How Your Electric Car Battery Will Be Re-Used In The Future

With electric vehicles becoming more and more popular, there will certainly be an increase in batteries. This begs the question, what will happen to the batteries when their life comes to an end? Will they end up in the landfill leaking their fluid? The auto industry obviously doesn’t want to create waste and want to keep their “green” image in mind when they have to dispose of the batteries. It turns out, electric car batteries may be repurposed after all.

Nissan announced Monday that they will team up with Green Charge Networks who will repurpose batteries from the Nissan Leaf electric car. They will use the batteries to store energy for commercial and industrial buildings. With over 70,000 Leaf vehicles sold in the United States, this is big news for the automaker. It is also big news for the environment as it will save these batteries from the local landfill.

Batteries do lose their charge over time, so it isn’t as easy to reuse them as one may think. At a certain point, they lose their ability to charge a vehicle, but they can still be used to for lighter jobs. With the first generation vehicles ready for new batteries, used electric car batteries are becoming an abundant source for power and energy storage for commercial and industrial buildings.

General Motors (GM) has also made announcements to repurpose its batteries on the Chevrolet Volt. They are working with ABB and Duke Energy to make a deal happen. Using these power sources also save businesses money. For instance, when it is hot and electricity rates are skyrocketing in the afternoon, businesses can shift their energy usage to the stored power in the batteries.

Companies that have signed on to use this renewable energy storage source include Walgreen’s 7-Eleven, and UPS. Green Charge Networks will install the battery storage system for free for customers, and when they start saving money, they will take a cut of the savings earned from the stores.