Key Takeaways
- The growing demand for electric vehicles means millions of used EV batteries will soon flood the market.
- Second-life EV batteries allow a longer useful life for expensive materials.
- Reusing, recycling, and repurposing old EV batteries reduces emissions and pollution and helps the transition to clean energy.
More than 40 million of the world’s 1.5 billion cars are now electric vehicles (EVs). In 2023 alone, EV sales reached 14 million EV units, driven by sales in China, Europe, and the United States.
Those 40 million batteries equate to over 2,200 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electrical power,
Furthermore, by 2030, anywhere from 62-86% of all new car sales will be new EVs. That radical switch to electric power has consequences beyond the environmental benefits of zero tailpipe emissions. The batteries represent dozens of mobile power plants and fertile mineral reserves.
However, EV batteries have a limited working life. After serving its purpose, what happens to each module becomes as crucial to sustainability as the change to EVs. Here’s why second-life EV batteries can be reused, repurposed, and recycled.
What Are Second-Life EV Batteries?
Second-life EV batteries are used EV batteries have reached the end of their life as automotive battery modules. This happens when their stored energy capacity—their state of health (SOH)—drops to around 70-80% of their original capacity.
However, a second-life EV battery isn’t dead and ready to be discarded. They have storage application possibilities that help reduce their carbon footprint. Moreover, repurposing electric vehicle batteries can increase renewable energy’s impact in transitioning to net-zero emissions as an energy storage object.
What’s the Lifespan of an Electric Vehicle Battery?
The Department of Energy (DOE) reports that modern EV batteries last 12 to 15 years. All automakers offer an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty on EV battery packs.
However, some experts think the latest EV batteries could propel cars up to 500,000 miles before retiring.
Either way, millions of EV car batteries will cease to be fit for powering automobiles in the coming decades. This opens a significant market and supply for lithium-ion batteries, chock-full of valuable materials.
All batteries have a shelf life with limited charges. With current technology, your new EV will eventually need a new battery. That’s why second-life EV battery repurposing is vital to the industry’s supply chain, keeping valuable minerals working longer and maximizing a battery’s useful life.
A new, sustainable business model of reusing and recycling will emerge. It needs to: Only around 5% of all lithium-ion batteries are currently recycled, compared to 99% of lead batteries.
How Can We Reuse Second-Life EV Batteries?
Repurposed EV batteries can lead a beneficial life after powering EVs.
Firstly, they can be refurbished and resold as replacement batteries in second-hand EVs or for car conversions.
Second-life EV batteries can store energy as Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), releasing their power on demand to balance the grid during peak demand times or as a backup power source for hospitals or other vital services. This makes installing renewable energy sources like solar panels or wind turbines more attractive for homeowners, businesses, and industries, squeezing the maximum benefits of any clean energy generated.
A repurposed EV battery could even store energy to charge a new EV’s battery pack later. For example, the EV charging network can repurpose second-life EV batteries at charging stations, using them as energy stores that power up automobiles.
This second-hand battery supply could also provide a mobile power charging or backup system. Repurposing reduces the EV battery’s carbon footprint because it is useful over a longer period.
New EV battery chemistry prototypes are in the pipeline, but for now, automakers prefer lithium-ion batteries. Eventually, lithium-ion batteries require recycling, which extracts valuable materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese.
How Are Second-Life EV Batteries Repurposed?
Most repurposed EV batteries go through one of three phases:
- Combining several EV battery pack modules to create a better functioning module.
- Refurbishing modules by disassembling and reconditioning separate cells.
- Recycling the battery to extract its valuable metals for reuse.
Second-Life EV Batteries: Why Do We Need Them?
The relentless rise of EVs and their associated batteries demands lithium and graphite, among other materials. However, by 2030, global demand for lithium is expected to be more than four times the anticipated supply levels. Graphite may see 1,400% growth in demand between now and 2050, much of this to serve the EV market.
Recycling will reduce this associated mining pollution. Lithium mining is notoriously tricky, from pollution worries to endangering miners’ health. Graphite mining can spoil water courses, bring deforestation, and affect biodiversity.
Repurposing EV battery packs reduces the need to exploit natural resources and sweat the EV battery’s precious assets, helping to reduce its carbon footprint during its second life. Many of an EV battery’s valuable materials can be recycled multiple times, creating a positive circular economy.
The benefits of electrifying our energy supplies require sustainability at their core. An EV’s lifecycle emissions impact is half that of a gas-powered automobile and has zero tailpipe emissions. But we must do better with the world’s finite resources.
Millions of repurposed EV batteries improve energy storage capabilities, especially from renewable energy sources. Reduced-emissions electricity can help mitigate some of the climate change damage our lifestyles provoke.
What Are the Economic Benefits of Using Second-Life EV Batteries?
