12 ms·

Can “second life” EV batteries work as grid-scale energy storage?

196 points by davidw 1y ago

Lucian6 1y ago
[dead]
- chrisra 1y ago
  > the real challenge is standardization and integration In what sense? I'm a newbie, but curious because I'm working on stuff related to https://mesastandards.org/mesa-der-std/ https://mesastandards.org/mesa-der-std/.
- adwn 1y ago
  > New grid storage batteries cost around $200-300/kWh That doesn't sound right. You can already get high-quality, prismatic LFP cells for ~50 US$/kWh [1] from European distributors at low-volumes, so bulk from China should be even cheaper. And there's no way that balancing and BMS cost an additional 150-250 US$/kWh at scale, not even a tenth of that. [1] https://www.nkon.nl/novat/eve-lf230-prismatic-230ah-230a-lifepo4-2022.html https://www.nkon.nl/novat/eve-lf230-prismatic-230ah-230a-lif...
  - mcbishop 1y ago
    Right, $200-300/kWh is more the range for ~16kWh residential stationary energy storage systems.
- overfeed 1y ago
  > Having worked extensively with battery systems, I think the grid storage potential of second-life EV batteries is more complex than it appears. Complex, by t very much doable. Toyota implemented such a system with enough packs to power a Mazda factory [1] > However, you need to factor in significant integration costs (~$50-75/kWh) to build compatible BMS systems and thermal management. Shouldn't this be a once-off cost per battery-pack version? Or was this your armortized cost for your deployment capacity. If you've written the BMS for a 2019 Model 3 Panasonic battey pack once, won't you reuse it for all the subsequent battery packs of the same model/SKU? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44998010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44998010
  - adwn 1y ago
    > Shouldn't this be a once-off cost per battery-pack version? A BMS isn't just software. It requires a µC, voltage and temperature sensors for cell monitoring, and power electronics for cell balancing. However, those are all comparatively cheap, especially at scale, and the quoted cost of 50–75 US$/kWh looks ridiculously overpriced to me.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      I expect EV batteries to have all those components preinstalled already, and naively thought the grid-integration involves reverse engineering the battery's protocol, and perhaps bypassing/replacing a µC or 3.
- Xemplolo 1y ago
  How can this be a real issue? We don't have a lot of car makers and we do not have a huge amount of EV models. Either you are doing this on small scale, than you can select one or two specific EV models and use these batterie packs or you do it in big scale, than you can also easily adapt the most x batterie packs and only use these across your system. If you go down to the cell level, its more effort true but then you probably only handel cell types of a handfull of manufacturer again.
  - DanielHB 1y ago
    You can't really mix different types of cells together in the same pack. Even cells with the same manufacturer and chemistry can be problematic to mix if they are at different wear levels (or even from different batches from the same factory). This is only practical if you reuse the whole pack, or at least the modules. And for that to work well you also need a lot of complex software to keep the packs working well with each other (like balancing power levels between the packs). BMS software is no joke, it is already hard and complex enough when using brand new battery packs and cells of the same chemistry and manufacturer and wear level. Any kind of mixing massively increases the complexity and safety concerns.
    - Xemplolo 1y ago
      So they already come with a BMS. Create a MetaBMS. The BMS of the cell pack doesn't care if a car requests energy between 0 and max and a BMS doesn't care either if it gets 0-100 kWh. My car can easily charge from a household plug up to fast charger. My car consumes very random amounts of energy while i drive.
- jwr 1y ago
  > the real challenge is standardization and integration. Different manufacturers use vastly different battery management systems (BMS) and cell configurations - a Tesla pack is fundamentally different from a Nissan Leaf pack. Isn't that exactly what the article is about? Have you actually read the article?
bryanlarsen 1y ago
This is less useful than most people expected. Redwood has been struggling because the expected battery turnover is not occurring. EV batteries are lasting a long time, so they stay in the car are and not being recycled or reused in any quantity yet. If EV batteries last 20+ years in EV's, it'll be > 2040 before there are significant numbers of EV batteries available to recycle or reuse. https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/ https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/
- jeffbee 1y ago
  There is one constant to all these conversations and that is Silicon Valley tech dudes are grossly misinformed about the lifecycle of things. Solar panels don't wear out, batteries don't wear out as fast as they used to. This is evidenced both by undertaking weird dead-end startup ideas, and being susceptible to propaganda about the supposed downsides of solar energy and batteries.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  So, basically the same reason recycling of PV modules hasn't taken off.
  - Rebelgecko 1y ago
    I've been intrigued by used solar panels for sale, seems like you can get an amazing price for ones that are only lightly degraded. Is there a downside, or do you just mean that it isn't popular currently?
