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

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

#11

Post by dylan604 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #6
dylan604 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: David Roberts When did automotive batteries become the majority of your input by volume? Colin Campbell That is a good question. David Roberts Was it recent or was that early on? Colin Campbell I would say the transition to EV batteries dominating what we received, it’s been in the last year or 18 months. David Roberts So the front edge of a very large wave of batteries has begun to arrive? Colin Campbell Y…

Reading between the lines of the corporate speak will validate my point. Redwood was founded in 2017.

"It’s the largest microgrid in North America and it’s the largest second-energy storage site in the world. So that’s like you said at the top, it’s a 12-megawatt AC, 63-megawatt-hour grid supporting about 2 or 3 megawatts of data centers and run by solar. So all the energy comes from another 12 megawatts of solar."

Sure, so while not supplying power to a city, they are proving this is viable. Just because it's not "turn off the coal plants now" moment doesn't mean this isn't a very good direction. Everyone has to start and grow. I don't understand the whole shit on something because it's not an immediate solve. If these guys waited until 2040 to start the business, well, that'd just be dumb. It essentially sounds like capacity will just continue to increase year over year, maybe around 2040 there will be a huge spike. Doesn't seem like anything is wrong here.

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

#12

Post by dylan604 »

jeffbee wrote: post #7
dylan604 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: David Roberts When did automotive batteries become the majority of your input by volume? Colin Campbell That is a good question. David Roberts Was it recent or was that early on? Colin Campbell I would say the transition to EV batteries dominating what we received, it’s been in the last year or 18 months. David Roberts So the front edge of a very large wave of batteries has begun to arrive? Colin Campbell Y…

He's just talking his book. Their deployment this year was 1/4000th share of the BESS market.

Battery Energy Storage System for anyone else like me that has no knowledge of this world and their acronyms.

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

#13

Post by MarioMan »

dylan604 wrote: post #9

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…

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.

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

#14

Post by HWR_14 »

dylan604 wrote: post #9

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…

For an EV you want a high energy density, because it impacts range. For grid storage, density doesn't matter as much.

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

#15

Post by p1necone »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

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/e…

> "most people"

"most people" even now are just parroting dumb FUD they read on facebook. You really shouldn't give any weight to the opinions of laypeople on topics that are as heavily propagandized and politically charged as renewable energy.

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

#16

Post by KaiserPro »

> 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

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

#17

Post by Rebelgecko »

pfdietz wrote: post #4
bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

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/e…

So, basically the same reason recycling of PV modules hasn't taken off.

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?

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

#18

Post by p0w3n3d »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

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/e…

Tesla batteries fail after 8 years at least from models up to 2014

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

#19

Post by JohnLocke4 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

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/e…

In 2040 fusion energy advancements will have gotten far enough to be the next technological step and make this redundant anyway

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

#20

Post by cogman10 »

ACCount37 wrote: post #8
bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

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/e…

A lot of the early EV battery life projections were based on Nissan Leaf Gen 1. Which had a horrendous battery pack that combined poor choice of chemistry, aggressive usage and a complete lack of active cooling. When EVs with good battery pack engineering started hitting the streets, they outperformed those early projections by a lot. And by now, it's getting clear that battery pack isn't as much of a concern - with…

I'll defend the leaf a little.

LiPo batteries were quiet expensive when it was initially released. NiMH was really the only option in town.

And with a lower energy density battery that's also heavier, adding a cooling system would have also added a bunch of weight to the already heavy car with a barely usable range of 100 miles.

Gen 2, however, had no excuses. They had every opportunity to add active cooling and they still decided to go with just air cooling.

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