Second life Lithium Battery: The Newest Value Pool in Energy Storage 2024

Overview

With the continuous growth of global demand for lithium batteries in electric vehicles (EVs) and solar energy storage, the power industry has ushered in a new opportunity: utilizing second life battery to achieve fixed energy storage. It is expected that by 2030, this energy storage method may exceed 200 gigawatt hours.
In the coming decades, with the strong growth of the electric vehicle and solar energy storage markets, the supply of lithium batteries will increase significantly. The lifespan of lithium batteries is limited, and some countries that can only store a few terawatt hours of electricity throughout the year have enormous potential for energy storage demand.

By recycling these still useful lithium batteries and finding new applications, not only can enormous value be created, but ultimately energy storage costs can be reduced, promoting better integration of renewable energy into our power grid.

What is a Second life Lithium Battery ?

The end of the first service life of a battery does not mean it is scrapped. A secondary battery refers to a battery that can still be used for other purposes after its initial service life has ended.
By reusing batteries in different ways and giving them a second life, significant economic and environmental benefits can be achieved. Developing usable secondary batteries and battery packs can help reduce waste and prevent further consumption of non renewable energy.

As part of the ecosystem of energy transition solutions, energy storage and batteries are important tools for achieving sustainable development, and they must also be fully sustainable themselves.
At present, automobile manufacturers and battery manufacturers are actively exploring ways to reuse electric and hybrid vehicle batteries when they are no longer used for their primary purposes. As electric and hybrid vehicles become increasingly popular, this is crucial. Due to the rapid increase in the number of electric vehicles, their production has exceeded the recycling rate of lithium-ion batteries. Reasonably utilizing these batteries can not only meet the growing demand for energy storage, but also reduce environmental burden and promote sustainable development.

What is the purpose of Second life Lithium Battery?

Secondary batteries refer to batteries that have reached the end of a car’s lifespan but still retain approximately 70-80% of their remaining capacity. This means that they can continue to be used in fixed energy storage systems, combined with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, or to provide support for the power grid.

Extending the lifespan of these batteries not only reduces their carbon footprint, but also increases the amount of renewable energy available in the power grid. In addition, by converting waste disposal costs into surplus value, this indirectly reduces the cost of electric vehicles.
Although the electric vehicle market is a major recycling area for these secondary batteries, it is not the only one, and the solar energy market is also a direction worth paying attention to. By 2030, it is estimated that an average of 60000 tons of electric vehicle batteries will need to be processed annually in a country in Europe.

Although these batteries are no longer suitable for cars, they can be used in other applications such as stationary energy storage systems.
The most promising way to deal with these batteries is to reuse them, which is an intermediate step before recycling waste battery materials. These batteries retain more than half of their initial capacity and are suitable for various applications with low requirements, which usually last for many years.

Reusing these batteries requires cleaning, testing, re certification, and repackaging, but the cost is much lower than directly recycling battery materials.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the final cost of reusing electric vehicle battery packs for applications that do not require top-level performance may be around $49 per kilowatt hour, while the cost of new batteries is $300 per kilowatt hour. This indicates that reusing secondary batteries is not only economically efficient, but also effectively extends their lifespan, bringing dual benefits to the environment and economy.

Is your second life battery valuable?

The value of a second life battery far exceeds its material content. Several companies that sell and reuse second life batteries offer prices ranging from $80 to $1400. Selling second life batteries can increase manufacturers’ profits and reduce industry costs.
One of the potential major users of recycled batteries is solar and wind power generation systems. We all know that these batteries store electrical energy when there is no sunlight or wind.

For example, General Motors uses five Chevrolet Volt batteries, one solar panel, and two wind turbines to power its new General Motors enterprise data center in Milford, Michigan. In Leipzig, Germany, BMW has established a battery storage farm and plans to use up to 700 high-capacity old BMW i3 battery packs combined with wind power generation systems to provide stable power support.

Combining recycled batteries with solar and wind energy can provide lower cost energy for remote areas. Renault’s’ Smart Island ‘project will utilize wind turbines, solar panels, and waste battery packs on a small island in Portugal to provide a fully renewable energy supply, eliminating the need to import electricity or fuel from the mainland. At the same time, researchers from the University of Warwick have developed small-scale energy storage systems using discarded batteries, suitable for developing countries or remote communities.

