Second Life of Lithium-Ion Batteries
The lithium-ion car batteries being built in West Michigan may someday be used in Holland Michigan as power storage batteries for electric consumers and power generating companies.
That was one of the potential “second life” uses for high-storage capacity lithium-ion batteries offered by renewable energy expert Jeremy Neubauer at a business meeting at the Haworth Inn Conference Center in Holland.
Calling it “Community Storage” of energy, he said two lithium-ion batteries could make up a residential storage station for two dozen homes that would be able to put power back on during outages and download stored electricity during peak periods.
Lithium-ion batteries are best suited for second-life usage for power storage over other types of batteries because when their useful life for electric vehicles is over they still retain 80 percent storage capacity for years.
Any electric power company from the Holland Board of Public Works to Consumers Energy could use the energy storage system to save money and reduce the peaks and valleys of supply and demand.
However, the problems for creating power storage sites for national use are a complex system of regulations and requirements in place for today’s electricity production and distribution plus myriad different power systems that would have to be coordinated.
If you want to know more about this and other topics directly from end users of energy storage technologies join us at one of these annual events: The Energy Storage World Forum (Grid Scale Applications), or The Residential Energy Storage Forum, or one of our Training Courses.
