Daimler Builds Massive Industrial Energy Storage Systems From Used EV Batteries (computerworld.com)

Lucas123 writes: German carmaker Daimler AG is building large battery storage systems for industrial use from the used lithium-ion batteries of its all-electric and hybrid vehicles. The first of Daimler's "2nd use battery storage units" will consist of 1,000 smart electric drive vehicle batteries and have a 13MWh of capacity. It is expected to be connected to the electrical grid in Lünen, Germany early next year. All of Daimler's battery storage units are currently planned to be greater than a megawatt in capacity, meaning they'll only be for commercial, not residential use, but the company said it does expect those batteries to be cost competitive with the ones Tesla announced earlier this year.

Comments

This is great

[JoshuaZ]

This is great. People often underestimate how important energy storage is. Many of the sources of power that don't produce CO2 are intermittent. Wind and solar are the primary examples. Sometimes it is sunny but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it is windy but it isn't. Thus for example you have headlines about how for one day or so you'll have some country or region produce more power than it needs using wind, but they miss that the vast majority of the time this extra power is wasted and the next day they need to go burn a lot of fossil fuels. The problem isn't as completely bad as one might guess since wind is generally strong at night when solar isn't an option, but the general need for cheap and efficient storage is definitely there. The best storage form in terms of being cheap and efficient is pumped hydroelectric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... but it requires specific nice geology to work.

Re:This is great

[houstonbofh]

This could also make power speculation and arbitrage possible. Buy power to charge up on windy nights and sell on hot days. (In summer, anyway) Bulk wind power in Texas on the spot market has actually dropped below zero on a few occasions. http://www.slate.com/articles/... This would fix that imbalance.

Re:This is great

[Ralph Wiggam]

A similar idea is to use electric vehicles in people's garages to "time shift" demand. Nevada Power (and I'm sure others) offers a rate plan for EV owners where power is much cheaper after 11pm and more expensive in the afternoons. Cars can already be set to start to wait until a set time to begin charging.

Power companies spend a lot of money building "peaker" power plants that are only needed between 4pm and 7pm. Theoretically, when a power company hits its supply limit, it could put a call out to any EV currently plugged in saying "I'll pay 6 cents per kWh for what's in your battery". If they don't get as much power as they need, they would put out another request at 7 cents. If you paid 4 cents the previous night, that's a good deal for everyone. The car would be set up with rules about what price you want and how much power you're willing to part with.

Re:This is great

[evilviper]

it could put a call out to any EV currently plugged in saying "I'll pay 6 cents per kWh for what's in your battery". If they don't get as much power as they need, they would put out another request at 7 cents. If you paid 4 cents the previous night, that's a good deal for everyone.

You'd be an idiot to accept that deal!

1) Your EV's battery doesn't charge/discharge at anywhere near 100% efficiency.
2) Batteries have a fixed number of charge/discharge cycles, so the energy you pull out is significantly more expensive than the electric rates. It may not be much cheaper than running a gasoline/electric generator in your back yard...
3) On a TIMEÂ-OFÂ-US rate schedule, you pay about SIX TIMES HIGHER for your daytime electrical usage. I just found Nevada Electric TOU summer rates of $0.06159 for off-peak, and $0.36554 for peak (all-day, really). So until they're paying you more than $0.40, you'd be far better off serving your own household's electric needs from your EV's battery, not selling it back to the grid. Of course nobody does that because of point #2 above.
4) If it was at all a profitable proposition, the power company would cut-out the customer, distribution losses, retail rates, etc., and build their own battery banks. That they don't should be a huge hint that the economics don't work.
5) As an added bonus, your car doesn't have its full range when you suddenly need it, and it will take an hour to top-off the charge.
6) If utilities would quick trying to heavily penalize residential PV customers, they would quickly get lots of Summer peak power.

buy our dying batteries

[frovingslosh]

....but the company said it does expect those batteries to be cost competitive with the ones Tesla announced earlier this year.

Translation: The company [Daimler AG] said that they hope to charge about as much for their old used nearing end-of-life batteries as Tesla is charging for brand new batteries and that customers will not be smart enough to understand the difference.

Re:buy our dying batteries

[AmiMoJo]

To be fair it's a totally different product. Tesla makes relatively small packs for home use. This thing is grid scale. Delivering a few kW from a battery pack is very different to delivery a few MW from a battery pack.

It's actually relatively small by grid standards - Japanese manufacturers have been offering 50MW+ batteries for getting on a decade now, but because it recycles cells it's still pretty interesting. I guess the target market will be wind/solar farm owners looking to smooth their output or store some of it until it's most profitable to release.

So....

[WindBourne]

Mercedes is working hard to copy Tesla with words, but they really have nothing. For example, claiming that their batteries will be as low costs as Tesla. How are they going to do that? With small production? Nope. Zero chance.