Case Study: Battery Plant Mixing Line: One System, Three Mixers

Data centers are pulling hard on the U.S energy grid, in turn increasing demand for grid-scale battery storage systems. These complex systems are used for peak shaving and load balancing, and the plants making them need production lines that keep up with demand.As proof, in the second quarter of 2026, U.S. energy storage deployments hit a record 18.9 GWh due to longer system durations and expanding power demand from data center operations, according to the Q3 2026 U.S. Energy Storage Monitor from Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association.

Our client is a U.S. manufacturer of energy storage systems for electric grids, and they came to AZO while designing a greenfield plant. They wanted a highly flexible mixing line with as much automation as possible. The result? A single raw material handling system that could eventually feed three mixers, with AZO designing the full scope for solids, liquids, and controls.

The Challenge

The customer wanted the mixing line automated as far as the process would allow, fed by one raw material handling system. That system had to serve a potential of three mixers over time, so it needed to be easily scalable. That meant a high level of automation — automated recipe control, mixer feeding and mixer discharge — with manual labor only for handling raw material discharge into the system.

The challenge was that more than five raw materials entered the system and they behaved nothing alike: different bulk densities, flow behavior, and particle shapes. In particular, PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) is a difficult ingredient to handle at room temperature, which means keeping it constantly below 15° C (59° F) through storage and handling.

After mixing, the material got harder to deal with because it was prone to de-mixing, so it had to move fast and gently. The final ingredient handling solution needed to account for the following:

• Liquid handling, powder handling, controls, and the mixer had to come together as one coherent system.
• Recipes had to change, and dosing quantities for each material had to shift within a defined range, without giving up throughput or accuracy.
• Due to high demand in energy storage systems, such projects always run on a tight schedule

The AZO Solution

We started with testing before design. In our test center, we conducted conveying trials on the mixed material to determine the best conveying method to protect the material from de-homogenising. From there we engineered the system to include:

• Pneumatic conveying matched to the material. Our tests revealed dense phase conveying as the best choice.
  
• One discharge station per material, serving several mixers. That way, adding a second or third mixer later doesn’t need duplication of the material handling system. The manufacturer gets shorter extension timelines, less downtime during the expansion, and lower CapEx costs when the time comes.
  
• Dosing points built for two things at once. Each one has the flexibility to handle quantity changes for recipes while maintaining the dosing throughput and accuracy that each formulation requires.
  
• Solids, liquids, and controls nested under a single automation concept. This helped the manufacturer reduce the number of required interfaces with suppliers. Communication is simpler, and responsibilities between customer and supplier are identified and agreed on up front.
  
• Reliable tracking and tracing across every batch. A complete overview of produced batches and mixed material quality gives insight into the whole production process. Plus, having this in place eliminates false batches due to wrong raw materials (or their amounts). It’s also required and needed for documentation reasons by law.

Conclusion

This project is still in progress, and we’ll provide updates as the solution is implemented. Battery storage demand is increasing, and plants built for it need production lines that can add capacity without a second capital project.

At an early stage of such a project, we are able to support the customer in finding the best solution according to their needs and preferences. This starts at an early stage material flow and moves forward to designing concepts which are then evaluated together with the customer according to the criteria identified at the early stage. By involving each employee level from operator to management, new perspectives are introduced to design the most suitable solution for the customer.

If you’re planning a greenfield project or sizing a line for volume you don’t have yet, we can look at the process with you. Submit a request for proposal to start the conversation.