a little bit about CBM. We're manufacturer's rep firm right here in the Midwest. What that means is we are a contracted sales organization that worked for multiple different manufacturers. So we can be a resource for you on many different facets. We were established in 1960, and now are an ESOP company. So we are employee owned. And what that means is we have a different mindset here. The tagline around the office is act like an owner. So our employees, they think differently think as owners and we operate that way. And we are inspired by that leadership. For we can be a resource for you. Please reach out to us at CBM rep.com. Let's go a little deeper. Let's talk a little bit more industry wide technology wide it what do you see coming? You know, to the utility market, we hear a lot about electric vehicles. I've heard this term d ers or distributed energy. How does all that work? And what does that really mean for our utility networks out there for
John Kim 16:28
the utility traditionally, it's been very conservative market meaning they don't like to embrace new technology as much so So, they the utility market as a whole still uses predominantly flooded products or the official term is V L A, because I Tripoli loves acronyms and VLA stands for event lead acid and so VLA is used when I first started it was 85%, VLA and very small amounts and icad and then small amounts valve regulated. We are slowly seeing that change with the changing of the guards younger engineers coming in and embracing some of the well regulated technologies and so on. So right now it's about still 75% VLA flooded, and rest of it is Nikhat and Valve regulated. But we are seeing a lot of this tbpl Pure Lead batteries being used in the utility industry and so on. So that's something that we're seeing very slowly. And and it's, it's being embraced because they see that the batteries are lasting longer than what they the original versions of our regulated batteries or so go back a little when Gaston Plantae made the first rechargeable led acid batteries flooded all the way through like 1970s in the standby industry, it was flooded. And that's when valve regulator batteries are introduced. The initial versions just weren't didn't have the reliability they didn't last. So a lot of people got sour taste in their mouth. And the advantages of our regulators, you can save a ton of space. And you can put a lot of energy into small space, so you get higher energy density. But the longevity was the issue. But with the advances in valve regulated technology, and especially with them play Pure Lead, which has proven itself in the past as well as the two thirds of us submarine fleet US Navy submarine fleet uses them play Pure Lead well regulated batteries. And if they were not reliable, they wouldn't be trusting it and putting it in sub. So
John Kim 18:51
I think I got an opportunity to see one of those batteries actually, on my last plant visit that was pretty
John Kim 18:55
cool. Yep. And and, and not only in that they're using F 16 fighter jets, one of the most reliable fighting, fighting vehicles up in the sky, and as well as like Abrams, tanks and so on. So it's really proven itself in rigorous environment and in putting it in a substation building and no, you're not doing all pulling all kinds of G's are all out to you to all those bumpy roads. The batteries are going to going to last.
John Kim 19:28
So do you think back to the utility world, you know, just we talk power, you know, you read different things, you hear different things talking about, you know, electric vehicles will the will the grid handle? You know what, what we're trying to accomplish with electric electric vehicles will it will battery manufacturers be able to keep up with that low? Is it same kind of battery? What does all that look like?
John Kim 20:00
So the battery for EB, they're just lithium ion because of the weight and the power density that they these batteries have. It wouldn't make any sense to put lead acid batteries in EVs, too, they're way too heavy, and also doesn't charge as fast as as lithium ion batteries do. And lithium ion batteries, they love to cycle discharge recharge every day, multiple times a day, lead acid batteries, they love to be on float, which is return relax is just yeah, they're they're fully charged and just waiting for something to happen lose power or low to exceed the Chargers out. But then the batteries kick in. So with that the the lead acid batteries or to me it's not going to go away from the industry. But lithium ion batteries are making its way into data centers and so on. It remains to be seen with the supply of lithium batteries being being low right now. Although more and more companies are coming on how to divide that two EV market energy storage market as well as standby market that remains to be seen.
John Kim 21:21
So it's more of a limited resource that they're trying, it's to figure out where the best place for it is.
John Kim 21:27
Yeah, right now it's, it's the you have a lot of Barry lithium ion battery manufacturers out there. But the Evie market, the government starts to mandate that's going to take us out towards all of it, energy storage, if they take a lot of it, then then that's going to basically exhausted supply. So what's left for standby market that remains to be seen. Okay,
John Kim 21:54
so the technology and the lithium that's come along way is correct. I know years ago when it first came out, you know, we back to the fish and you know, we were starting to see more and more you know, lithium batteries in in in the bass boats. But you know, used to have the fear of you know, the catch on fire and burn your house down or do all these different things. Is that somewhat died down? Is it the technology safer now?