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      I think they were referring to the fact that the chief reason there is not large-scale PV panel recycling is that very few panels have ever been retired. It turns out that short of physical destruction by hail etc a PV panel does not degrade beyond economic usefulness simply by being out in the sun. In fact some panels actually get more powerful. The surprising-to-some conclusion of NREL's PV Lifetime Project is that the economic lifetime of a PV panel is basically forever.
dylan604 1y ago
Without being a battery chemistry expert, why do these battery packs become not useful for an EV yet could still be useful for energy storage. They keep saying that 80% of life becomes unusable for EV, but that's still a lot of life. Is it that grid energy is more of a constant drain while the EV is lots of hard pulls (for lack of better wording)? In an EV, the battery cannot provide the higher volts being requested within rating, but a grid is never demanding peak performance?
- MarioMan 1y ago
  Space and weight are serious constraints in the car space, but not such a big deal on the side of a house. That’s how they retain their usefulness. 80% could indeed be plenty of usable life for your EV use cases, but it strongly depends on usage patterns. More degradation means more trips to the charger on a road trip. It means trips that you’d regularly make just charging at home at the end of day now require you to plug in at the destination too. It means more range anxiety as a whole.
- HWR_14 1y ago
  For an EV you want a high energy density, because it impacts range. For grid storage, density doesn't matter as much.
- benzible 1y ago
  It's not just about capacity (80% is still a lot), it's that degraded batteries lose their ability to deliver high current under load—so acceleration suffers and voltage sags under hard pulls. For grid storage, you're doing slow, steady charge/discharge cycles over hours, so the same battery that can't handle aggressive driving anymore works perfectly fine. Plus, grid storage has virtually unlimited space and no range anxiety, so if you need 25% more packs to hit your capacity target, you just stack them in a warehouse where real estate is cheap.
  - miahi 1y ago
    Also, batteries will degrade faster over time when they start to degrade, because they need more frequent charging. Their internal resistance increase and that promotes heat buildup during fast charging/discharging, another thing that promotes degradation. Slow charge/discharge cycles also help with heat management.
KaiserPro 1y ago
> Can "second life" EV batteries work as grid-scale energy storage? Yes is it profitable? probably not. Looking at the price for brid battery storage, and its dropping precipitously. The cost isn't as much in the batteries them selves, it packaging, placing and then controlling them. For example if you want to have a 200Mwhr 100Mw storage site, you'll need to place it, join it to the grid, all doable. Then you need the switch gear to make it work as you want it to. For day ahead, 30 minute trading, thats fairly simple. For grid stabilisation, thats a bit harder, you need to be able to lead/match/lag the grid frequency by n degrees instantaneously. which is trivial at a few kw, much harder at 100Mw
- nop_slide 1y ago
  Sounds like what https://www.basepowercompany.com/ https://www.basepowercompany.com/ is doing
- Xemplolo 1y ago
  'probably not'? Based on what numbers? Germany alone had to pay 2 billion in dispatch measures to energy providers. And in the last 6 month we had news about a HUGE request of companies wanting to build grid stabilisation and grid market battery systems in a range of over 100GwH. Also we do have industries which would be able to save a ton of money if the invest in smaller but similiar systems today already due to energy prices. And in germany for example, we do have a lot of wind energy in the north but not enough live transit capacity to get it into the south. In this scenario the market would again stabilize the grid by charging at night from cheap / free wind energy production in north and transfering it to the south and then using it at day.
1970-01-01 1y ago
Betteridge's law of headlines finally fails? TL;DR: Yes, but you can also make it 'not work' if you choose to politicize the tech solution to the energy problem.
dukeofdoom 1y ago
Seems like the market is going the hybrid route. It's kind of easy to see why, best of both worlds. Some BYD hybrids have crazy ranges like 1500 km on a tank of gas. The more practical car is winning. They put in a much small battery in these for fast charge, and the daily commute range. And you have gas, for longer trips. Maybe smaller batteries would be better for grid-scale storage too. If they're lighter and easier to handle.
- pinkgolem 1y ago
  i have heard that hybrid's have a maintanance problem? is not a concern, double the technologie in the same space?
  - dukeofdoom 1y ago
    Not sure about that, since I did never owned one either. But I watched a review BYD car yesterday. And it's supper nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6bqgR3NRHE&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6bqgR3NRHE&t=1s
  - dukeofdoom 1y ago
    It's possible it might actually be more reliable long term, once the technology matures. For example, in cold weather the gas engine might heat the battery for better battery performance, maybe even extend its life if it prevents it from being drawn down too much. The gas engine, would also likely last longer since its not used for daily commutes. "In many PHEV systems, there are different modes: Electric mode (EV mode): The vehicle runs purely on the electric motor(s) and battery until the battery depletes to some extent. Hybrid/Parallel mode: Both the petrol engine and electric motor(s) work together to drive the wheels, especially under high load, higher speeds or when battery is low. Ithy Series mode (in some designs): The petrol engine acts only as a generator to charge the battery or power the electric motor(s), and the wheels are driven by the electric motor(s). For the BYD Leopard 5 (and many BYD PHEVs) the petrol engine can drive the wheels (i.e., it is not purely a generator). It is part of the drive system, especially when high power or long range is needed. At the same time, it likely can assist with charging the battery or maintaining battery state of charge (SOC) when needed (for example, to keep the battery at some reserve level or in “save” mode). User-reports show that the petrol engine will kick in to support the electric system, charge the battery, or assist the drive under certain conditions" -
