Against the background of the Ukraine crisis and Austria’s dependence on Russian gas, initiatives for energy generation and storage are of particular importance. In addition, there are more and more electric cars on the roads. As a result, more and more batteries are in circulation.
Conversion to power storage
After their first life in the car, they should not only be dismantled and recycled in the future. Many of them can be given a second life as electricity storage devices, for example for photovoltaic or solar systems. A consortium from Graz was the first company not from the battery or car industry to develop such a system.
Second live pilot plant
The first Scond-Live pilot plant is located in front of the headquarters of the recycling specialist Saubermacher, in the immediate vicinity of Graz Airport. It is the size of half a construction container and stores 96 Kwh of electricity. The system is also filled with electric car batteries that only have less than 80% of their capacity and can therefore no longer be used in electric cars.
Robert Schmied, Managing Director of the Graz Energy Agency: “Basically, the battery storage helps to cushion power peaks, it could also take over an emergency power supply. But it also helps to reduce self-consumption and temporarily store the solar yield that the system generates.”
“Worldwide unique project”
Project partners are Saubermacher, the Graz Energy Agency, Graz Holding, Energie Steiermark and AVL List. A process has been developed at AVL so that the used batteries match in terms of their charging behavior and residual capacity. AVL project manager Gerald Lackner: “In order to be able to do this, you start by evaluating the charging capacity of the modules and then you assemble modules with roughly the same battery capacity into one module. If they have different charging capacities, then you don’t use the capabilities of the individual modules.”
Recycling as a future market
Saubermacher owner Hans Roth sees the second-live concept as the only logical option: “This way of using batteries for a second time is simply a very important step. Because that will have a future in Europe and worldwide and will be an important part of battery recycling. Privately, we are the first in the world.” And the whole thing is a market of the future. There are currently around 4,000 used e-car battery systems in Austria every year. In 2030 it should be up to 40,000.