MAN Truck & Bus: Batteries as stationary storage - recycling as a goal
MAN Truck & Bus sees the greatest potential for climate-friendly drives in battery-electric propulsion. Therefore, the Munich-based commercial vehicle manufacturer is already working on a post-use strategy for its batteries. The goal is to extend the life of the batteries as a first step. When they return to MAN after their use in the vehicle, they are first thoroughly analyzed. Even before the 2nd Life, meaning their use as stationary energy storage, there is the factory reconditioning, the so-called 2nd Use.
A project that MAN has started with various partners and the University of Kassel is now intended to provide information on whether and to what extent used truck batteries are suitable for stationary storage. According to the company, around 120 truck battery packs with an energy content of 18.6 kWh per pack will be handed over to a storage manufacturer for this purpose. The battery packs come from MAN's first field trial with battery-electric distribution trucks, which began in 2018 in Austria and lasted three years. The project partner at that time was the Council for Sustainable Logistics (CNL).
Industry in Focus
The focus of the 2nd Life project is on energy storage systems for industrial companies, which are intended to balance peak loads, for example. The project aims to explore the technical and economic requirements for 2nd Life storage systems. According to a press release, insights are specifically sought in the areas of safety, battery performance, and battery residual charge cycles. Additionally, a potential pilot project for a 2nd Life storage system based on MAN batteries from the first fully electric series city bus Lion's City E is to be defined.
A Life After
It is only after the 2nd Life application of the batteries, or in cases where batteries are no longer suitable for storage applications after vehicle use or an accident, that recycling comes into play. MAN is committed to achieving a closed loop for battery raw materials—from cradle to cradle. The raw materials recovered by recycling partners, such as nickel, manganese, cobalt, or lithium, are to be used in the production of new batteries. In recycling, MAN prefers a mechanical process followed by hydrometallurgical processing. Through this mechanical and hydrometallurgical process, the valuable raw materials from the battery are recovered, the commercial vehicle manufacturer reports. The current recycling rate, based on the weight of the battery, is stated to be more than 70 percent.
Electromobility as a Future Key Technology
The 2nd-Life project is driven by the conviction that, in the course of transformation within the commercial vehicle sector, battery-electric drives will evolve into the key technology of the future. However, according to MAN, it will still take a few years before these BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles) become the norm on the roads, rather than the exception. In the truck sector, MAN Truck & Bus currently assumes that electric trucks will have a market share of 60 percent in distribution applications and 40 percent in long-distance transport by the year 2030. Electrification began earlier with city buses. Here, MAN expects that by 2025, 50 percent of sales will be electric drives. These forecasts show that the commercial vehicle industry is still at the beginning of electrification, according to the Munich corporation. The number of batteries that have completed their use in vehicles will only reach industrial scales in about 10 to 15 years.
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