Second Life for Electric Vehicle Batteries: Answering Questions on Battery Degradation and Value

Conference · Mon May 04 04:00:00 EDT 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.4271/2015-01-1306· OSTI ID:1215098

Neubauer, J. S.; Wood, E.; Pesaran, A.

Battery second use – putting used plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) batteries into secondary service following their automotive tenure – has been proposed as a means to decrease the cost of PEVs while providing low cost energy storage to other fields (e.g. electric utility markets). To understand the value of used automotive batteries, however, we must first answer several key questions related to National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has developed a methodology and the requisite tools to answer these questions, including NREL’s Battery Lifetime Simulation Tool (BLAST). Herein we introduce these methods and tools, and demonstrate their application. We have found that capacity fade from automotive use has a much larger impact on second use value than resistance growth. Where capacity loss is driven by calendar effects more than cycling effects, average battery temperature during automotive service – which is often driven by climate – is found to be the single factor with the largest effect on remaining value. Installing hardware and software capabilities onboard the vehicle that can both infer remaining battery capacity from in-situ measurements, as well as track average battery temperature over time, will thereby facilitate the second use of automotive batteries.

• Research Organization: NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States))
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Vehicle Technologies Office (EE-3V)
• OSTI ID: 1215098
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-5400-63524
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

25 ENERGY STORAGE
BATTERY
BATTERY SECOND USE
BLAST
ENERGY STORAGE
PEV