Finding new life for electric vehicle batteries
There are unintended consequences in the efforts to get more electric vehicles on the road.
LANCASTER (KABC) -- There are unintended consequences in the efforts to get more electric vehicles on the road. One of the most glaring: What happens to the batteries that need to be replaced?
Electric vehicle batteries slowly lose capacity over time, on average about 2% of range loss per year. But while the battery may not work for driving, it's still capable of energy storage.
"We looked at some of the early second life projects for EV batteries and it just so happens that, stationary storage being a less-demanding use case can still get utilities from these batteries, even when they don't work as well on wheels if you will," said CEO B2U Storage Solutions Freeman Hall.
A company in Lancaster is taking a problem and turning it into a solution. What looks like a solar farm is actually a charging station.
"We do have megawatts of solar, but instead of the solar going straight to the grid, it's actually being used to charge our system, our battery system and then that system discharges in the evenings," said Hall.
Battery Second Use, or B2U, is harnessing the power of the sun through used EV batteries.
Some come from the manufacturer, others are taken directly from an electric vehicle. They are then moved to cabinets (1,300 at the site in Lancaster) capable of delivering over 8 megawatts of power to the California grid.
Battery software and algorithms coordinate the energy production and control systems decide when to keep the energy to provide reserves, or release it to the grid during times of peak demand, keeping costs down and electricity flowing.
"We have some skill sets that we think we can put to work to help solve this problem and as you said create some win-wins which will help consumers, which will help policy makers, auto OEMs and really everybody see benefits from this type of application," said Hall.
The battery recycling market is still in its infancy, and the race is on to find ever better recycling methods. As the number of EVs in use increases dramatically in the years to come, B2U wants to insure it makes economic and environmental sense to keep EV batteries out of the landfill.
"These batteries could be thought of as a waste stream...We're getting that second life and we're adding value to this battery... the grid today needs a lot of storage to firm up the clean power that's intermittent and this helps us reach our decarbonization goals," said Hall.
