E-mobility and the life of a battery
Electric motorbike taxis, buses and cars are spreading across African cities and towns. Every one of them carries a battery that will one day be too worn for the road, but still useful for something else. Planning for that now is how e-mobility stays clean all the way through.
One battery, several lives
A vehicle battery is usually retired when it can no longer deliver the range or power a vehicle needs. That is long before it stops being able to store energy.
First life: on the road
Powering motorbikes, three-wheelers, buses and cars, often charged from the grid, mini-grids or solar.
Test and grade
When range drops, the pack is checked cell by cell to see what is still healthy.
Second life: storage
Healthy modules are rebuilt into stationary batteries for mini-grids, homes, shops and charging stations.
Recycle
At true end of life, metals like lithium, nickel and cobalt are recovered for new batteries.
E-mobility meets rural power
Electric vehicles need charging, and charging needs reliable power. In rural areas, that can be a mini-grid's best customer: a steady, daytime load that makes solar more affordable for everyone else connected to it.
On a weak rural grid, though, many vehicles charging at once can cause problems. Smart charging, battery swapping stations and second-life storage can turn that load into an asset instead.
What we look at
- Charging and battery swapping as anchor loads for mini-grids and weak rural feeders.
- Second-life vehicle batteries as storage for mini-grids and charging hubs.
- Grading and tracking batteries so their health and history follow them between lives.
- Collection and recycling routes, so batteries don't end up dumped at the end.
- The full life-cycle picture: costs, emissions and jobs from first use to recycling.
Build the system before the waste arrives
Most of today's electric vehicle batteries in Africa are still in their first life. That gives a short window to set up testing, repair, second-life markets and recycling before large numbers retire, rather than cleaning up after.
Our earlier work on hybrid car batteries showed how quickly retired batteries can pile up when no one plans for them, and how much value is still inside them.
Related work
Second-life batteries are also central to our Waste to Wealth work, and charging loads tie into our research on grids and mini-grids.
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