Hyundai forges partnership for 2nd life batteries
Hyundai has found a user for their old electric car batteries. Finland’s Wärtsilä will reuse batteries from Hyundai EVs in their stationery energy storage facilities and wants to market their solution in 177 countries.
Moreover, the partners aim to develop a holistic approach to battery production, taking into account the entire life cycle from use in electric vehicles over reuse as energy storage to recycling ultimately.
The global partnership is both technological and commercial and will aim for energy storage products and platforms that maximise Hyundai’s second-life EV batteries to be commercialised in Wärtsilä’s existing networks across 177 countries globally.
Set up as a longterm pertnership, Hyundai and Wärtsilä target both utility-scale and commercial applications suitable for second-life EV batteries.
“Energy storage is the logical next step in the after-market use of EV batteries,” said Dr. Youngcho Chi, Chief Innovation Officer of Hyundai Motor Group and the company projects 29 GWh of second-life EV batteries becoming available that could make a lucrative business.
In Korea, Hyundai is working on is developing of a 1MWh-level facility that utilises batteries from their Ioniq Electric and Kia Soul Electric. The demonstration project is located in Hyundai Steel’s factory.
Partner Wärtsilä sold close to 4 GW of power plants in 2017 in both developed and developing regions of the world. Overall, the Finnish company says it installed plants worth 67 GW as well as advanced energy storage technologies and software through the acquisition of Greensmith Energy.
Hyundai is not the only carmaker seeking to enter the energy market apart from Tesla of course. Daimler has a whole dedicated subsidiary and Mercedes-Benz Energy has turned a coal power plant into an energy storage facility recently.
Not as a carmaker but service provider, Belectric said just yesterday they had transformed thousands of electric car batteries into energy storage facilities in both the UK and Germany.
0 Comments