New life for old EV batteries
New life for old EV batteries
Nissan and General Motors hope to sell used batteries from electric vehicles to wind farms, according to The Sunday Times.
If successful, the scheme could have a major impact on the cost of EVs since batteries form a large part of the vehicle costs.
Once batteries can no longer store more than 70 per cent of their charge – probably after 10 years or 150,000 miles – they are not able to be used to power cars but still have enough storage capacity to be used to store power generated by wind turbines at off-peak times, when it is not required by the national grid.
The batteries could also be used for emergency power supplies.
The Sunday Times notes that Nissan has a joint venture with Sumitomo called 4R in Japan to process old batteries. It will sell the batteries that still have good storage potential to wind farms and solar generators and as a stand-by power supply for homes and industrial premises.