iwanttocomment 1y ago
I've got a 13 year old EV and nobody has told me how to cash my EV in for reusable energy storage. (No, seriously, hit me up.)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Just sell it though normal channels. If your battery is with more than your car then there would be people making money on the arbitrage.
  - iwanttocomment 1y ago
    I totally get that, but as the owner, perhaps I'd like to make the money on the battery before the arbitragers.
    - Xemplolo 1y ago
      You are getting a base price but the rest needs to be enough to motivate people to handle your batterie and to install it somewhere. You can convert your batterie yourself into a grid support batterie for your own house to maximize your personal gain. But you are not doing things on scale, so you need to ignore your personal labor time.
    - hshdhdhehd 1y ago
      Wire it up to a solar panel and use it for home energy?
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      People look for used car parts at wreckers. EV batteries are no different.
torginus 1y ago
Personally speaking, having just bought an Ioniq 5 and installing solar at home what I see as the near future improvement is adding V2L functionality, which I can hook up to the generator input of my solar inverter, essentially adding another 60kWh buffer to my grid storage. Considering how expensive residential batteries are and how quickly EVs depreciate, I think soon it'll be cheaper to get a used EV as a cheap source of cells that accidentally happens to be able to drive itself around. Imo V2G, and V2H is unnecessary and add too much complication, I think for the future, solar inverters already have the necessary hardware and certifications to be able to take power and safely connect to the grid - something that requires different hardware and standards compliance in basically every country (yes even within the EU).
- irons 1y ago
  In the US, V2L limits your ability to output power from the car to about 1500 W. It's not going to power your house as more than a stopgap, even if you do have supplementary house batteries. V2H/V2G justify their complexity by solving that problem, along with all the ancillary grid benefits.
  - torginus 1y ago
    Not sure if that's the case - however doing V2L requires the manufacturer to add an inverter to the car, and making that powerful probably adds extra cost most customers wouldn't pay. TI just looked it up and my Ioniq can only do about 2kW sustained - but since this charges the house battery, that's enough - idle load is just a couple hundred watts.
    - nandomrumber 1y ago
      If the car charges the house battery, what charges the car?
      - irons 1y ago
        If you have solar panels or time-of-use electrical rates, you charge the car when power is cheap/free, and spend stored power when the grid costs are high. During a protracted outage, maybe you drive the car to a fast charger.
dreamcompiler 1y ago
This is great! Now I have a place to take my old puffy Li-Ion batteries. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/
almosthere 1y ago
We don't need ev batteries for this. We just need cheap enough LifePo4 so we're not burning more shit down. Prismatics from China are a start, Salt batteries showing some promise next.
tedk-42 1y ago
> but what if they could drain every last drop of energy from those batteries before recycling them? Again batteries are an energy store and not an energy source. The fact the author cannot distinguish that makes the their opinion less credible.
- hinkley 1y ago
  All I can think is embodied energy? That’s weird.
- Xemplolo 1y ago
  You are just not able to comprehend basic writing styles. The author is a journalist and not the expert he is interviewing thats the first thing. So why would you even evaluate the journalists 'expertise' if you get the answers from the experts. And secondly what he probalby meant was that what if this company can 'push out' all active lifecycle before they recycle them. This is called a metapher.
  - adwn 1y ago
    > And secondly what he probalby meant was […] If they can't precisely convey the intended meaning in written words, they shouldn't be a journalist.
    - Xemplolo 1y ago
      Journalists write for an audiance which normally gets it. You just might not be one of them. And no no one needs to write everything so that everyone always gets it. I for example do not write blog articles for kids. I also don't write very technical blog articles for people outside of tech.
      - adwn 1y ago
        > Journalists write for an audiance which normally gets it. That's a bullshit justification. "It's factually wrong, but that's okay, the true audience knows what the author means anyway." Then why write it at all? It makes no sense. Stop making up excuses for clueless journalists.
kibitzor 1y ago
