Used car batteries as power storage

09/19/2023

Source: Energy & Management Powernews

Ebattery Systems from Wolfurt in Vorarlberg has installed its first storage systems. They are used for peak load balancing and optimized use of PV systems.

Electricity storage systems based on used lithium-ion batteries from electric as well as hybrid vehicles are produced and marketed by Ebattery Systems GmbH, based in Wolfurt in Vorarlberg (Austria). The first plant with 260 kWh went into operation in July. Its purpose is to balance peak loads at a commercial park in Schlins in Vorarberg. The park is supplied with electricity from a small hydropower plant in its immediate vicinity.

The second plant, with a capacity of 1.6 MW, is located in Sennwald in Switzerland. It is used to store surplus electricity from a photovoltaic system that Bischof Lagerhaus AG uses to supply its storage center there with electrical energy for cooling food stocks. The fully automated center has 10,000 frozen pallet spaces, 1,000 multi-temperature pallet spaces and 15,000 dry pallet spaces, according to Ebattery. Currently, the PV system's output is nearly doubled to 1.8 MW. The storage system is intended to optimize the use of electricity from the plant, Ebattery announced.

According to the company, the useful life of vehicle batteries can be extended by about ten years through their use as stationary electricity storage systems. According to Ebattery, the costs are up to 30 percent lower than those of new battery storage systems, and material requirements are said to be around 70 percent lower. According to a release, Ebattery plans to produce storage systems with a total capacity of 15,000 kWh this year. "In the future," annual production of systems with 1 million kWh of storage capacity is planned, it said. The storage systems are modular in design. Capacities of 260 to about 4,700 kWh can be represented.

Author: Klaus Fischer