HANOVER: German vehicle manufacturing giant Daimler has found a new use for batteries from electric buses used in public transit systems across Europe when they reach the end of their service life.
Instead of being scrapped, the end-of-life lithium-ion battery packs are removed from Mercedes eCitaro electric buses and linked to each other in order to create an energy storage system.
The bus batteries are placed in cuboid containers on the premises of a local transit authority building in the German city of Hanover and connected directly to the grid via inverters and transformers.
Daimler isn't the only company doing this, and Dutch bus manufacturer VDL and energy utility RWE have also started a similar storage system from decommissioned traction batteries.
Daimler's stationary energy storage unit has a total capacity of more than 500 kWh. It consists of 28 second-life battery packs from the Mercedes-Benz eCitaros and is used to power electric buses and urban light railways.
The batteries are replaced in electric buses after between five and six years when their capacity has dropped to around 80%.
Despite the depletion, they are still useful in stationary operation, where capacity losses play only a minor role. Daimler said these batteries usually have around 10 years of life left in them.
