Moment Energy plans to begin mass production of network storage devices from…

Many visionaries have extolled the benefits of using old EV batteries instead of throwing them away. Moment of Energy brings something new to this concept: large-scale production.

At the end of October, the startup won $20 million dollar grant from the US Department of Energy build a plant in Taylor, Texas, to produce transportable containers from pre-loved batteries.

Four founders launched Moment Energy in a real home garage in British Columbia. 2020. They have since moved to a larger facility in Coquitlam, British Columbia, where they receive previously used electric vehicle batteries, grade them according to their level of wear, and package them into housings to power stationary energy storage devices. So far, the company has completed seven projects where reused batteries help remote outposts use more solar energy and burn less diesel.

“We can provide a more cost-effective product without sacrificing performance,” said the co-founder and chief operating officer Samreen Rattan in an interview. ​“Consumers won’t be able to tell the difference” compared to a completely new battery system.

The company’s progress at the moment is not unique – a number of other startups (ReJoule, Smartville, Energy Reuse) may indicate early installations in the field, usually grant-funded research projects. These are useful starting points, but they fall far short of the scale of production that has made lithium-ion batteries a force to be reckoned with in the energy system. For second-life batteries to change our ongoing solution to fossil fuel use, they need to be less labor-intensive and more widely produced.

That’s why Moment Energy’s grant-funded Texas plant is so noteworthy. The company plans to produce up to 1 gigawatt-hour of product storage each year, easily making the facility the largest of its kind in the United States. And the whole production line will be covered UL 1974 safety certificationa key vote of confidence that mixing and matching batteries will not lead to risky products.

Reduced storage costs for the forgotten commercial market

The energy storage market continues to break records rapidly, but it is heavily concentrated in two categories: small, mass-produced household batteries are proliferating as a complement to rooftop solar, and large-scale utility-scale projects are gaining popularity as a way to deliver clean energy to command in such places. like California and Texas.

That leaves a gap for commercial and industrial buyers, who may need anywhere from a few hundred kilowatt-hours to about 10 megawatt hours. Storage vendors have not focused much on creating products for or selling to this segment.

Indeed, several companies have spent years on commercial and industrial storage, arguing that they can use batteries to cut peak load costs and make money while helping the grid. But one by one the pioneers love Root And AMS moved away from the business of developing commercial battery fleets and instead focused on software. Attempts to permit and install relatively small power that could fit in a school or office building have not been successful.

Moment Energy’s thesis is that it can win over these forgotten customers by lowering the initial price of energy storage. At scale, containers of carefully tested used batteries can provide energy storage at 30 The cost is a percentage lower than an equivalent set of newly manufactured batteries, Rattan said. And sustainability-minded customers value a product that requires no new mining and keeps batteries out of the waste stream.