There are a lot of valuable materials in electric car batteries. However, a field test by The Mobility House shows that, in addition to recycling, you can also earn money with them as electricity storage.
In 2019, the e-mobility company The Mobility House, together with Audi, started a field test for bidirectional charging on the EUREF campus in Berlin. For this purpose, the team led by Managing Director Marcus Fendt converted 20 discarded Audi E-Tron electric car batteries into stationary storage units and thus gave them a second life.
As part of the pilot project, The Mobility House offered the potential of 18 of the aggregated vehicle batteries for various products on the electricity market and was able to achieve values in the four-digit euro range per vehicle and year for the first half of 2022. If you take into account any deductions, for example in the form of taxes, according to The Mobility House, there are still annual savings of at least 650 euros if you rely on a vehicle-2-grid function, i.e. bidirectional charging.
Real load profile ensures valid results
In order to achieve this result, the vehicle batteries were not simply used as a huge buffer memory, but rather provided with a real load profile on the software side, which corresponds to an average German driver. Each battery could be charged and discharged with 11 kW and consumed an amount of electricity during the driving time window that corresponds to an annual mileage of around 18,250 kilometers. To ensure that the test is as realistic as possible, the charging and discharging strategy also takes into account minimum storage levels on departure and the battery is treated as gently as possible.
In this way, the fictitious vehicles, while they were usually plugged in for charging, were able to provide the energy system with the flexibility that lies in charging and discharging the batteries in the form of the European electricity exchange EPEX Spot. At times when the vehicles were usually driving, they were not available to the energy market. Using the software from The Mobility House, several energy markets were used simultaneously (day ahead and intraday market) in order to achieve the best possible values and savings at all times.
By the way, the Ingolstadt batteries of the Audi E-Tron are also used for the luxurious charging park in Nuremberg, the so-called Charging Hub from Audi . You can find pictures of the Charging Hub in the gallery above.
Conclusion
In addition to the GHG quota, e-car drivers will also be able to earn money with their car in the future by trading on the electricity exchange. The whole topic is not yet ready for the street. You'll be looking in vain for vehicles that are actually capable of bidirectional charging and offer vehicle-2-grid functions. In addition, there is still a lack of software, the corresponding wall boxes and, above all, the laws. But all of that is already in the works. The result of the field test can be considered a success because the effort is worth it.
