Why batteries are the future

Frank Jacobs

Key to our electric future are not the EVs, but their batteries. Mercedes-Benz Energy is optimising their value, even when they’re not powering cars.

By 2025, one in four vehicles produced by Mercedes-Benz will be fully or partially electric. That’s a lot of batteries. And those things are so good at storing energy that they can be put to other profitable uses – both before and after their life cycle powering electric vehicles (EVs). In a nutshell, that’s the idea behind Daimler subsidiary Mercedes-Benz Energy.

Storage solutions Co-located with Accumotive, Daimler’s massive lithium-ion battery factory in Kamenz, MBE has been developing massive energy storage solutions since 2016. And this for both new batteries – to use as spare parts, for example for Daimler’s EV-sharing fleet – and for ‘second-life’ batteries, after their first life cycle.

Of course, the aim is to optimise the TCO of the batteries themselves. But there’s more: as part of these storage solutions, the batteries provide an essential link between the mobility and energy ecosystems, helping to bring about more sustainability in both.

Massive energy storage is exactly what’s needed to compensate for the two major drawbacks of renewable energy, which is rapidly gaining market share across the world.

• First one: solar and wind power generation is unpredictable and fluctuating – so storage is essential to reduce the risk of shortages when the sun doesn’t shine and/or the wind doesn’t blow. • And secondly: renewable energy is often generated far from where it is needed, and storage can help resolve the challenges this poses for the grid.

Doubling value By storing excess energy from renewable resources, storage solutions like MBE’s can help stabilise electricity grids. But the potential uses are manifold. The stored energy can serve as a backup and a reserve, as the receptacle for energy generated by a local photovoltaic power station, as a source or EV charging, and to optimise energy flow with regard to peak demand and pricing.

According to MBE’s calculations, lithium-ion batteries of EVs can have an economically useful second life as part of a stationary operation for at least 10 more years – almost doubling their value. With its partners, MBE has already set up three mass storage units in Germany, with a joint capacity of 40 megawatt-hours (MWh). The first one, a second-life battery storage system in Lünen, has been online since October 2016. It combines around 1,000 used EV batteries to form a 13 MWh facility, which serves as a storage unit on the German energy market.

China beckons Since then, MBE set up a plant consisting of more than 3,000 first-life batteries in Hanover, with a capacity of 17.5 MWh; and another first-life facility with just over 1,900 batteries and a capacity of 9.8 MWh, as an operating reserve for Daimler’s smart EVs.

In 2019, tests showed that large EV battery storage solutions can take over tasks from large power stations in case of a power outage, increasing their relevance for grid stability. And now other countries beckon: MBE has partnered with Chinese EV battery manufacturer BJEV to build second-life energy storage facilities in China. As the Chinese well know: Who controls battery technology, controls e-mobility. It’s a lesson Mercedes-Benz has also been quick to learn…

2020

SAVE THE DATE 17-18 NOV. 2020 DUBLIN IRELAND

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