Let's be honest: big batteries aren't very visually interesting, even when encased in nicely painted cabinets. They just stand there, filled up with electric energy in the bone-chilling mist covering Mercer, which is the location Counties Energy and its design partner from Melbourne, Relectrify, had picked to launch a recycled large capacity battery initiative.
Counties Energy said this is a first for New Zealand. Moonis Vegdani, the power company's chief strategy and transformation officer, explained the Berm Battery system went into the Mercer Service Centre as there were capacity issues with the transformer at the location. The service centre hosts two of Counties Energy's OpenLoop rapid EV chargers. Without the Relectrify battery, charging was limited to 120 kilowatt; battery-backed, it goes up to 180 kW.
What's interesting here is not so much the improved charging performance, but the way batteries can create a new stored electric energy distribution system. Economically too: Relectrify vice-president Jürgen Barth estimated a network upgrade with new transformer would cost $2 million to $3 million, but their battery cabinets are about $75,000 each.
Counties Energy said that wasn't the cost for them, as they had to ship the cabinets, assemble, commission, test, certify them locally before installing the system on the site. How much exactly that cost was not revealed.
There are two Relectrify designed Revolve cabinets at the Mercer Service Centre. Each contains nine batteries repurposed from Nissan Leaf electric cars, each of which had 24 kilowatt hours capacity when they were fresh out of the factory from 2010 onwards. Now, they have around 70% capacity left which is interestingly enough much better than expected, Vegdanis said. Rapid battery degradation has long been a bogeyman for EVs, but the reality is that they tend to endure longer than initial pessimistic estimates, and often last for the life of the vehicle.
Vegdanis pointed out that reusing batteries after they've done their duty in cars means they'll live on for another eight to 15 years. Having an energy store with a service life of 25 years or more is pretty impressive.
Total capacity for the Mercer system is 240 kWh, and the Nissan batteries are connected with Relectrify's Cellswitch technology. This manages each individual cell separately to increase utilisation and throughput.
The cabinets in Mercer weigh about three tonnes each. Barth said that Relectrify has other designs in the works that are lighter and towable at 1.8 to 2.5 tonnes, which could come in handy for EV charging at events, for example. Vegdanis meanwhile is thinking big, and talked about container-sized models for charging freight company truck fleets.
There's no large scale EV battery recycling scheme in New Zealand as of yet (it's in the works); despite the market for EVs taking a coalition government-induced breather currently, there are around 75,000 electric cars in the country already. Being able to repurpose EV batteries for other uses be it backup power, resilience, keeping mobile phone sites alive, and more, does seem more sensible than finding a spare landfill site for them.
How far the recycled EV battery concept will extend probably depends on if second-hand energy stores other than the 24 kWh ones in Nissan Leafs can be used in the same fashion.
Counties Energy chief executive Judy Nicholl said they're taking the Berm Battery concept down to Palmerston North next.
The above seems very thoughtful and sensible, futuristic even. Head back to Auckland though and reality hits you hard after the Bombay Hills where you're caught in stop-and-go traffic for kilometres on end. This is courtesy of interminable roadworks. Although well-managed, there are just too many cars so the motorway clogs up. Mostly older fossil fuel vehicles like the one your faithful technology correspondent drives, generating kilograms worth of tailpipe emissions while moving at a snail's pace.
Imagine how many cars a train could remove from the motorway, which eats up so much of the flat and fertile land in the area. It could even be battery-backed rail perhaps. The decarbonised future. We don't really live in it yet.
34 Comments
This Tesla obviously was just a freak event.
It’s hilarious watching New Zealand discover stationary battery storage years after it was implemented around the world. This installation is like discovering the biplane when everyone else is using jets.
I hear stationary storage coming out of China is getting seriously cheap - maybe the govt could invest in some large scale battery packs to smooth electricity supply/demand.
Lol at the tripling up of the dignitaries. Maybe a joke only geeks and technos will get.
Probably makes more sense to use ev batteries this way, rather than recon, and put back in the vehicle at 70- 80 % capacity.
On a smaller scale there are plenty of scooter and bike batteries been disassembled, and the individual 18650 batteries been used for other purposes. Again probably more economic than recon for the original purpose.
I work it out at around $1600 per kwh of battery storage, which is not particularly cheap. You could probably do new lithium on that scale for a similar price. But who knows what the $$$ quoted entails. Maybe for the whole system not too bad. And as described Ed, way cheaper than upgrading the distribution system.
The cost of a new transformer 2- 3 million vs $75,000 for a battery pack.
Electricity and battery tech can save you money. I own a used 24kWh leaf it paid for itself in fuel savings within 6 years add in RUC charges it would have been 8 years. If you want examples of batteries reducing homeowners power bills I suggest you look at https://www.rewiring.nz
I suspect this was a press release and Juha is just relaying it. Unfortunately this type of press release is done for the man in the street. To do 2x180kW fast chargers would not require a transformer costing $2-3mill. It's perhaps as solar says it's the cost of the distribution network upgrade that might cost $2-3mill. If that's the case it is still a very poor press release for those with some technical knowledge.
I also wonder if Counties Energy will make any money out of this. I see on Zs website they are charging 69c/kWh and no fixed charge ($ that is)
So your saying in order to support 2 chargers the network would need a multi million dollar upgrade? Would explain why they went with the battery.
Aurora Energy is looking to incentivise uptake of distributed energy resources to reduce strain on the network at peak times
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/wanaka/area-lead-solar-power-uptake
As mentioned previously unless i see the actual $ numbers justifying the battery scheme I'm very skeptical as to its financial viability. You can do a lot of network upgrade for 2-3mill dollars (not just the transformer as indicated in the article) and also an upgrade may have benefits elsewhere other than battery charging. I can't go into technical detail because i don't have the required data/info. Just to say if you look at Counties Energy website and read a bit they are full into ESG and are pushing indirectly the climate change agenda.
They are in a position to go woke but unlikely to go broke.
I believe the point being made is we don’t need expensive network upgrades if we are smarter with the how we use and create electricity. The cost of solar and batteries are at a point where a home with access to cheap credit can reduce demand from the network and save money. Why is that so hard to believe? It will create a problem down the line for how we produce and pay for electricity, always been a fan of choice in a market, it keeps prices in check.
It's main advantage would be taking large short term demand, and smoothing it out over a longer period. While the main aim here seems to be avoiding the need for bigger power infrastructure, it would also mean lower line charges, as bigger consumers pay a supply charge based on their largest peak load.
Lucky for you, I suspect. (the treason bit).
WTF has Putin got to do with NZ making itself resilient? None of his business - unless you think he wants to sell oil, which he does. Read his Master's thesis, if you're going to refer to him.
But not relevant to this useful discussion.
I don't think there's any dispute as to the effects of the coalition government's removal of the Clean Car Discount and introduction of Road User Charges. Suffice to say they didn't help EV sales which plummeted when the CCD ended. The topic came up in Mercer, and wasn't seen as a positive change for the EV market.
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