The Second Life project is a joint initiative between Nissan and Enel.

The project will see used Nissan electric vehicle batteries at Enel’s conventional power plant in Melilla, Spain, operated by the Enel Group’s Spanish subsidiary, Endesa. Like many conventional power stations, they are slow to ramp up should the need suddenly increase. As we’ve seen with Australia’s Tesla battery facility in South Australia, it can be called on in a fraction of a second to fill in the unevenness inherent power networks, especially isolated ones.

This pioneering European project is based on circular economy principles, and has been selected as a “member initiative” by the World Economic Forum (WEF). In 2020, Second Life project received recognition via the BASF – Sustainability Excellence Club (Club de Excelencia En Sostenibilidad) award in the category of Best Circular Economy Practice among large businesses. This award recognises the best Circular Economy practices in Spain, rewarding projects that address the challenges of limited natural resources through a variety of circular business models.

The collaboration includes Nissan‘s used batteries and Loccioni, a system integrator, needed for the circular process. The simple idea ties these used batteries together in a large stationary storage system. Endesa’s Melilla power station will then use this massive battery to avoid blackouts, and to smooth out grid fluctuations. So far, the back-up system is composed of 48 used Nissan LEAF batteries and 30 new ones.

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ABOVE: Second Life Project

The significance  of this is that Melilla’s 90,000 inhabitants have a local electricity network, that is completely isolated from the national distribution grid.

Soufiane Elkhomri, Director of Energy Services for the Nissan AMIEO region (Africa, Middle-East, India, Europe and Oceania), explains: “At Nissan we believe the future is electrified. Through partnerships, we can make the future smarter and more efficient. The collaboration with Enel allowed us to create a model for a battery’s second life, which can be applied in many other use cases. This is a great example of the endless possibilities that come with reusing electric vehicle batteries as part of a circular economy.”

Salvatore Bernabei, CEO of Enel Green Power, said: “The development of storage technology is key if we want to foster greater renewable penetration in our energy systems, so we can truly shape the power generation of the future. Furthermore, in the Enel Group, we are strongly committed to using technology that complies with the principles of sustainability and circularity. Specifically, this project demonstrates that, in line with the Open Innovation principles, we can find solutions for the management of the end of life of essential equipment such as batteries, a topic which is at the core of the sustainable energy issue.”

Ernesto Ciorra, Enel Group’s Chief Innovability® Officer: “This is a project we strongly believed in since day one. We involved important partners alongside counting on the relentless dedication of our colleagues and on a real, operating plant where we could implement storage solutions through second-life batteries. And what would have been called impossible only a few years ago became possible, became real.”

Endesa’s Melilla 4 MW facility can use the batteries for 15 minutes in order to reset the power station system and restart the power supply.

Ambition 2030, is Nissan’s long-term vision for empowering mobility and beyond, and a way to keep using EV batteries after the car reaches the end of its useful life. “What happens to the batteries,” is one of the main claims of anti-EV campaigners. It is also worth noting that current research shows great promise for the complete dismantling of individual defunct cells in order to reclaim the precious metals in a safe way.

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