>So top of the list for us, of course, designing this thing is safety. Funny issue I learned after talking to a founder at a similar company: although the battery packs were certified safe for cars (passing crash tests, wild heat differences from AK to AZ, people sitting on top of the battery packs in the car) ... the founder had issues re-certifying the batteries for safe use in a static location for grid storage. The certification process treated his company like the batteries were made from scratch even though they used the same BMS/coolant lines/etc. already proven and tested. It's clear you still need strong safety regulations and practices in the rare case there's an event, but the founder noted the grid storage industry regulations were adding redundant safety testing and slowing down adoption. The founder also added it's difficult to compete on cost even with effectively free used EV batteries in this startup space of grid storage against the low cost of Chinese made grid-specific batteries due to the added testing + custom hardware + space constraints and other items. (Caveat: I didn't fact check any of their statements)
HocusLocus 1y ago
In an ice storm and cold cloudy snap that sweeps the country, NO lithium batteries will save the grid. I'm weary of this tunnel vision of the absurd. The only 'storage' that works is to pump water uphill with 'surplus' energy, and there is not and never will be a surplus. And these evaporartion tanks are on a scale that ecologists have to remember countless horror stories (eg., Glenn Canyon Dam). And of course there's always "mfft!" (another scheme with no numbers behind it so it's credible because I'm talking about it). The last time there was anything rational on the table was Perry under the Trump administration's 30-day rule proposal ( https://www.nucnet.org/news/nuclear-is-vital-to-us-national-security-as-doe-works-on-rescue-proposals-6-2-2019 https://www.nucnet.org/news/nuclear-is-vital-to-us-national-... ). It gave a hard industry incentive to any energy supplier who can have 30 days' fuel on site. This means nuclear and coal. This was no gimmick, it was the first time anyone faced reality about National Security as related to Energy for the grid and survival. And now AI datacenter yadda yadda, we're also talking about the luxury of keeping schools heated in Winter. Adverse weather even for a week is grid down game over for wind and solar. Proven natural gas are ~300 years, joy! As soon as they get around to sending pregnant whales across the ocean (losing ~20% of the gas-energy in cooling) it may even last 50 years! Before we have to go to endless war again.
AtlasBarfed 1y ago
I think car cells will be much more useful if they are packaged as replacement batteries for all the various battery powered tools, ebikes, etc. There's a consumer profit margin to absorb the repackaging and teardown. Maybe for home grid batteries they'll work too. Again, a consumer margin. Sodium Ion and other grid-specific storage will simply be too cheap for secondhand EV batteries to compete. And the retiring cells won't be any better in density and will be less safe than the higher density sodium ion and LFP that is hitting the market.
casey2 1y ago
Not second life, but first life. All EVs and charging stations should be reversible. In a world where fossil fuels cost their true value (~10x as much) and people still drive this would be a necessity for electricity generation
pensatoio 1y ago
What we really need is standard two way charging on these cars. Every home with an EV should have a backup battery built into the deal.
marsven_422 1y ago
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michidk 1y ago
see https://stabl.com/ https://stabl.com/
Gabrys1 1y ago
> Can “second life” EV batteries work as grid-scale energy storage? Yes. Thank you
Havoc 1y ago
The model makes intuitive sense. Just a question of timing and scale
janosch_123 1y ago
Https://allye.com are assembling a 1 megawatt hour unit. I got a tour last week, super exciting. They raised another $2.5M round too. Fellten and Allye are the biggest two here in the UK I think.
metalman 1y ago
NO! first only if industry and government grow some gonads and fully standardise the cells, and hardware for battery packs to allow for quick and easy dissasembly, testing, repair, and reuse, for off grid, and secondary mobile use, as industry will never trust used components for primary aplications, it is impossible to overstate how allergic industry is to this..... second sodium is comming NOW!, and it is cheaper and safer.
- Xemplolo 1y ago
  "NO!" while companies already do this successfully. But hey, why not being negative first eh? ;P
  - metalman 1y ago
    successfull?, maybe, we will see if fires, insurance, and end of life disposal costs leave any roe, plus there are no large scale used car battery grid storage plants, just green washing for data centers, where they are most definitly worried about fires, given the huge spacing between units, green washing/cred,scamenomics,, but most certainly, not grid scale
    - Xemplolo 1y ago
      maybe? come on why so negative? Voltfang has a few already in Germany. The Deutsche Bahn (german train system) also does that across its own grid. Batteries from EVs charging and discharging in stable environments are a lot saver (and they are save anyway) and do not degrade anymore. Why would that even be green washing? Where is this coming from? Those batteries are doing exactly what they should do and saved already co2 in their first lifetime. And what has this to do with data centers? All of these battery grid systems have veen started before the AI boom.
declan_roberts 1y ago
I've spoken to people about starting a Tesla EV battery replacement business here. Battery replacement on a Tesla is a pretty simple process that can be done by one person in about 4 hours. The problem is that it's still really hard to get your hands on salvage Tesla batteries. Enthusiasts and hackers snatch them up quickly and the used price is not very competitive with a new EV replacement from Tesla.
sciencesama 1y ago
Alao you can get a 10kv new battery for less than 2.5 (deye)
hamonrye 1y ago
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196 points by davidw 1y ago

