Groupe Renault has announced it will reuse batteries from vehicles alongside other technology to give power to the SmartHubs project in West Sussex.
The second-life battery programme will repurpose 1,000 EV batteries to provide cleaner, low cost energy for use in social housing, transport, infrastructure, private homes and local businesses. As part of the SmartHubs project, in collaboration with Connected Energy, several 360kwh E-Stor systems will be installed on industrial and commercial sites.
According to Renault, some of these systems will be linked to solar panels to further reduce energy costs and optimise renewable energy. The cluster system will store enough energy to power 1,695 average homes for a full day, it can rapidly charge and discharge to help balance the electricity network.
The SmartHubs project is one of four UK government-initiated projects designed to help design the energy systems of the future.
Furthermore, in Douai, France the first advanced battery storage system has been installed at the Renault Georges Besse plant. The energy storage system has a capacity to store 50MWh across serval sites and enables the network to be regulated and stabilised by charging batteries when demand is low. It will also return the energy contained in these batteries back to the network when demand is high.
This system combines second-life batteries as well as new, it has a aftermarket use capacity of close to 5MWh.
Both of these systems were launched at the Renault eWays event, which is dedicated to the electric mobility.
