Extending the useful life of EV batteries mitigates the influence of producing them, stated Maria Chavez, power analyst on the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The whole point of trying to deploy electric vehicles is to reduce emissions and reduce the negative impacts of things like manufacturing and extractive processes on our environment and our communities,” Chavez informed Grist. “By extending the life of a battery, we reduce the need for further exploitation of our natural resources, we reduce the demand for raw materials, and we generally encourage a more sustainable process.”

Just as batteries have develop into essential to lowering emissions from transportation, they’re additionally wanted to totally notice the advantages of unpolluted power. Without stationary storage, wind and solar energy can solely feed the grid when the wind is blowing or the solar is shining.

“Being able to store it and use it when it’s most needed is a really important way to meet our energy needs,” Chavez stated.

The use of utility-scale battery storage is expected to skyrocket, from 1.5 gigawatts of capability in 2020 to 30 gigawatts by 2025. EV packs might present a stockpile for that buildout. Hall stated there are already not less than 3 gigawatt-hours of decommissioned EV packs sitting round within the United States that might be deployed, and that the amount of them being faraway from automobiles is doubling each two years.

“We’re going from a trickle when we started four years ago to a flood of batteries that are coming,” he stated.

B2U says its expertise permits batteries to be repurposed in an almost “plug-and-play fashion.” They don’t have to be disassembled, and models from a number of producers—B2U has examined batteries from Honda, Nissan, Tesla, GM, and Ford—can be utilized in a single system.

The packs are saved in massive cupboards and managed with proprietary software program, which screens their security and discharges and prices every battery primarily based on its capability. The batteries cost in the course of the day from each the photo voltaic panels and the grid. Then B2U sells that energy to utilities at night time, when demand and costs are a lot larger.

Hall stated utilizing second-life batteries earns the identical monetary return as new grid-scale batteries at half the preliminary price, and that for now, repurposing the packs is extra profitable for automakers than sending them straight to recyclers. Until the recycling trade grows, it’s nonetheless fairly costly to recycle them. By promoting or leasing retired packs to a grid storage firm, stated Hall, producers can squeeze extra worth out of them.

That might even assist drive down the price of electrical automobiles, he added. “The actual cost of leasing a battery on wheels should go down if the full value of the battery is enhanced and reused,” he stated. “Everybody wins when we do reuse in a smart fashion.”

B2U expects so as to add storage to a 3rd photo voltaic facility close to Palmdale subsequent yr. The amenities are supposed to show that the concept works, after which B2U plans to promote its {hardware} and software program to different storage-project builders.

At the second, although, deliberate deployment of the expertise is proscribed. B2U predicts solely about 6 p.c of decommissioned EV batteries within the US can be used for grid-scale storage by 2027.

“People are skeptical, and they should be, because it’s hard to do reuse of batteries,” stated Hall. “But we’ve got a robust data set that does prove reliability, performance, and profitability. We’re at a point where we really can scale this.”