Our second life story: Thinking ahead for third life battery usage

Operations manager, Tania Saxby, is leading the way in Connected Energy’s efforts to get ahead of the curve once again with the notion of a ‘third life’ in the battery lifecycle that ensures we really can deliver a circular economy when it comes to battery energy storage.

We work with several partners and suppliers in the effort to perfect the third lifecycle stage of a battery and how once it has been through its iteration as an EV battery, and as an energy storage solution, it can be safely and efficiently recycled.

Now the UK doesn’t yet have the facilities to do this safely, effectively, and on a large scale, which is where the RECOVAS project comes in, on which Connected Energy is a proud partner along with EMR, JLR, Bentley, BMW UK, Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Health and Safety Executive, and Autocraft.

In our current second life stage, Connected Energy successfully ensures that batteries aren’t just thrown into recycling, or disposed of, they are used successfully for energy storage. This gives threefold benefits: enabling efficient storage of renewable energy, managing peak loads or solving capacity issues on site, and helping to improve sustainability for our customers.

The importance of RECOVAS is that we, with our partners, would be able to offer a longer lifecycle with our use of EV batteries for energy storage. Then in turn, hopefully, we can safely reuse, recycle, and remanufacture batteries for additional longevity.

Tania adds: “EV batteries in their first life are expected to last up to ten years. With our storage solution, we can extend that to an additional ten years added to that battery. If we can perfect that third stage, we can add further longevity reducing the need to mine for raw materials and provide a much more sustainable lifecycle for EV batteries already in, and coming, to the market.”