JLR is giving used lithium-ion battery packs a new lease on life with a radical project that has seen the creation of a renewable energy storage system powered by old I-PACE batteries.
The battery storage system, designed alongside Wykes Engineering has seen 30 used Jaguar I-PACE batteries taken from prototype and engineering test vehicles used to buoy storage for a solar and windfarm in the UK.
JLR says that its 30 batteries can store up to 2.5MWh of energy at full capacity, with hopes to increase this number up to 7.5MWh by the end of 2023; enough to power 750 homes in the UK for 24 hours.
The battery storage systems are assembled in a container that houses an advanced inverter that can tap directly into the national grid and provide some extra juice at peak hours.
The system can also store any excess electricity not being used during off-peak hours, redeploying it when needed.
JLR says that second-life battery storage systems like these could supply up to 200GWh of electricity by the turn of the decade, valued at around $30 billion, playing a key role in the planned circular economy for batteries in the future.
“One of the major benefits of the system we’ve developed is that the containers are connected to the grid in such a way that they can absorb solar energy that could otherwise be lost when the grid reaches capacity,” says Wykes Engineering Managing Director, David Wykes.
“This excess energy can now be stored in the second-life I-PACE batteries and discharged later… this allows us to ‘overplant’ the solar park and maximise the amount of power we generate for the area of land we are using,” he added.