Lucian6 1y ago

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chrisra 1y ago
> the real challenge is standardization and integration In what sense? I'm a newbie, but curious because I'm working on stuff related to https://mesastandards.org/mesa-der-std/ https://mesastandards.org/mesa-der-std/.
adwn 1y ago
> New grid storage batteries cost around $200-300/kWh That doesn't sound right. You can already get high-quality, prismatic LFP cells for ~50 US$/kWh [1] from European distributors at low-volumes, so bulk from China should be even cheaper. And there's no way that balancing and BMS cost an additional 150-250 US$/kWh at scale, not even a tenth of that. [1] https://www.nkon.nl/novat/eve-lf230-prismatic-230ah-230a-lifepo4-2022.html https://www.nkon.nl/novat/eve-lf230-prismatic-230ah-230a-lif...
- mcbishop 1y ago
  Right, $200-300/kWh is more the range for ~16kWh residential stationary energy storage systems.
overfeed 1y ago
> Having worked extensively with battery systems, I think the grid storage potential of second-life EV batteries is more complex than it appears. Complex, by t very much doable. Toyota implemented such a system with enough packs to power a Mazda factory [1] > However, you need to factor in significant integration costs (~$50-75/kWh) to build compatible BMS systems and thermal management. Shouldn't this be a once-off cost per battery-pack version? Or was this your armortized cost for your deployment capacity. If you've written the BMS for a 2019 Model 3 Panasonic battey pack once, won't you reuse it for all the subsequent battery packs of the same model/SKU? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44998010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44998010
- adwn 1y ago
  > Shouldn't this be a once-off cost per battery-pack version? A BMS isn't just software. It requires a µC, voltage and temperature sensors for cell monitoring, and power electronics for cell balancing. However, those are all comparatively cheap, especially at scale, and the quoted cost of 50–75 US$/kWh looks ridiculously overpriced to me.
  - overfeed 1y ago
    I expect EV batteries to have all those components preinstalled already, and naively thought the grid-integration involves reverse engineering the battery's protocol, and perhaps bypassing/replacing a µC or 3.
Xemplolo 1y ago
How can this be a real issue? We don't have a lot of car makers and we do not have a huge amount of EV models. Either you are doing this on small scale, than you can select one or two specific EV models and use these batterie packs or you do it in big scale, than you can also easily adapt the most x batterie packs and only use these across your system. If you go down to the cell level, its more effort true but then you probably only handel cell types of a handfull of manufacturer again.
- DanielHB 1y ago
  You can't really mix different types of cells together in the same pack. Even cells with the same manufacturer and chemistry can be problematic to mix if they are at different wear levels (or even from different batches from the same factory). This is only practical if you reuse the whole pack, or at least the modules. And for that to work well you also need a lot of complex software to keep the packs working well with each other (like balancing power levels between the packs). BMS software is no joke, it is already hard and complex enough when using brand new battery packs and cells of the same chemistry and manufacturer and wear level. Any kind of mixing massively increases the complexity and safety concerns.
  - Xemplolo 1y ago
    So they already come with a BMS. Create a MetaBMS. The BMS of the cell pack doesn't care if a car requests energy between 0 and max and a BMS doesn't care either if it gets 0-100 kWh. My car can easily charge from a household plug up to fast charger. My car consumes very random amounts of energy while i drive.
jwr 1y ago
> the real challenge is standardization and integration. Different manufacturers use vastly different battery management systems (BMS) and cell configurations - a Tesla pack is fundamentally different from a Nissan Leaf pack. Isn't that exactly what the article is about? Have you actually read the article?

bryanlarsen 1y ago

This is less useful than most people expected. Redwood has been struggling because the expected battery turnover is not occurring. EV batteries are lasting a long time, so they stay in the car are and not being recycled or reused in any quantity yet. If EV batteries last 20+ years in EV's, it'll be > 2040 before there are significant numbers of EV batteries available to recycle or reuse. https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/ https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/

jeffbee 1y ago
There is one constant to all these conversations and that is Silicon Valley tech dudes are grossly misinformed about the lifecycle of things. Solar panels don't wear out, batteries don't wear out as fast as they used to. This is evidenced both by undertaking weird dead-end startup ideas, and being susceptible to propaganda about the supposed downsides of solar energy and batteries.
pfdietz 1y ago
So, basically the same reason recycling of PV modules hasn't taken off.
- Rebelgecko 1y ago
  I've been intrigued by used solar panels for sale, seems like you can get an amazing price for ones that are only lightly degraded. Is there a downside, or do you just mean that it isn't popular currently?
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    I think they were referring to the fact that the chief reason there is not large-scale PV panel recycling is that very few panels have ever been retired. It turns out that short of physical destruction by hail etc a PV panel does not degrade beyond economic usefulness simply by being out in the sun. In fact some panels actually get more powerful. The surprising-to-some conclusion of NREL's PV Lifetime Project is that the economic lifetime of a PV panel is basically forever.

dylan604 1y ago

Without being a battery chemistry expert, why do these battery packs become not useful for an EV yet could still be useful for energy storage. They keep saying that 80% of life becomes unusable for EV, but that's still a lot of life. Is it that grid energy is more of a constant drain while the EV is lots of hard pulls (for lack of better wording)? In an EV, the battery cannot provide the higher volts being requested within rating, but a grid is never demanding peak performance?

