Finland and California-based second life energy storage firms Cactos and Smartville Inc have raised nearly US$10 million to commercialise systems using repurposed Tesla EV batteries – we talked to both companies’ founders.
San Diego-based Smartville Inc recently received a US$6 million grant from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) US$74 million for domestic battery recycling and reuse programme, co-founder and president Mike Ferry told Energy-Storage.news.
The money will go towards productising the firm’s enclosure system into second and third iterations, certify its product to thermal runaway test certification UL 9540A and its manufacturing facility to UL 1974, a certification specifically for second life energy storage systems (ESS), he added.
Its current product, MOAB, is a 250kW/500kWh system that uses either repurposed EV battery packs from Tesla and Nissan’s Leaf. The first commercially operating system, made up of two enclosures, one Tesla and one Nissan, recently went online at the UC San Diego library annex in Mira Mesa (pictured). Unlike most second life ESS firms, Smartville uses fully battery packs.
“We believe focusing on battery packs rather than disassembly and modules allows us to scale. For this market to reach the MWh and even GWh projects it does not make sense from a labour or financial perspective to disassemble,” Ferry said.
Read more: EnergyStorage
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