Estimating the availability of energy storage capacity from used electric vehicle batteries on a national scale

Moving toward a zero-carbon transport system accelerates the diffusion of batteries in society through electric vehicles. This so-called “clean transport”, as kind as it is to the environment during its lifetime, could be a burden for waste management at end of life if not managed properly. A circular waste management system, alternatively, suggests exploring the appropriate actions and policies to create the right environment for the second use of end-of-life batteries. A temporal estimation of the remained capacity in end-of-life electric vehicle batteries enables us to find the fitting second-use applications. This paper will present a model which has been developed for Ireland which combines (i) predictions for the adoption of electric vehicles by class, (ii) vehicle lifetime estimates based on a combination of current EV & ICE vehicles, and (iii) estimation of end-of-life battery generation and associated reuse capacity. The model computes a range of scenarios to estimate the potential availability of EV batteries for secondary use in Ireland out to 2050. Our estimation shows that a scale of several ten, several hundred, and a few several thousand megawatt-hour energy capacities would be available by 2050 in small, medium, and large class vehicles.