Electric Vehicle Batteries Get a Second Life at Energy Startup
RePurpose Energy, a Fairfield-based startup that converts retired electric vehicle, or EV, batteries into renewable energy storage systems and was founded by University of California, Davis Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Jae Wan Park, was selected as Comstock’s Magazine’s October startup of the month.
Typically, EV batteries are retired due to faded capacity and failure to meet range requirements. Recycling them is costly. But in many cases, these battery packs still have juice in them, around 60 to 80 percent capacity. For Park, who serves as CEO of RePurpose Energy, giving retired lithium-ion batteries a second life seemed logical.
“If electric vehicles become the norm,” Park recalls thinking, “we’ll have a lot of dead batteries, and some will have leftover life for sure.”
Advancing battery testing technology is crucial because a battery from a used vehicle has limited information available about its condition, according to Alissa Kendall, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis. RePurpose Energy, she says, is addressing three significant battery issues: testing, repurposing and creating a sustainable product.
“In the big picture, people talk about the circular economy, but repurposing by keeping things in the best use is a real circular economy,” Kendall says.
RePurpose Energy launched in 2018 after nearly a decade of research at UC Davis on used battery testing, reassembly and controls, according to its website. The company has since installed its battery-based sustainable energy systems on the UC Davis campus, with many other projects in the works.