MarioMan 1y ago
Space and weight are serious constraints in the car space, but not such a big deal on the side of a house. That’s how they retain their usefulness. 80% could indeed be plenty of usable life for your EV use cases, but it strongly depends on usage patterns. More degradation means more trips to the charger on a road trip. It means trips that you’d regularly make just charging at home at the end of day now require you to plug in at the destination too. It means more range anxiety as a whole.
HWR_14 1y ago
For an EV you want a high energy density, because it impacts range. For grid storage, density doesn't matter as much.
benzible 1y ago
It's not just about capacity (80% is still a lot), it's that degraded batteries lose their ability to deliver high current under load—so acceleration suffers and voltage sags under hard pulls. For grid storage, you're doing slow, steady charge/discharge cycles over hours, so the same battery that can't handle aggressive driving anymore works perfectly fine. Plus, grid storage has virtually unlimited space and no range anxiety, so if you need 25% more packs to hit your capacity target, you just stack them in a warehouse where real estate is cheap.
- miahi 1y ago
  Also, batteries will degrade faster over time when they start to degrade, because they need more frequent charging. Their internal resistance increase and that promotes heat buildup during fast charging/discharging, another thing that promotes degradation. Slow charge/discharge cycles also help with heat management.

KaiserPro 1y ago

> Can "second life" EV batteries work as grid-scale energy storage? Yes is it profitable? probably not. Looking at the price for brid battery storage, and its dropping precipitously. The cost isn't as much in the batteries them selves, it packaging, placing and then controlling them. For example if you want to have a 200Mwhr 100Mw storage site, you'll need to place it, join it to the grid, all doable. Then you need the switch gear to make it work as you want it to. For day ahead, 30 minute trading, thats fairly simple. For grid stabilisation, thats a bit harder, you need to be able to lead/match/lag the grid frequency by n degrees instantaneously. which is trivial at a few kw, much harder at 100Mw

nop_slide 1y ago
Sounds like what https://www.basepowercompany.com/ https://www.basepowercompany.com/ is doing
Xemplolo 1y ago
'probably not'? Based on what numbers? Germany alone had to pay 2 billion in dispatch measures to energy providers. And in the last 6 month we had news about a HUGE request of companies wanting to build grid stabilisation and grid market battery systems in a range of over 100GwH. Also we do have industries which would be able to save a ton of money if the invest in smaller but similiar systems today already due to energy prices. And in germany for example, we do have a lot of wind energy in the north but not enough live transit capacity to get it into the south. In this scenario the market would again stabilize the grid by charging at night from cheap / free wind energy production in north and transfering it to the south and then using it at day.

1970-01-01 1y ago

Betteridge's law of headlines finally fails? TL;DR: Yes, but you can also make it 'not work' if you choose to politicize the tech solution to the energy problem.

dukeofdoom 1y ago

Seems like the market is going the hybrid route. It's kind of easy to see why, best of both worlds. Some BYD hybrids have crazy ranges like 1500 km on a tank of gas. The more practical car is winning. They put in a much small battery in these for fast charge, and the daily commute range. And you have gas, for longer trips. Maybe smaller batteries would be better for grid-scale storage too. If they're lighter and easier to handle.

pinkgolem 1y ago
i have heard that hybrid's have a maintanance problem? is not a concern, double the technologie in the same space?
- dukeofdoom 1y ago
  Not sure about that, since I did never owned one either. But I watched a review BYD car yesterday. And it's supper nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6bqgR3NRHE&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6bqgR3NRHE&t=1s
- dukeofdoom 1y ago
  It's possible it might actually be more reliable long term, once the technology matures. For example, in cold weather the gas engine might heat the battery for better battery performance, maybe even extend its life if it prevents it from being drawn down too much. The gas engine, would also likely last longer since its not used for daily commutes. "In many PHEV systems, there are different modes: Electric mode (EV mode): The vehicle runs purely on the electric motor(s) and battery until the battery depletes to some extent. Hybrid/Parallel mode: Both the petrol engine and electric motor(s) work together to drive the wheels, especially under high load, higher speeds or when battery is low. Ithy Series mode (in some designs): The petrol engine acts only as a generator to charge the battery or power the electric motor(s), and the wheels are driven by the electric motor(s). For the BYD Leopard 5 (and many BYD PHEVs) the petrol engine can drive the wheels (i.e., it is not purely a generator). It is part of the drive system, especially when high power or long range is needed. At the same time, it likely can assist with charging the battery or maintaining battery state of charge (SOC) when needed (for example, to keep the battery at some reserve level or in “save” mode). User-reports show that the petrol engine will kick in to support the electric system, charge the battery, or assist the drive under certain conditions" -

iwanttocomment 1y ago

I've got a 13 year old EV and nobody has told me how to cash my EV in for reusable energy storage. (No, seriously, hit me up.)

