second life battery

Researchers have sounded the alarm. If no serious efforts are made on second-life battery use, recycling and vehicle-to-grid applications, decarbonization efforts may hit the buffers a lot sooner than expected.

The increased urgency for the automotive industry to deal with the disposal of EV batteries in the mid-term future will act as a catalyst for the emerging second-life battery market, writes Abhishek Sampat, Principal Analyst at Delta-EE. Automakers, and potentially third parties, are expected to exploit new value streams and a second-life market is predicted to drive down costs for stationary energy storage, with little to no compromise in quality to the end user.

While it took 60 months to reach the first million electric vehicle (EV) sales, in late 2015, it took the fourth million just six months. China is driving this development. Meanwhile, as first generation EVs batteries are reaching their end-of-life, interest in second-life use cases is growing. The volume of retired EV battery packs is set to be 108 GWh by 2029 – representing a third of the expected storage capacity market at that time.

Nissan recently supplied batteries to Europe’s largest energy storage system using new and second-life batteries in a commercial building. At the inauguration ceremony, Nissan’s Head of Energy spoke about the car manufacturer’s role in the project, and why EVs are playing an increasingly central role.