EU Project Aims To Switch Data Centers To Second Hand Car Batteries

judgecorp writes "A €2.9 million European Commission funded project aims to make data centers more efficient, and one of its ideas is to use second hand car batteries to power data centers. The GreenDataNet consortium includes Nissan, which predicts a glut of still-usable second hand car batteries in around 15 years, when the cars start to wear out. Gathered into large units, these could store enough power to help with the big problem of the electricity grid — the mismatch between local renewable generation cycles and the peaks of demand for power."

Comments

Great

[rmdingler]

The used car batteries are already an inexpensive option for off-the-grid renewable energy (wind and solar) storage.

It seems a shame to discard or recycle a huge number of still viable units.

Re: Great

[Lumpy]

only when you can get an epic amount of them. Car batteries are not deep cycle, they are there for a single short heavy load. you can only extract 20% of their capacity from them before you damage the battery by sulfating the plates. so if you need 100 Ah of capacity, you need 5 100ah car batteries. and no CCA is not the number you want you want amp hours... In most off-grid applications the load pulls the batteries down over several hours, usually at night, and they then have to sit partially discharged (or still being drawn from) until the sun rises and the charging process begins. Deep cycle batteries are meant to do this. Automotive batteries are meant to have sudden, heavy, but short discharges (starting the car) and then be recharged with high current immediately.

So you would need 5-8 times the batteries and interconnects to use car batteries than using real deep cycle batteries.