Battery Insiders Reflection - 2nd life batteries

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights in the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And we're back. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Simon, how's it going? Doing well. It's a summery day down here in Germany. How about yourself, Bhavya? It's warming up. We had like a brutal 95 degrees. I don't know what that is in Celsius. I probably should on Saturday, but it's cooled down a little bit. We're getting a really quick glimpse of spring before the New York summer hits. But yeah, I think now we've officially seen each other through four seasons of weather, whether it be in Germany or in the US. Absolutely. And we also cover the entire life cycle of a battery, bringing us in today's topic, really talking about the end of life, which, of course, is an important one after we spend also quite a bit of time on looking how it all starts. So yeah, today we want to talk about our great session.

1:08So who did we have on, Bhavya? Yeah, we had Edward Xiang with the Moment Energy based in Canada. And of course, Mariam, who's been joining us for a few sessions. I personally super enjoyed the topic. I'm sure you already knew that, though. Second life and recycling is like pretty much the first thing you probably associated with me, because that's what I worked on as my foray into the world of batteries. And it's definitely one that's very close to my heart and one that truly to this day still excites me because, yeah, there's hydrogen and there's fuel cells and there's solar and wind and God knows what else. And it's all fantastic and it's all necessary for the clean energy transition. But batteries has always been my soft spot. And it was really actually interesting to hear from him and honestly quite validating because, you know, as someone who, like many of our listeners, joined the battery world kind of just, you know, as a one off thing and maybe got sucked in like me.

2:10It's it was nice to hear some of the numbers that he talked about in the lingo and be like, huh, two, three years ago, I didn't really understand this, but I understand totally what he's talking about now. And, oh, maybe like we got our numbers from the same sources. So it was definitely nice to hear the conversation and learn a lot just like about EV batteries versus battery storage, how the lithium supply chain, you know, is very much dominated by EV batteries right now. And, you know, that's that means there's less available for battery storage. So there really is this like value proposition for taking EV batteries and using them as battery storage, stationary storage, like as a second life use. See, clearly I could go on about this, but those are some things that really stuck with me after the conversation. What about you? Yeah, I think also was an excellent discussion. And as you said, I think also was important. We shared some of these or he was shared some of these numbers, which I think we did in a rich discussion like this.

3:11I think there's a lot of talk about second life and I think it's always one of these topics, which also kind of can be quite divisive in some way. There seems to be different camps out there. But I think what he really showed is, I think, as you said, you know, I think it was quite interesting to have his perspective also from the automotive sector, of course, or also really, I think what I was quite interesting is, you know, his approach to work quite closely with OEMs, which I think makes a lot of sense because I think one thing I hear a lot, I get a lot of requests actually from startups who are interested in doing something with second life batteries. It tends to happen quite a lot at the moment. And often, you know, the first question is, but where are I going to get my cells from? I'm like, yeah, that's something you should really figure out because otherwise, you know, what's the value proposition?

3:52So I think it was quite interesting that, you know, good that he had, you know, interesting, you know, anecdotes as well and stories to tell, like, you know, with OEMs, he can work together. I think also another thing I found quite, you know, important also spoke about, you know, the chemistry changes which are happening, for example, LFP, you know, really, really picking up. And also in the V sector and, you know, we've seen some staggering numbers there, of course, also connected to, you know, some of the really strong price increases, you know, shares before, you know, 500% lithium price increase. Last year, nickel about 100%, 30% cobalt. So people looking for alternatives to get away from the nickel and the cobalt for price, but also environmental and ethic concerns, especially on cobalt. And he, I think, also really to appreciate, right, that for recycling, it's quite a problem to recycle LFP. Not really a problem to recycle LFP, but the cost to make it, you know, cost effective.

4:49And he's, you know, also that he sees the strong push now that, you know, EV companies trying to get rid of the LFP batteries because they, you know, have to pay for them to get recycled. So he actually gets quite a lot of them, which makes a lot of sense. But it's also great to hear, right, like his, like, you know, being on the ground and hearing his stories from it. Yeah. And like from the policy and jurisdiction perspective, or rather way of thinking, like, you know, he talked about Japan, South Korea, Europe, and like you mentioned, just those areas of the world being more OEM responsibility driven. And it sounds like some of their projects involve kind of initial or like pilot partnerships almost with automotive companies like here in North America, where our regulations aren't as directive. And I think that's an interesting space for, you know, when you mentioned where should startups get their sales from? Well, hey, if you're listening, I mean, I'm sure they already think about it.

5:47But kind of making yourself like the R&D branch of an automotive company looking to go into recycling or second life, I think is, that was like just an interesting concept for me. You know, he talked about pyro, pyro metallurgy and hydrometallurgy and kind of the pros and cons there. Glad to know that those are as like still relevant. I'm curious where battery recycling is headed. And if anyone listening knows or has new or knows like a bit innovative ideas or things that are in the pipeline and would like to talk about what's new on the recycling front, or rather what's at the forefront, who are the trailblazers there, like definitely please reach out to us. But yeah, I think that was interesting to me. I also, you know, we've still taught, we talk high level about recycling and about second life. One thing he mentioned about second life that I thought was a little more granular was the state of the health of the batteries that are when put in conglomeration do matter.

6:48And it stands true. Your weakest link is going to be is going to draw you down. And so, you know, if you have batteries at 80, 85 percent state of health and 160 percent, that lowest common, your 60 percent is your lowest common denominator. You won't really be more efficient than that if the batteries like that storage unit has batteries of different states of health. So I thought that was an interesting point that maybe, you know, we don't really talk about when the debate does come up. The one that is so divisive, as you mentioned. Absolutely. And I think, you know, that's why these discussions are so important and also really to exchange, you know, and I think hearing some of the things which work well, maybe some of the things which are a bit more challenging. And as you said, I think there was a lot of wisdom dropped. So I definitely recommended already this recording to quite a few people, especially anybody who's interested, you know, to get started in second life.

7:40I think it was a great starting point to kind of, you know, hear what has been one approach, you know, by one startup. And of course, there's many other ones out there. I think there was definitely lots of interesting aspects shared by the speaker as well as, you know, the other participants, which of course is always really beneficial as well. And yeah, I think this was a really great intro to the topic as well. So I can just really recommend anybody who has the time to listen to the full recording to do so as well. Yeah, absolutely. That sounds awesome. Yes. If you are listening and are curious about the debate between second life and recycling, know people who are, please do refer them. And if you have any suggestions for topics, reach out to us. We are gearing up for our summer session and our 50th recording is coming up and we'd love to hear from all of you. So with that, we'll wrap it up for today.

8:33Thanks, Simon, as always. And we'll see you all next time. See you next time.