The batteries for hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and pure electric vehicles have just emerged, so the secondary utilization of these batteries is still in its infancy. However, car manufacturers, battery manufacturers, and governments have all started looking for ways to utilize the millions of batteries that will be produced in the coming years. Bloomberg predicts that by 2025, there will be 26 gigawatt hours of old batteries available, many of which will be reused. So it can be said with certainty that your second life battery is very valuable. Don’t worry that after investing, they will become difficult to recycle waste.

You can see the future market data of second life lithium battery:

The batteries for hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and pure electric vehicles have just emerged, so the secondary utilization of these batteries is still in its infancy. However, car manufacturers, battery manufacturers, and governments have all started looking for ways to utilize the millions of batteries that will be produced in the coming years.

Bloomberg predicts that by 2025, there will be 26 gigawatt hours of old batteries available, many of which will be reused. So it can be said with certainty that your second life battery is very valuable. Don’t worry that after investing, they will become difficult to recycle waste.
The service life of lithium batteries is relatively long. Due to the need to withstand environmental temperature differences, hundreds of partial charge and discharge cycles per year, and constantly changing discharge rates, the performance of solar lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicle batteries will significantly decline in the first five years and then stabilize.

Their designed service life is usually about ten years. These batteries can still be reused after no longer meeting the performance standards for their original use, including:

• Maintain 80% of the total capacity
• Only about 5% static self discharge rate within 24 hours

After remanufacturing, these batteries can still be used for applications with lower requirements, such as fixed energy storage services.
When the battery reaches the end of its first service life, manufacturers have three options: discard, recycle valuable metals, or reuse. If the battery pack is damaged or located in an area lacking a mature market structure, the most common option is to discard it. However, in most regions, regulations prevent the large-scale disposal of batteries.
If the battery contains high-value metals such as cobalt and nickel, recycling is the optimal choice because there is a large price difference between recycling costs and procurement costs, especially in the expected tight supply of nickel and cobalt in the future market.

Obtaining battery metal through recycling is attractive for battery manufacturers who want to ensure supply, but to achieve large-scale recycling, it is necessary to develop a recycling process that is competitive with mining costs. At present, the new process of recycling more materials is not fully mature, so the implementation of this approach still faces challenges.

In markets with low battery cycle frequencies (e.g. 100 to 300 cycles per year) in fixed energy storage applications, second life batteries can provide the greatest value. According to different cycle requirements, second life battery is most suitable for the following three applications:

Backup energy capacity: By replacing more expensive and less efficient assets, backup energy is provided at a lower cost to maintain the electrical reliability of public utilities.
Delay transmission and distribution investment: Utilize battery energy storage to delay expensive investments in transmission and distribution systems.
Electricity arbitrage: By storing renewable energy and using it during periods of power shortages, it provides greater grid flexibility and stability.

It is expected that by 2025, the cost of second life batteries may decrease by 30% to 70%. In these applications, the old battery system is more efficient than the new system, with significantly reduced capital required for each cycle, further enhancing economic benefits.

What are the main benefits of battery recycling and reuse?

Power storage systems and batteries play a strategic role in the energy transition value chain, providing more effective, efficient, and competitive electrification solutions for multiple fields, thereby reducing the demand for fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.

Power storage systems and batteries play a strategic role in the energy transition value chain, providing more effective, efficient, and competitive electrification solutions for multiple fields, thereby reducing the demand for fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
Secondary batteries have significant environmental benefits during both extraction and processing stages

• Reduce mineral extraction, conserve resources, and prevent further depletion of Earth’s mineral resources
• Reduce the dumping of waste into the environment
• Reuse of materials after recycling.

Reusing batteries in different ways to give them a second life also has economic benefits. Because it converts waste disposal costs into surplus value, promoting a virtuous cycle of decarbonization. The effective utilization, recycling, and reuse of energy storage and batteries are also shaping development projects and their funding, and providing a high-quality turnaround market for industries such as electric vehicles and solar energy storage that require batteries, ensuring the value of investment.

Conclusion

The Second Life Lithium Battery has demonstrated tremendous value in fixed energy storage applications, particularly in markets with lower cycle frequencies. These batteries can be used to provide backup energy capacity, delay transmission and distribution investments, and engage in power arbitrage to enhance grid flexibility and stability.
By effectively reusing batteries, not only can costs be reduced, but overall efficiency and resource utilization can also be improved, bringing significant benefits to the development of public utilities and renewable energy. GycxSolar‘s battery products also have high-quality supporting services. You can come to us to learn about the perfect solution.