Toyota to recycle hybrid and EV batteries for renewable strength use

Toyota Motor has agreed to spouse with Jera, a joint fuel-procurement venture between Tokyo ENERGY and Chubu ENERGY, in a bid to transform good old batteries used for electrical vehicles and hybrid vehicles into power safe-keeping system for renewable energy, Nikkei has learned.

The brand new storage system will consist of a lithium-ion battery and a nickel-metal hydride battery. Both corporations' objective is to determine a new technology that may enable storage batteries to use more proficiently by combining different sorts of batteries.

Toyota and Jera will focus on developing the storage battery by the end of the fiscal year. Then, in fiscal 2022, the firms aim to hook up the storage area to the power grid therefore that they are able to conduct technological verification for practical use.

The system is likely to mainly be utilized for storing electricity generated by power plants using solar, wind and other renewable sources. The volume of electricity made by such power plant life changes greatly according to climate. By being linked to renewable-energy power crops, the storage system can store and offer electricity flexibly in line with the changing degrees of supply and demand.

The project comes as the amount of used batteries from electric vehicles and hybrids is expected to jump over the coming years in Japan.

In line with the nation's automobile market associations, EVs owned in Japan numbered 117,000 in 2020. For hybrids, the quantity is 9.28 million -- about 80 times higher than EVs. If Toyota, the most significant hybrid maker, succeeds in developing the new technology, it could raise momentum toward large-level used battery recycling.

A great deal of put in in-vehicle batteries are anticipated to accumulate immediately after 2025. If the making cost of storage area batteries is reduced by making make use of these put in batteries, it will help expand renewable strength market in Japan. Furthermore, reusing spent batteries is definitely environmentally friendly since it eliminates greenhouse gas emissions utilized to get rid of the old cells.

In the automotive industry, Nissan Motor and China's BYD are also focusing on utilizing used electric-car or truck batteries.