Even as the globe continues its EV adoption campaign to reduce global emissions, one of the important areas of concern remains the disposal of EV batteries and plans for their reuse. As part of its global strategy focus on sustainability, Kia Europe has confirmed plans to re-use previous electric vehicle EV batteries in ‘Second Life‘ battery energy storage systems.
For this reason, Kia Europe will collaborate with encore, a corporate start-up from Deutsche Bahn (DB Bahnbau Gruppe). This startup gets EV battery packs from all over Europe in order to assemble and distribute used battery energy storage systems. EV battery packs are stripped down to the battery module level and submitted to extensive diagnostic testing, with appropriate modules being repurposed for new battery energy storage systems or recycled based on their remaining capacity. The two companies have unveiled a prototype battery storage facility at EUREF-Campus in Berlin, made entirely from reused Kia Soul EV battery modules.
Jason Jeong, President at Kia Europe commented: “With our success in the electrification of Kia models, we also take responsibility for the batteries beyond their lifetime in the car. The pioneering partnership between Kia and encore | DB shows that we regard batteries as a valuable resource in terms of a sustainable circular economy.”
First prototype project launched
Kia Europe and encore | DB jointly unveiled their first battery energy storage system at the EUREF-Campus in Berlin, where it will be used as part of the Micro Smart Infrastructure, a power grid that intelligently connects various energy sources, users, and storage systems. The goal is to reduce dependency on the grid through predictable energy flows and enhance the campus’s proportion of renewable energy use.
The process
In order to build the battery energy storage system, encore | DB collects, dismantles, analyses and then repurposes or recycles the EV batteries. For the battery energy storage system at the EUREF-Campus, used Kia Soul EV battery packs were collected from Kia dealers and transported to encore | DB’s dismantling partner, DellCon, via Deutsche Bahn’s logistical network to ensure sustainable and safe transport. The packs were then dismantled to modular level for state-of-the-art diagnostic testing to assess battery state of health.