John Kim 22:21
Yeah. So, like, let us not all lithium ion batteries are the same. Okay, there are 16 different chemistries of lithium ion batteries out there. Now, each chemistry has pluses and minuses, some are really safe, but not so good in power factor. Some have great power factor, energy density, but not so safe. So it's a trade off between weighing all that and there. If you go look at the website or you know industry there are these spider charts and, and life longevity, safety and all that not everyone hits all six corners. So the brains behind lead acid battery is what goes into the into the batteries and the ingredient how they're manufactured brains going into behind the lithium ion batteries is the BMS battery management system. You have to have a really good and robust BMS for it to keep it in that happy medium happy zone overcharging over discharging batteries don't like it lithium ion batteries become unstable and that's why you see some stories about cars Catching Fire and so on. It is getting better but compared to other battery technologies lithium ion is still in its infancy a lot of industry documentations and so on like I Tripoli documents. They're still being developed, and and it's going to take several more years for for that to come. As well as recycling. Recycling of lithium ion batteries. The recycling stream really hasn't been very well established infrastructure there yet. Not yet. And with lead acid, the latest BCI study battery Council international study shows lead acid batteries are the number one recycled consumer product in the US with 99% of it being recycled. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, compare that to aluminum cans. It's only about 50% Yeah, plastic bottles that we're drinking waters out of these are only about 29% right now. And then lithium ion is now less than 15% or recycle. So lead acid batteries although most people say oh lead it's got lead in it you know we're gonna get environmental damage and all that but it's in a sense it is a truly agree In battery,
John Kim 25:00
yeah, much more safe. What what's an assumption that people make about you and your role that you would disagree with?
John Kim 25:08
When I got into sales, or the sales title, most people thought I went fishing. Oh, wait, maybe?
John Kim 25:17
Well, I played golf yesterday, this worst round I've had in 30 years. But it was still, there's a lot of work.
John Kim 25:25
It is it is it is hard work. There is always, you know, what have you done for me lately, factor numbers, every every month, there's a different report coming out, and so on, we have weekly meetings on numbers. So it's not all fun and games, there's a lot of financial aspect of it that I have to have to figure out and learn. Because I'm an engineer, I'm not a financial guy. And so I had to learn all that. There's a lot with forecasting and demand planning. So it's more than just fishing and playing golf with customers, and going to dinner.
John Kim 26:08
That's true, you know, we, you know, we joke a little bit, but you know, part of that is building relationship with the customer. And you don't have to go fishing or golfing to do that. But, you know, a lot of people have the misinterpretation that you know, sales guys, that's all they do is go out and have fun, or, you know, you're on the road, I'm sure you travel a bunch with your job. You know, I deal with that at home myself, it's like, you call home and it's just, Oh, you must it's another party, right? It's at a party every day in your world, while you're, you know, while your spouse is back home, taking care of the kids or whatever. And so that's, you know, that's some of the challenges that we face. Yeah,
John Kim 26:45
and until when I go home, my wife says, now that we're empty nesters, she was a well, let's go out to dinner, I'm like, being an eating Yeah, all week. And so that's why I learned to cook at home, I cook and then she just sits back and enjoys the meal. So I use her as a guinea pig on different ingredients that I put in there, and so on so so it's a lot more involved than just entertaining customers or, or trying to sell stuff. The relationship building is a big part of it. And and I try to do that with seminars and so on. And and every day, or most people send me emails and say, Hey, can you take a look at this picture, this data, and I review all that,
John Kim 27:35
well, in two things really comes down to you know, training, making sure that we people understand what they're doing a for a safety aspect, obviously, with with power. You know, I mean, bad things can go wrong, and just, you and I both know that, but, but then also taking care of the customer. You know, that's really to me, what builds relationships long term is, you know, doing the right thing for the customer. You know, if they've got a battery that failed, you know, you enter ces always does the right thing, they, they take care of the situation. And I think that's outstanding. And I
John Kim 28:14
just this week, I was doing a seminar on factors that make the batteries last longer and perform better. And, and so teaching something like that is to me is rewarding, because people say, Oh, okay, I didn't know I could do that to make them last longer, and so on.
John Kim 28:34
So yeah, you stop the problem before it actually exists, get in front of exactly.
John Kim 28:39
It's a preventive sterile lot of failures that are prevented, can be prevented and, and teaching that is is important. What
John Kim 28:49
would you say is one of your best qualities as a leader, you have any advice for a younger guy like me in the industry, you know, in in a leadership role.
John Kim 29:00
So as a leader, the best quality should be being able to listen and and hear whether you think it's a good idea or not, you have to be able to absorb all that and process and and try to be as collaborative as possible. Getting all that information in. There is I hated working for somebody where you go in and say, Hey, this, what do you think about this as, oh, that's a stupid idea, or we're not going to that chance. Right? And but you have to you have to give that chance you have to listen to everybody. You have to treat everybody the same.
