Renault Plans to Install Europe's Largest 2nd Life Battery Storage

[Adam Varga + 123]

Renault plans to build the continent's largest stationary battery storage network next year using old electric-car batteries. It will install used and some new electric car batteries in three locations: two Renault factories in France, and the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Germany.

The company says the battery storage network will be expanded gradually over time. By 2020,  the network should deliver 70 megawatts of power and store at least 60 megawatt-hours of energy storage to smooth out supply from solar and wind power to make them available at peak times when consumers need it.

The stationary battery storage network will use batteries from 2,000 of the company's European electric cars—the Renault Zoe and Twingo and the Nissan Leaf, among others, built into containers. The network will comprise used batteries from the cars as well as some new electric-car batteries that have been inventoried as replacement packs for older models but never sold.