EV battery second-life project starts

This story first appeared in the October issue of EvTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE

A project is under way to evaluate the need for a specific strategy for New Zealand to ensure retired EV batteries still provide maximum return before heading to recycling.

The project carried out by Strategic Lift is jointly funded by the Waste Minimisation Fund and Winstone Wallboards.

The $40,000 funding from the Waste Minimisation Fund, which represents two thirds of the project cost, was approved by associate environment minister Eugenie Sage.

Winstone Wallboards is interested in the built-environment implications of second-life batteries installed as stationary storage in residential, commercial, or industrial applications.

The company’s sustainability manager Kevin Golding is checking out how this would work.

“The project involves reviewing the extensive literature about EV batteries and potential second life applications, as well as interviewing industry players from car manufacturers to importers, to battery recyclers and the growing community of potential participants in a second-life industry,” Strategic Life chief executive officer Paul Minett says.

It aims to estimate the flows of batteries coming out of EVs in New Zealand, when those flows will occur, what the batteries’ remaining capacity will be, and therefore what would be available for second-life use.

“Initially, there was an understanding that a battery would stay in a car for perhaps eight to 10 years, while it got down to 70% or 80% of its original range, and then be removed and replaced with a new battery,” Minett says.

“This was expected because of the importance given to range anxiety, that car owners would not want a vehicle that wouldn’t deliver occasional long trips.

“Finding a use for those 70%-80% capacity batteries so that the remaining capacity could be beneficially used before the battery entered the recycle stream would therefore be important.

“It would be especially important by the time the majority of the vehicle fleet is electrified and each year there would be a virtual torrent of second-life-available batteries coming on to the market.

“What the research is telling us, and we are hearing from people in the industry, is that quite a different picture is emerging,” Minett says.

“The earliest EVs are now over eight years old and, while some people would like to refresh their battery, the most likely use of their old one would be refurbishment and exchange back into another EV.

“There is a lively market for eight-year-old EVs that still have sufficient range to meet the owner’s needs.Range anxiety seems to disappear, especially when there is ample charging availability.”

Minett says the technology exists, and many pilot projects around the world are testing different second-life applications.

“But the reality is that it is difficult at the moment to source any volume of ex-EV batteries.

“Much of the activity in this space is predicated on the assumption of a large supply of cheap, quite high capacity used batteries.

”We are finding that this assumption needs to be challenged.The cars might last a lot longer, the batteries might stay in the cars a lot longer, and the batteries when they become available for second life might have much less capacity, than has previously been expected.”

Minett says it might be ecologically desirable for those batteries to go into a second life but questions whether it will be economically viable.

“When you consider that the second life applications could equally be filled using new batteries, and the price of new batteries 20 years into the future could be quite a lot lower than the price today, the economic question becomes really important.”

Taken together with the economic viability of recycling, where at present the value of the recovered minerals is lower than the cost of the recycling process, the risk of a flow of used EV batteries to landfill appears much greater, Minett says.

He’s interested in in connecting with people with knowledge of this topic.Phone 021 289 8444 or emailpaulminett@strategic-lift.com for more information.

*See P27 for BlueCars’ work on EV batteries.