Reuse of lithium-ion batteries: A study on technical and economic feasibility, environmental impact, battery management system and business model

Electric vehicles are a promising means of transport, as they are less polluting than conventional vehicles.  However, the high cost of batteries makes the purchase of electric vehicles less attractive financially when compared to conventional vehicles. For this reason, there is a need for research aimed at reducing the cost of batteries, as well as making their application in real scenarios possible. One of the alternatives for reducing the cost of batteries is reuse, that is, the use of batteries in a second application.  This   reuse   consists   of   reusing   the   deactivated   batteries   of   electric   vehicles   in   less demanding applications, such as in   applications connected to the grid   to increase the efficiency, stability   and   reliability   of   the   electrical   power   system.   An   energy   storage   system   must   meet environmental, safety and performance requirements. Therefore, this project proposes to raise the state of the art of the reuse of lithium batteries by means of a comparison regarding the main technologies developed, their advantages and disadvantages, the main types of energy management systems, the quantification of the environmental impacts obtained through the reuse of batteries, the costs and technical and economic feasibility of reusing batteries.

Highlights

• Reusing Li-ion batteries is expected to be better than recycling. This is because the recycling process, at the current stage of maturation, is still expensive, is not geographically distributed and does not have the capacity to recycle the large volume of batteries expected in the coming years. Lithium-ion batteries also have a variety of chemicals that can make Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) reluctant to invest in battery recycling projects because the chemicals and battery design in general change constantly.
• Some opportunities for OEMs can be cited, including: (i) Postponement of the recycling phase, (ii) Use of the remaining capacity of EV batteries, (iii) Batteries safe enough to handle a second application, Increased battery life, (iv) Reduction of the resource exploitation rate, (v) OEMs will be able to design batteries that will be incompatible with earlier or later versions between new and old components within the product package will lead each vehicle to necessarily have a new and specified battery for that type of vehicle.
• The reuse of second life batteries allows companies to capture value and increase their revenues in different ways, such as: (i) by reducing the cost of electric vehicles, (ii) by improving the charging infrastructure of electric vehicles, (iii) by reducing the cost of operating and maintaining energy concessionaires and (iv) by postponing the recycling phase.