EV BATTERIES GET SECOND LIFE

Electric-Car Batteries: What Happens To Them After Coming Out Of The Car?

John Voelcker, August 12, 2014 (Green Car Reports)

“…[In 20 years,] there may be 1.3 million to 6.7 million used battery packs from electric cars…[R]oughly 85 percent of those could be suitable for ‘post-vehicle use’…[but the] materials in a lithium-ion battery pack are relatively inexpensive, and even with technological breakthroughs, the report estimates that only 20 percent of the cost of recycling could be recouped by selling the recovered materials…Instead, the value will lie in secondary uses…[that] could be economical at a cost of $83 to $114 per kilowatt-hour…For a 24-kWh used pack out of a Nissan Leaf, then, the value might range from $2,000 to $2,750…

“The replacement cost of a new Leaf pack (on which Nissan has said it loses money today) is $5,500…The average U.S. home uses 32 kWh a day, so a Leaf battery pack that may have 16 kWh of usable capacity left could power the home [with stored solar energy-generated electricity] for a substantial portion of its day…And forward-looking electric utilities are considering the opportunities to decouple such homes from the grid temporarily during periods of peak demand, reducing the utility's peak load…” click here for more

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