Is repurposing EV batteries as energy storage devices commercially viable? Tesla has already decided it is better to recycle used batteries to recapture raw materials rather than repurpose them.
But Nissan and Volkswagen think there may be value to finding a second use for EV batteries that are no longer suitable for powering a vehicle.
In Hamburg, Germany, Volkswagen has packaged fifty 9.9 kWh batteries from Passat GTE automobiles inside a shipping container and installed it at a VHH bus terminal, which has several electric buses, in the Bergedorf section of the city. When networked, the batteries will have a nominal capacity of 450 kWh.
The batteries are mounted on racks and then interconnected via a battery management system to form a large battery. The Hamburg installation is very much an experimental project.
The key objective are to –
- improve utilization of the network and cushion peak loads when the electric buses are being charged
- hopes to learn more about how the second-use batteries age and
- how to develop more efficient battery management systems
Those findings could play an important role in developing future battery technologies that prolong the life of lithium ion batteries.
Reference- InsideEVs, Clean Technica, Volkswagen online newsroom