This Startup Is Turning Used E-Bike Batteries Into Affordable Energy Storage

Why throw away old e-bike and e-scooter batteries when they can be repurposed? Best of all, they don’t even need to be dismantled.

Photo by: KBO Bike

By: Iulian Dnistran

Nov 4, at 9:15am ET

Comment

Used batteries from e-bikes and e-scooters have been integrated into an industrial energy storage system.
German startup EDENenergy used over 100 second-life e-scooter batteries for a 70 kWh ESS.
In the future, the tiny startup’s system will be able to accommodate multiple types of batteries in the same enclosure.

Millions of e-bike and e-scooter batteries are thrown away every year, even though they might still have life in them. Now, a German startup is trying to reduce battery waste by integrating used batteries from e-mobility vehicles into energy storage systems.

EDENenergy, which has just three part-time staff members in addition to its three founders, has shipped its first commercial product, a 70-kilowatt-hour battery system that uses no fewer than 112 second-life e-scooter batteries.

EDENenergy's first commercial energy storage system uses 112 repurposed e-scooter batteries.

Photo by: EDENenergy

All modules were thoroughly tested, and the results were better than expected. The company’s founders, who used to be researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, said that they expected the old batteries to have roughly 80% life left in them, but the tests revealed that most retained about 90% of their original capacity.

After being abused in their previous life, the e-scooter batteries will have a much easier future in the startup’s energy storage systems, where vibrations and large temperature fluctuations are non-existent. What’s more, the long-term energy capacity of the system can be easily kept at 70 kWh by simply replacing modules that become unusable down the line.

The startup said it remotely monitors each module, and when it’s time for a replacement, it can be done without powering down the whole system. That’s a big plus, especially for energy-sensitive scenarios where cutting the power would result in massive losses.

The keen-eyed among you might have noticed that there’s a solar inverter on one side of the battery box. That’s because EDENenergy’s first product was designed for companies that have solar panels but can’t store solar energy yet. “In mid-October, we delivered the first storage system to a customer, which was an important milestone for our young company,” said Florian Bierwirth, one of the founders. “With this storage size, we initially aim to target medium-sized companies in the region that have a photovoltaic system but do not yet have a storage solution.”

What do you think?

View

Comments

For its next step, the startup wants to come up with a way of using different batteries from different manufacturers. “To do this, the connector interfaces, battery management system, and communication protocols must be adapted for each new battery. There’s a particularly wide range of options when it comes to e-bikes,” said Bierwirth. Currently, the small company relies on large suppliers that can send in large numbers of the same battery type.

A larger-capacity battery system of up to 300 kWh is also in the works, putting roughly 500 second-life e-scooter modules to good use instead of sending them to the landfill. The batteries will eventually give up, but when that happens, they’ll be sent to a recycling facility where they’ll be dismantled, and their contents will be reused, if possible.