Page 81 - Bloomberg Businessweek July 2018

◼ BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek July 2, 2018

Where EV Co.’s battery group. By 2025 as many as 75 percent
of spent EV batteries will be reused, says Hans
Eric Melin, founder of Circular Energy Storage
Batteries Go Research & Consulting. “It’s just like you can
take an alkaline battery out of your flashlight and
put it into a remote control, and it’ll still be good
To Retire enough,” he says.
China, where about half the world’s EVs are
sold, is instituting rules in August to make carmak-
ers responsible for expired batteries. The European
Union already has such regulations, and the indus-
● Businesses are devising uses for cells try expects the U.S. to follow.
that will be discarded as electric cars age Vehicles already are the biggest users of
lithium-ion batteries, according to consultant
Avicenne Energy. By 2030 there will be a 25-fold
In the basements of the three towers of a surge in battery demand for electric cars and buses,
Gothenburg, Sweden, apartment complex, silver forecasts BNEF. By 2040 more than half of new-
cabinets about the size of large refrigerators hold car sales and a third of the global fleet—559 million
20 battery modules recovered from Volvo hybrid vehicles—will be electric. “The logic behind this is
autos. The cabinets store energy from rooftop solar the circular economy,” says Cécile Sobole, program
panels to run the elevators and lights in the common manager for Renault SA’s EV business. “The battery SIMON DAWSON/BLOOMBERG. ILLUSTRATION BY NICHOLE SHINN
areas. “I was a bit suspicious at first,” says Lennart coming from the electric vehicle will become more
Nord, caretaker of the buildings. “So far, it’s worked and more a part of the energy world.”
without a hitch.” When EV batteries start to fade, they deliver
The batteries were installed by Box of Energy AB, fewer miles of driving per charge and start requir-

18 a Swedish energy-storage company working with ing more frequent recharging. They will typically
Volkswagen AG’s Porsche unit and Zhejiang Geely be swapped out after about a decade in family
Holding Group Co.’s Volvo Cars to give old bat- cars and about four years in buses and taxis. Even
teries a second life and keep them out of the then, they’re still ideal for less-demanding tasks
world’s landfills. such as storing electricity from solar panels and
The first batches of batteries from electric wind turbines and hoarding power from a regu-
and hybrid vehicles are reaching retirement age. lar grid connection at off-peak hours, when prices
Finding ways to reuse them is becoming more are lower.
urgent: A global stockpile of aging batteries is fore- Toyota Motor Corp., which makes the Prius
cast to exceed the equivalent of 3.4 million packs hybrid, will install retired batteries outside 7-Elevens
by 2025, up from about 55,000 this year, according in Japan next year. The hybrid cells will store power
to calculations based on Bloomberg New Energy from solar panels and then use the juice to run the
Finance data. drink coolers, fried chicken warmers, and sausage
General Motors, BMW, Toyota Motor, Chinese grills inside the convenience stores. Eaton Corp.
automaker BYD, and a clutch of renewable- energy has worked with Nissan Motor Co. on smartphone-
storage suppliers such as Box of Energy, Powervault, controlled storage units using retired batteries from
and Relectrify are among those trying to create an the automaker’s Leaf EV. With prices for the units
aftermarket for—and a new revenue stream from—
aging batteries. “The car manufacturers have an
upcoming problem and one that we are already
starting to see: this massive volume of batteries,”
says Johan Stjernberg, Box of Energy’s chief exec-
utive officer. “The market will be enormous for
second-life applications with storage.” ◀ A circuit board sits
Lithium-ion car and bus batteries can collect atop lithium-ion battery
and discharge electricity for an additional 7 to cells to be used in a
Powervault energy
10 years after being stripped from chassis. A typi- storage system
cal EV battery retains about 50 percent to 70 per-
cent of its power capacity upon removal, says Tom
Zhao, managing director of global sales for BYD