Electric bus batteries installed in 200kWh solar cell trial21 December 2018
Batteries from electric bus route 55 in Gothenburg, Sweden, are getting a second lease of life for solar energy storage.
It is part of a research project in which Volvo Buses, Göteborg Energi, Swedish housing agency Riksbyggen and Johanneberg Science Park are working together to examine electricity storage in apartment blocks that have their own electricity production via solar panels.
The reuse and recycling of batteries is a key issue as increasing numbers of cities plan transition to electrically-powered transport. Volvo Buses is taking part in a research project whereby used electric bus batteries get a second lease of life as solar energy storage units. The research is taking place in Riksbyggen’s Viva housing cooperative in Gothenburg.
Energy from solar panels on the roofs of the apartment buildings is stored in batteries. The energy warehouse is used to cut the property’s power consumption peaks, and to store or sell surplus solar energy. It can also be used to buy and store electricity from the national grid when it is cheap and green, for later use. This improves the efficiency of housing association Viva’s own energy system as well as that of the city’s power grid.
Ylva Olofsson, project coordinator at Volvo, says: “We know that electric bus batteries have good potential for other applications such as energy storage after the end of their life in public transport. What we are examining here is exactly how good that potential is. Use of the batteries in an energy warehouse gives them an extended service life, which in turn means better resource utilisation and less environmental impact.”
The battery warehouse consists of 14 used lithium-ion electric bus batteries. They are installed in a battery chamber and linked together to create a 200kWh storage pack. The research on energy storage in used bus batteries is done with support from the EU project IRIS Smart Cities. IRIS is a Light House project, financed by EU HORIZON 2020.
William Dalrymple
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