John Kim 29:43
Now, do you think do you think that's true? Is it good to treat everybody the same? Or do you need to treat everybody as individuals? Because that's something I kind of wrestle with? I think there's some I think there's some valid points on either side of that, but
John Kim 29:59
so By treating everybody individually, or as individuals, that's to me is treating everybody the same. We're talking about the same thing. Okay?
John Kim 30:09
I see where you're going, Yeah, I'm
John Kim 30:11
not, I'm not saying, you know, I'm going to you are this person. So I'm going to treat you this way. You're that person, I'm going to treat you that way. No, you have to listen to everybody and trying to get over everybody the same respect. Exactly. And that's what I meant by that. And my dad, you know, he's always told me don't treat somebody like, you don't want to be treated. Yeah, the golden rule. Right, right. And, and, and a lot of times, as people move up, or as they get up on up in the organization, they kind of lose that. And you try to be like, you know, this is the way it's going to be done. Sometimes, like, I learned that when I was in manufacturing, engineering, we're putting together this processing line of production line. And somebody who's just started say, Well, how about if we do it this way? Or why don't you put that gadget on this side? So it'll be easier? Well, you know, made perfect sense. Yeah. And, and by doing that, even the old timers, I, this is great. And so I learned from that and even in my role right now I treat everybody the way I want to be treated. Yeah,
John Kim 31:23
no, that's great. I, I totally agree. So we touched a little bit on the D ers, you know, earlier in the conversation, let's get a little bit deeper on that and kind of explain what those are. Okay,
John Kim 31:35
so with with solar panels at homes, the battery banks at home, and and all these basically, the other side of the meter type, energy generation? Sure. That's, that's what those that the ore is, and in with that, the US a lot of utility companies are looking into that right now. And, and, and how do you harness that? Because it's a lot easier to get electricity from residential side of it, then building a new power plant. So
John Kim 32:13
yeah, in the neighborhood where I'm at the power company is going up, put solar solar grids on roofs of houses? Yeah. I think every company has maybe a little different plan of how they might do that. They weren't really able to sell me on the benefits of it for my own house. But, you know, just rough guess about 10% of the houses in the neighborhood, at least already. You have a solar panel on the roof. And so that's right, that's where this or this D er is coming from. That's
John Kim 32:48
right. And that's the that's the bulk of it. EVs are another bulk of it at night when you're not driving, and then you're fully charged so that that energy is now being being used to back basically sold back to the utility companies. So there are a bunch of studies being done. One of the one first ones were Portland General Electric and Oregon. They actually have like 520, some odd homes with lithium ion batteries, basically energy storage, and they're trying to get that energy into the grid. And with that comes the transformation of the grid system as well. With all these coming on, can your existing substations and infrastructure handle it? So we're actually doing some studies and in electric companies have come to utility companies come to us and say, Hey, we need to put extra what used to be 200 amp power substation. Now we may need it 300 ampere hours and what what can we do without making the batteries bigger, or the substation building bigger? So So now space is, that's where the for the pure lead? well regulated batteries come in. Because you can have 320 amp hour product in there. And it only weighs like 44 pounds. And that's a huge benefit of, of that type of area. So that transformation, because of the ER is coming to us right now.
John Kim 34:19
What are you seeing with utilities? You know, on the on the broadband scene, you know, a lot of utilities are getting into that market as well. Traditionally, you know, utility companies have kind of just had their own communication networks, but now they're doing this fibre to the home are you involved in much of that in terms of the battery backup for for those systems?
John Kim 34:41
I am involved from the periphery of it, we have a different division that handles that. But the typical utility communication, we call them UCOM, let's say and, and that's the handle by separate group than say, substation group or generation so it's kind have broken out. Right? But yeah, we do get involved with that. And and we have a product in there, you don't have a lot of space. So that's where well regulated batteries are very commonly used.
John Kim 35:12
Yeah. Okay. We see a lot of the SBS product in the, in the telco sites where we're in so absolutely. Well, John, we appreciate you coming in today. Thank you for being on power the network with us.
John Kim 35:25
Thank you.
John Kim 35:26
This was fun. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, Tim. Well, there you have it. I feel like we caught some lightning in a bottle today with our conversation with John Kim. I always enjoy talking to him. And I appreciate him coming on the show and giving us an opportunity to get to know each other a little bit better. You know, I think the story of batteries really matters. And we're really glad to have an expert on our side like John, if you've got other questions about battery storage battery charging, you can always find some answers on enersys.com. Or you can reach out to us at CBM CBM rep.com. Or if you're a manufacturer looking for representation in the industry in the Midwest, please feel free to reach out to us. Or if you just got any other questions or maybe you've got a great story to tell and you want to be on the next episode of power the network. Reach out to us CBM rap.com Thanks
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
