China has reportedly started building the country’s first large capacity energy storage plant comprising second-life batteries from new energy vehicles.
Nanjing Electric Power Company is building the plant in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, which is designed to have a total battery storage capacity of 268.6MWh, China’s state Xinhua News Agency said.
The plant “can provide a daily electricity supply of 500MWh, enough for residential use for 220,000 people per day”, said Xiao Jing, party chief of the Institute of Economic and Technical Research of the Nanjing Electric Power Company.
“The energy storage plant works like a battery charger, storing power during low consumption hours and delivering electricity during peak hours,” Xiao said.
According to Xinhua, “the total capacity of retired batteries in the plant is designed to reach 75MWh including 45MkWh lithium iron phosphate batteries, 30MkWh lead-acid batteries”. It will also have a lithium battery storage capacity of 193.6MWh.
The recycling of retired batteries “has become urgent as the batteries from the first generation of electric and hybrid vehicles entered retirement age from 2018”, Xiao said. The accumulated amount of retired NEV batteries in China will reach 170,000 tonnes by 2020, he added.
The power storage plant will have a rooftop photovoltaic power station and incorporate a datacentre.