The circular economy created from second-life EV batteries creates jobs and spurs local economies. The value of precious materials in the batteries remains within the economy instead of being tossed aside or exported for repurposing.The circular economy created from second-life EV batteries creates jobs and spurs local economies. The value of precious materials in the batteries remains within the economy instead of being tossed aside or exported for repurposing.
Added worth comes from jobs associated with the processes, from transport to recycling to feeding electricity back into the power grid. Up to may develop from every 1,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries collected.
Tesla claims 100% of its batteries are recycled, with none going to landfill. It’s vital for the sustainability of EVs to keep the pollutants like lithium in working processes rather than wasting them.
In Nevada, Redwood Materials’ new EV battery recycling plant will eventually process up to 250,000 used batteries annually. By 2028, it hopes to provide enough of an EV battery’s crucial cathode material to build 1.3 million batteries. This battery manufacturing development aims to claw back economic benefits in EV battery recycling, which market-dominant China currently enjoys.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) also see value in end-of-life EV batteries. Selling or renting used batteries to a repurposer like an energy storage company is a potentially lucrative business. A battery’s second-life application extends its generation capabilities while remaining under the OEM’s ownership.
How Do Second-Life Batteries Contribute to Sustainability?
One estimate suggested that if we recycle all EV batteries between now and 2050, the required mining of minerals for EV batteries could be reduced by almost two-thirds.
Second-life EV batteries increase sustainability by:
- Lowering emissions and pollution associated with mining the material for and manufacturing of EV batteries, minimizing their ecological footprint.
- Creating a circular economy that boosts jobs and the economy and extracts maximum use of precious resources.
- Reducing the EV battery’s overall environmental impact and increasing its useful life.
- Adding environmental benefits by supporting the expansion of charging stations to support EVs and electric bikes.
- Reducing waste through recycling means less toxic garbage in landfills.
Which Companies Lead the Way in Second-Life Battery Applications?
China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Limited (CATL) is the world’s largest EV battery manufacturer, supplying manufacturers like Tesla, Volkswagen, and BMW.
Second-life EV batteries offer American and European companies an opportunity to reduce their reliance on Chinese imports and create their own clean energy circular economy.
North America has Redwood Materials and Li-Cycle. EV capital California has B2U Storage Solutions. Umicore in Belgium is one of the continent’s leaders. Indeed, it is expanding beyond Europe, with manufacturing spreading to Ontario and Canada.
Connected Energy in the UK does just that—it links companies in the used battery world’s value chain. It knits second-life EV battery supply to OEMs to create battery energy storage system (BESS) units, with rows upon rows of used batteries repurposed to create robust energy storage supplies.
Automakers are also wading in. In the UK, Nissan Leaf EV batteries will be given a second life thanks to a Nissan partnership with Ecobat. In Germany, Mercedes-Benz has second-life BESSs from EV batteries in Hanover with 17 megawatt hours capacity (MWh). China’s BYD is also moving into second-life batteries as the country looks to build on its EV battery-making dominance.
What Challenges Exist in the Recycling and Repurposing of EV Batteries?
Repurposing second-life EV batteries is made challenging by:
- The different states of health, performance, and capacity of used batteries. AnyBESS performs as well as its “worst-state” battery cell.
- Achieving consistent performance with repurposed batteries.
- Finding suitable second-life applications for optimal performance.
- Safety concerns over leakage.
- The lack of standardized processes for testing and repurposing batteries creates regulatory issues and gaps.
- The economic viability of second-life battery projects depends significantly on the quality and condition of used batteries supplied, plus their potential second working life timeframe.
- Current market development for second-life EV batteries is still in its infancy, limiting potential investment.
One solution put forward is a battery passport. This document could carry information about the battery’s materials, age, and performance to make used battery trading more straightforward throughout the supply chain.
Furthermore, EV battery prices have decreased six-fold in the last 15 years. A Nissan Leaf battery has gone from costing around $30k to $5k, and a Tesla Model S from $60k to $12k. However, they are still packed with valuable materials that will only become scarcer as the EV revolution progresses.
Do New Batteries Perform Better Than Second-Life Batteries?
First-life, or new batteries, last longer and perform better in automobiles than reconditioned EV batteries. Repurposed batteries, usually cheaper than new ones, can still offer a useful working life through careful driving and maintenance.
Second-Life EV Batteries: Part of Clean Energy’s Best Future
The dramatic increase in electric vehicle purchases means millions of EV batteries are being manufactured. These batteries eventually no longer generate the required power and are replaced.
These used batteries need not go to landfills. Second-life EV batteries make the most of these valuable resources. We can reuse, repurpose, and recycle used EV batteries to create new EV batteries or energy storage modules.
Strings of old EV batteries can power charging stations, capture excess renewable energy, and light homes. They can also be recycled, with precious materials like lithium, graphite, and nickel extracted, creating a circular economy.
The world is turning its back on fossil fuels and turning to clean energy. Second-life EV batteries are just one small part of humanity’s efforts to reduce emissions and care for natural resources in a way that previous industrial processes didn’t.
Brought to you by amigoenergy
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