PG & E Wants Your Old Batteries.

[kenmce]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/b...38830/index.htm

Where's the market for the old batteries? One answer might reside in the basement of PG&E's corporate headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Against one wall, a nickel metal hydride battery salvaged from a wrecked Prius sits plugged into a standard utility meter. When a switch is thrown, the meter begins to spin backward as the battery feeds electricity into the grid.

PG&E plans to buy thousands of plug-in hybrid and electric car batteries that have outlived their usefulness for transportation but still retain capacity. The utility will install them in the basements of office towers and at electrical substations to store green energy produced by wind farms and solar arrays.

[Godiva]

They're not the only ones.

SDG&E has mentioned using plug in hybrids (Prii in particular) as storage in the evening for wind generated power, etc. Store it during off-peak, draw it during peak. It's more complicated than that, but they are very aware of the battery capabilities of our cars. I heard this during a demo in which they converted an SDG&E owned Prius into a plug in using Hymotion's LiIon battery kit.

[MikeSF]

Wonder how this ties into the CNW report on the cost of disposal now?? *snicker*

but one thing I don't get, they're not useful in cars? But they're still useful as batteries? Someone want to explain this to me.

[kenmce]

but one thing I don't get, they're not useful in cars? But they're still useful as batteries? Someone want to explain this to me. [/b]

In your car a loss of say, 75% of capacity would make the battery pretty worthless. All a utility company would have to do is line up four of them and they're in business. You wouldn't do that in your car because of space and weight. That's not a concern for them.

[Godiva]

I don't think they're just looking at batteries after the life of the car. I think they're also thinking of buying them from hybrids that are totaled. How this is going to confict or not with recycling programs, I don't know. Doesn't Toyota buy back their batteries? And I can see any company that makes some sort of proprietary battery wanting to get their batteries back as well.

[FL_Prius_Driver]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MikeSF @ Aug 1 2007, 12:10 PM) [snapback]488661[/snapback]</div>

Wonder how this ties into the CNW report on the cost of disposal now?? *snicker*

but one thing I don't get, they're not useful in cars? But they're still useful as batteries? Someone want to explain this to me.
[/b]

Two obvious aspects are:
1) In a controlled temperature room, the charging window is a lot more forgiving than what the car requires. (Note that the Prius only never charges above 80% SOC nor lets it go lower than 40%.)
2) The ability to jumper out bad cells or charge partitioned groups of cells is an option. Jumpering out cells in the Prius pack is very easy.

Often times the batteries are from wreaked cars that had a good battery.

When a Prius battery goes bad, it is usually only a small number of cells that have gone bad. Many are starting to realize that it is worth a lot more than the $200 Toyota bounty fee. Sort of like throwing away used jewelery.

One last point, sooner or later these batteries are going to be really sought after by solar powered home experts. It is an unbelivable bargin for them since they can break them down into a massive number of 1.2V cells.

[MikeSF]

Last point: So these battereis (Nickel-blah blah whatever) are a lot more efficient/space wise than the deep cycle lead-acid batteries? I always kept my eye on the stayed on the energy making side of solar power, never had any experience on the selling side.

[tochatihu]

Toyota's buyback offer remains at $200, even though the primary metal price has increased from $3 to $16 per pound since 2001.

Most buyers of salvage batteries are using them for electric vehicles, or so I've been told. If PG&E places additional demand on the market, then we might see the street price increasing.

So lock your trunks, if your Prius happen to have them

[dipper]

Even if a battery has only 75% efficiency left, it is still 100% more efficient than letting the electricity go to waste during the off peak hours.

I can see everyone's Prius needing replacement battery soon from thieves....

[NoMoShocks]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ Aug 1 2007, 06:54 PM) [snapback]489003[/snapback]</div>

Even if a battery has only 75% efficiency left, it is still 100% more efficient than letting the electricity go to waste during the off peak hours.

I can see everyone's Prius needing replacement battery soon from thieves....
[/b]

May be the solution to the meth epidemic, if the theieves don't understand what precautions to take around the high voltage.