Used EV Batteries Could Power Tomorrow's Solar Farms

Re:Used EV Batteries Could Power Tomorrow's Solar Farms by belval on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @02:30PM (#23480458)

Careful with Leaf batteries, they used air for cooling instead of water which means that most cells show significant capacity loss after a few years.

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Re:Used EV Batteries Could Power Tomorrow's Solar Farms by outworlder on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @05:51PM (#23482568)

Climate and usage dependent.

And it's not even a matter of air vs water, is between being actively thermal managed or not.

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Re:Used EV Batteries Could Power Tomorrow's Solar Farms by walrus01 on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @08:45PM (#23483980)

This is why the first/second generation Leaf batteries sell for REALLY cheap from used battery dealers. They're generally in poor condition. As compared to harvesting used 18650 cells in the 2500mAh range capacity from other 'used' sources, and building a DIY powerwall that way.

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Re:Used EV Batteries Could Power Tomorrow's Solar Farms by mrgzg1 on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @05:23PM (#23482294)

Indeed! More than getting ripped off on capacity, I'm super scared of using large capacity lithium batteries in general. Having seen small samsung phones blow up, I'm a little scared and have a lot of fuses and cut off switches.

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Re:Used EV Batteries Could Power Tomorrow's Solar Farms by belval on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @05:30PM (#23482372)

To be fair, there is no real contest between a good LiFePO4 cell and some Samsung battery as thermal runaway on the former is near impossible in normal conditions.

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Re:Used EV Batteries Could Power Tomorrow's Solar Farms by epistasis on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @03:09PM (#23480862)

IIRC, this is highly dependent on the climate in which they were operated. A battery used in Phoenix may have much bigger problems than one from Pacifica.

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