Smartville has secured $5.9 million from the US Division of Power to scale up its second-life battery program.
From pv journal USA
In 2021, international gross sales of electrical automobiles will attain 16 million items, highlighting the fast demand, stated the Worldwide Power Company. The transportation power transition has solely simply begun.
Most batteries retired from EVs nonetheless have about 70% of their capability left, says San Diego-based startup Smartville, noting that this makes them a great candidate for second-life use. Tthat is the chance that Smartville seeks to grab, by repurposing EV batteries as grid-scale power storage to retailer renewable power.
“Our second life power storage product repurposes EV batteries to reliably retailer energy from photo voltaic and wind,” stated Antoni Tong, chief government officer of Smartville. “The result’s that the system can proceed to energy our communities, lowering our dependence on exterior power sources.”
The corporate introduced that it obtained a $5.9 million grant from the US Division of Power to scale this service. The grant comes as a part of a $75 million funding package deal made obtainable via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation, offering a complete of 10 tasks that advance EV battery recycling and reuse efforts.
Smartville’s MOAB product can maintain between six to 10 battery packs with nominal scores between 200 kWh to 500 kWh. The corporate’s proprietary suite of software program, {hardware} and diagnostics has assured efficiency for stationary storage, enterprise providers and utility clients.
“We realized early on that the one strategy to develop an actual marketplace for the sort of expertise is to make a full guarantee or assure of efficiency,” stated Mike Ferry, president of Smartville. “We validated our expertise utilizing battery modules obtained by disassembling EV battery packs, and we cycled the modules with totally different chemistries from totally different automakers. because of this, we now have software program and {hardware} that may deal with batteries in several well being states throughout the similar system and we will enhance the general system well being standing over time.
Ferry stated Smartville sees advantages in specializing in repurposing battery packs, somewhat than disassembling and repurposing battery modules. The corporate says that labor and prices for disassembly are prohibitive when reaching a megawatt-hour or gigawatt-hour scale.
Smartville stated it’s going to use the Division of Power’s funds to facilitate the commercialization of its repurposing product. The corporate first plans to attain UL certification for the expertise and can comply with that with an illustration challenge of 4 MWh. The pilot challenge will find a repurposed battery with an current energy plant in central California in an recognized deprived group.
Smartville was launched from the College of California, San Diego, beginning with a $2 million authorities mortgage via the Superior Analysis Tasks Company – Power program. The corporate stated it’s going to set up one other prototype system by the tip of the second quarter with Southern Energy. Whereas Smartville has different early-stage tasks within the works, it’s specializing in certification, commercialization, and scaling up its manufacturing within the coming yr.
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