Used EV batteries for large-scale solar energy storage

MIT scientists have suggested used electric vehicle batteries could offer a more viable business case than purpose-built systems for the storage of grid scale solar power in California. Such ‘second life’ EV batteries, may cost only 60% of their original purchase price to deploy and can be effectively aggregated for industrial scale storage even if they have declined to 80% of their original capacity.

Batteries stripped from electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf could have a useful second life as part of the grid.

Image: Tennen-Gas/Wikimedia Commons/https://bit.ly/2LXFFK0

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From pv magazine International

Used electric vehicle (EV) batteries can be repurposed to store electricity generated by large scale solar plants, according to an MIT study.

The U.S.-based researchers claimed even devices which have declined to 80% of their original capacity could offer a better investment prospect for solar-plus-storage projects in California than purpose-built, utility scale batteries, not least because such ‘second life’ EV batteries could cost as little as 60% of their purchase price.

MIT research co-author Ian Mathews conceded technical hurdles remained to the deployment of used EV batteries on a large scale, such as aggregating batteries from different manufacturers and screening which devices could be reused. However, Mathews insisted used EV batteries still offered a persuasive enough business case to justify the cost of recovering them, screening performance and redeploying them.

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