Batteries for electric cars that are no longer usable for their original purpose can be given a “second life” in other applications, and UK-based firm Zenobe believes it can take this model to Latin America, helping to reduce the cost of the transition to electric vehicles (EV).
“We like to go to markets where we can follow a customer, a supplier or financial partner. If you can get two out of the three, that’s the minimum requirement for us to look into entering the market,” Zenobe’s founding director, Steven Meersman, said during a webinar.
He said that Zenobe is currently offering EV energy monitoring software in Brazil as a “test” of that country’s electric vehicle market, and that was possible because some of the suppliers and financiers there are already active in other markets where Zenobe operates, such as Santander and BYD.
The company currently has close to 10MWh of installed capacity comprising “second life” batteries, which are units that have degraded below 80% of their original storage capacity and are repurposed for applications such as powering charging stations, large-scale events such as music festivals or providing support for critical power loads.
Meersman said that the firm is also working on further applications such as powering backup generators at hospitals or port machinery.
“By proving that the second life works, we can then assign residual value to the battery at the end of its first life,” he explained, adding that “second life” batteries would also help reduce the cost of transitioning to electric vehicles by expanding the market.
When asked by BNamericas how long it takes an EV battery to become unsuitable for its original purpose, the executive said that lots of variables are in play, such as the weight of the vehicle and whether the battery is charged rapidly or not.
“If you look at a bus in the UK doing anywhere between 40,000 and 80,000km per year … you see new batteries coming in within five to seven years,” he said during the webinar, hosted by Move, a Latin American electric mobility news outlet.
Countries such as Colombia and Chile are making heavy bets on electric mobility. Chilean capital Santiago currently has the largest electric bus fleet of any city outside China and authorities expect to reach 2,000 units by the end of this year.
Chilean authorities have also established a 2035 deadline to phase out sales of light, public transport and mining vehicles with internal combustion engines.