deleted 1y ago
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bryanlarsen 1y ago
Just sell it though normal channels. If your battery is with more than your car then there would be people making money on the arbitrage.
- iwanttocomment 1y ago
  I totally get that, but as the owner, perhaps I'd like to make the money on the battery before the arbitragers.
  - Xemplolo 1y ago
    You are getting a base price but the rest needs to be enough to motivate people to handle your batterie and to install it somewhere. You can convert your batterie yourself into a grid support batterie for your own house to maximize your personal gain. But you are not doing things on scale, so you need to ignore your personal labor time.
  - hshdhdhehd 1y ago
    Wire it up to a solar panel and use it for home energy?
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    People look for used car parts at wreckers. EV batteries are no different.

torginus 1y ago

Personally speaking, having just bought an Ioniq 5 and installing solar at home what I see as the near future improvement is adding V2L functionality, which I can hook up to the generator input of my solar inverter, essentially adding another 60kWh buffer to my grid storage. Considering how expensive residential batteries are and how quickly EVs depreciate, I think soon it'll be cheaper to get a used EV as a cheap source of cells that accidentally happens to be able to drive itself around. Imo V2G, and V2H is unnecessary and add too much complication, I think for the future, solar inverters already have the necessary hardware and certifications to be able to take power and safely connect to the grid - something that requires different hardware and standards compliance in basically every country (yes even within the EU).

irons 1y ago
In the US, V2L limits your ability to output power from the car to about 1500 W. It's not going to power your house as more than a stopgap, even if you do have supplementary house batteries. V2H/V2G justify their complexity by solving that problem, along with all the ancillary grid benefits.
- torginus 1y ago
  Not sure if that's the case - however doing V2L requires the manufacturer to add an inverter to the car, and making that powerful probably adds extra cost most customers wouldn't pay. TI just looked it up and my Ioniq can only do about 2kW sustained - but since this charges the house battery, that's enough - idle load is just a couple hundred watts.
  - nandomrumber 1y ago
    If the car charges the house battery, what charges the car?
    - irons 1y ago
      If you have solar panels or time-of-use electrical rates, you charge the car when power is cheap/free, and spend stored power when the grid costs are high. During a protracted outage, maybe you drive the car to a fast charger.

dreamcompiler 1y ago

This is great! Now I have a place to take my old puffy Li-Ion batteries. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/

almosthere 1y ago

We don't need ev batteries for this. We just need cheap enough LifePo4 so we're not burning more shit down. Prismatics from China are a start, Salt batteries showing some promise next.

tedk-42 1y ago

> but what if they could drain every last drop of energy from those batteries before recycling them? Again batteries are an energy store and not an energy source. The fact the author cannot distinguish that makes the their opinion less credible.

hinkley 1y ago
All I can think is embodied energy? That’s weird.
Xemplolo 1y ago
You are just not able to comprehend basic writing styles. The author is a journalist and not the expert he is interviewing thats the first thing. So why would you even evaluate the journalists 'expertise' if you get the answers from the experts. And secondly what he probalby meant was that what if this company can 'push out' all active lifecycle before they recycle them. This is called a metapher.
- adwn 1y ago
  > And secondly what he probalby meant was […] If they can't precisely convey the intended meaning in written words, they shouldn't be a journalist.
  - Xemplolo 1y ago
    Journalists write for an audiance which normally gets it. You just might not be one of them. And no no one needs to write everything so that everyone always gets it. I for example do not write blog articles for kids. I also don't write very technical blog articles for people outside of tech.
    - adwn 1y ago
      > Journalists write for an audiance which normally gets it. That's a bullshit justification. "It's factually wrong, but that's okay, the true audience knows what the author means anyway." Then why write it at all? It makes no sense. Stop making up excuses for clueless journalists.

