Daimler, together with partners The Mobility House and GETEC, has built what it says is the world’s largest second-life battery storage unit.

The stationary storage unit is to go into service at the beginning of 2016 at the site of REMONDIS, a recycling, service and water company in the German town of Lünen. It uses battery systems from the second generation of smart electric drive vehicles, has a total capacity of 13 MWh, and will be marketed in the German electricity balancing market.

The life of a plug-in vehicle’s battery doesn’t need to end even when the car heads for the junkyard. Daimler generally warrants its EV batteries for up to ten years. After this point, they show low levels of power loss that are of minor importance for a stationary storage application. Daimler estimates a used battery pack can operate efficiently in a stationary installation for at least another ten years.

The new project aims to demonstrate a complete sustainable lifecycle for automotive batteries. Manufactured by the Daimler subsidiary Accumotive, the battery systems will be used in Daimler plug-in vehicles, then repurposed as stationary storage units in the energy markets by The Mobility House and GETEC, and finally recycled by REMONDIS.

Source: Daimler via Green Car Congress