The cost of recycling used electric vehicle batteries should be covered “at least in part” by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), according to proposals by Europe’s energy storage industry.
Such a move should form part of measures to “address the barriers that hamper the uptake of storage”, the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) has said in a new position paper.
The paper recommends EV batteries be used in the stationary energy storage market once they are no longer suitable for their initial purpose, describing it as “a significant opportunity for car and battery manufacturers, but also EV owners who would be able to replace a part of their initial investment in the EV battery”.
Identifying transport as the “only EU sector in which greenhouse gas emissions have risen since 1990”, EASE said energy storage could help to decarbonise the transport sector— by deploying second-life batteries, backed by fast-charging infrastructure and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration.
EASE recommended legislation be introduced in the EU to ensure OEMs “cover, at least in part, the cost of recycling the batteries at end-of-life, including when EV batteries have been repurposed for energy storage purposes”.
But the paper acknowledged the need to identify who should take responsibility for the recycling of repurposed EV batteries, as “the absence of legal clarity for second life batteries raises the issue of how to apply the extended producer responsibility”.