kibitzor 1y ago

>So top of the list for us, of course, designing this thing is safety. Funny issue I learned after talking to a founder at a similar company: although the battery packs were certified safe for cars (passing crash tests, wild heat differences from AK to AZ, people sitting on top of the battery packs in the car) ... the founder had issues re-certifying the batteries for safe use in a static location for grid storage. The certification process treated his company like the batteries were made from scratch even though they used the same BMS/coolant lines/etc. already proven and tested. It's clear you still need strong safety regulations and practices in the rare case there's an event, but the founder noted the grid storage industry regulations were adding redundant safety testing and slowing down adoption. The founder also added it's difficult to compete on cost even with effectively free used EV batteries in this startup space of grid storage against the low cost of Chinese made grid-specific batteries due to the added testing + custom hardware + space constraints and other items. (Caveat: I didn't fact check any of their statements)

HocusLocus 1y ago

In an ice storm and cold cloudy snap that sweeps the country, NO lithium batteries will save the grid. I'm weary of this tunnel vision of the absurd. The only 'storage' that works is to pump water uphill with 'surplus' energy, and there is not and never will be a surplus. And these evaporartion tanks are on a scale that ecologists have to remember countless horror stories (eg., Glenn Canyon Dam). And of course there's always "mfft!" (another scheme with no numbers behind it so it's credible because I'm talking about it). The last time there was anything rational on the table was Perry under the Trump administration's 30-day rule proposal ( https://www.nucnet.org/news/nuclear-is-vital-to-us-national-security-as-doe-works-on-rescue-proposals-6-2-2019 https://www.nucnet.org/news/nuclear-is-vital-to-us-national-... ). It gave a hard industry incentive to any energy supplier who can have 30 days' fuel on site. This means nuclear and coal. This was no gimmick, it was the first time anyone faced reality about National Security as related to Energy for the grid and survival. And now AI datacenter yadda yadda, we're also talking about the luxury of keeping schools heated in Winter. Adverse weather even for a week is grid down game over for wind and solar. Proven natural gas are ~300 years, joy! As soon as they get around to sending pregnant whales across the ocean (losing ~20% of the gas-energy in cooling) it may even last 50 years! Before we have to go to endless war again.

AtlasBarfed 1y ago

I think car cells will be much more useful if they are packaged as replacement batteries for all the various battery powered tools, ebikes, etc. There's a consumer profit margin to absorb the repackaging and teardown. Maybe for home grid batteries they'll work too. Again, a consumer margin. Sodium Ion and other grid-specific storage will simply be too cheap for secondhand EV batteries to compete. And the retiring cells won't be any better in density and will be less safe than the higher density sodium ion and LFP that is hitting the market.

casey2 1y ago

Not second life, but first life. All EVs and charging stations should be reversible. In a world where fossil fuels cost their true value (~10x as much) and people still drive this would be a necessity for electricity generation

pensatoio 1y ago

What we really need is standard two way charging on these cars. Every home with an EV should have a backup battery built into the deal.

marsven_422 1y ago

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michidk 1y ago

see https://stabl.com/ https://stabl.com/

Gabrys1 1y ago

> Can “second life” EV batteries work as grid-scale energy storage? Yes. Thank you

Havoc 1y ago

The model makes intuitive sense. Just a question of timing and scale

janosch_123 1y ago

Https://allye.com are assembling a 1 megawatt hour unit. I got a tour last week, super exciting. They raised another $2.5M round too. Fellten and Allye are the biggest two here in the UK I think.

metalman 1y ago

NO! first only if industry and government grow some gonads and fully standardise the cells, and hardware for battery packs to allow for quick and easy dissasembly, testing, repair, and reuse, for off grid, and secondary mobile use, as industry will never trust used components for primary aplications, it is impossible to overstate how allergic industry is to this..... second sodium is comming NOW!, and it is cheaper and safer.

Xemplolo 1y ago
"NO!" while companies already do this successfully. But hey, why not being negative first eh? ;P
- metalman 1y ago
  successfull?, maybe, we will see if fires, insurance, and end of life disposal costs leave any roe, plus there are no large scale used car battery grid storage plants, just green washing for data centers, where they are most definitly worried about fires, given the huge spacing between units, green washing/cred,scamenomics,, but most certainly, not grid scale
  - Xemplolo 1y ago
    maybe? come on why so negative? Voltfang has a few already in Germany. The Deutsche Bahn (german train system) also does that across its own grid. Batteries from EVs charging and discharging in stable environments are a lot saver (and they are save anyway) and do not degrade anymore. Why would that even be green washing? Where is this coming from? Those batteries are doing exactly what they should do and saved already co2 in their first lifetime. And what has this to do with data centers? All of these battery grid systems have veen started before the AI boom.

declan_roberts 1y ago

I've spoken to people about starting a Tesla EV battery replacement business here. Battery replacement on a Tesla is a pretty simple process that can be done by one person in about 4 hours. The problem is that it's still really hard to get your hands on salvage Tesla batteries. Enthusiasts and hackers snatch them up quickly and the used price is not very competitive with a new EV replacement from Tesla.

sciencesama 1y ago

Alao you can get a 10kv new battery for less than 2.5 (deye)

hamonrye 1y ago

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