Second Life Adds More Green Punch To EV Battery Recycling

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The rising demand for lithium and different battery supplies has dumped a load of provide chain baggage onto electrical automobiles, a lot to the delight of critics. They’re laughing now. Nevertheless, options are rising because the EV battery recycling area cranks up and expands to incorporate second life repurposing as properly.

EV Battery Recycling Meets Second Life

The concept of repurposing used EV batteries for stationary energy storage has been percolating beneath the floor since at the very least 2011, when Ford connected a 50-kilowatt array of EV batteries to photo voltaic panels at one in every of its meeting vegetation.

Again then, EV battery recycling and repurposing each confronted a significant impediment. There merely weren’t sufficient used batteries in circulation to make a enterprise out of coping with their afterlife.

A lot has modified since then. EV sales continue to grow and so has the EV battery recycling area. Nonetheless, recycling is an energy-sucking operation. By way of environmental influence, the longer a battery can stay in use earlier than recycling, the higher.

One issue working in that route is right now’s era of longer lasting EV batteries. Now that extra information is obtainable on real-life EV driving habits, proof is rising that the on-road life of EV batteries far outlasts the span indicated by laboratory checks.

Nonetheless, finally an EV battery goes to shed its road-worthiness, and now a rising second life business is there to select up the slack.

A Second Life For EV Batteries: It’s Sophisticated

Repurposing used EV batteries for stationary power storage is a sophisticated maneuver. Among the many companies to determine it out is the Canadian startup Second Power.

The corporate already payments itself as “North America’s leading EV battery repurposing company” and a associate with A-list automakers, together with Mercedes Benz’s Power department. They’ve additionally found out the place their goal market is.

“Moment Energy’s battery energy storage systems (BESS) can be deployed in projects ranging from 400 kilowatt hours (kWh) to 10 megawatt hours (MWh), targeting an intermediate market segment that is currently underserved but crucial to the clean energy transition,” the corporate explains, paying attention to the market in EV charging area in addition to business and industrial operations.

As for the place all of the used batteries will come from, Second anticipates diverting a wholesome quantity from the EV battery recycling business, citing an estimate of 953 gigawatt-hours value of of second-life batteries obtainable by 2030.

Right here Comes The Gigafactory

That’s good for starters, and the corporate has set its sights on increasing. Earlier this month the corporate introduced a profitable $15 million spherical of Collection A funding co-led by the Amazon Local weather Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures, with the purpose of developing a giga-scale manufacturing facility within the US.

Different members have been the not-for-profit world accelerator In-Q-TelModel One Ventures, Overture Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, Fika Ventures, MCJ, One Small Planet, and Local weather Capital.

In the event you’re questioning why the manufacturing facility is coming to the US and never Canada, that’s query. A part of the reply is the Biden administration, which awarded $20.3 million to the agency final 12 months for bringing its new gigafactory to Texas, together with greater than 250 new jobs.

In the event you’re questioning why Texas, that’s additionally query. Regardless of the state’s highlight place within the EV business because the host of Tesla’s headquarters and manufacturing facility, Texas has earned a foul repute for EV adoption.

“Texas has cheaper electricity but a bad ratio of EVs registered to charging ports and service centers. The annual savings on gas money is only about $1,000, and there are no tax incentives,” notes one analyst.

However, absent any interference from the Trump administration, Texas will host a enterprise aimed toward accelerating the power transition and offering EV makers with a extra sustainable end-of-life answer whereas having fun with the financial advantages of 250 new jobs. If all goes in accordance with plan, Second will start making ready for the design and growth part of the brand new manufacturing facility throughout the subsequent couple of months.

“We serve as a catalyst for an exciting new circular economy that increases energy security as energy demand rises,” enthused stated Second Power CEO Edward Chiang in a press assertion.

Replace: As of January 28, all federal funding is on maintain by order of the President. Sorry, Texas.

Extra & Higher EV Battery Recycling

If President Trump actually does pull the rug out from beneath these 250 new jobs in Texas, Second Power can merely pack up and take its jobs elsewhere. The corporate has a foothold past North America via its relationship with Mercedes-Benz and different automakers, and it’s at present engaged on an enlargement of its headquarters in Vancouver with an eye fixed on the worldwide market.

In a associated matter, the Trump order additionally impacts Biden-era funding packages that supporting a brand new EV battery recycling business within the US, and the roles that come together with it. If the purpose is to harm Republican voters, that’s a great way to do it.

Final fall, for instance, the Biden administration introduced a brand new $44.8 spherical of funding divided amongst eight tasks aimed toward bringing down the cost of recycling. Three of the eight tasks are spearheaded by A-list companies with global and domestic manufacturing footprints. GM and Siemens every obtained virtually $8 million to exhibit automated programs for battery dealing with at recycling services, and Caterpillar’s Built-in Elements and Options department obtained simply over $5 million to develop new battery pack designs that make EV battery recycling extra environment friendly and fewer labor-intensive.

If that assist vanishes, GM, Siemens, and Caterpillar can pack up their new EV battery recycling know-how and take it elsewhere.

Talking of Caterpillar, the corporate went out of its method to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration even earlier than Election Day. In September, the corporate joined a rising checklist of company residents to announce a rollback of their DEI (range, fairness, inclusion) packages. A lot for that. Maybe they didn’t do sufficient currying. In spite of everything, you get what you pay for.

On a considerably brighter be aware, the EV battery recycling agency startup Redwood Supplies, helmed by Tesla Motors co-founder JB Straubel (for the file, the opposite co-founder was Martin Eberhardt), appears to have gotten its operations beneath manner earlier than the clampdown (see all the CleanTechnica Redwood archive here).

Comply with me by way of LinkTreeor @tinamcasey on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

Picture: Amazon’s Local weather Pledge Fund is supporting a new “second life” venture that enhances EV battery recycling, by extending the helpful lifetime of the entire battery (courtesy of Local weather Pledge Fund by way of LinkedIn).