Forsee joins EDF Store & Forcast on second-life batteries
French battery manufacturer Forsee Power is cooperating with EDF Store & Forecast, a subsidiary of the French energy group Électricité de France (EDF), to give batteries from electric vehicles a “second life”.
Forsee Power will supply battery packs from heavy vehicles such as electric buses, and EDF Store & Forecast will integrate these into its storage solutions. The second-life batteries will be used, among other things, to supply microgrids or charging stations.
Forsee Power also wants to use stationary battery storage at its own locations. This enables the company to avoid grid overload, and/or to be able to temporarily store PV electricity. One application for mobile battery storage is planned for this year for a grid operator wanting to replace diesel-powered generators with such a solution.
“This partnership with EDF Store & Forecast is an important step for the commercialization of our second-life battery systems. Designed with the use in stationary applications in mind, our high energy density battery packs dedicated to heavy transport will make it possible to support the growth of the market for stationary mobile storage solutions necessary for the decarbonization of maintenance operations and the adoption renewable energies usable at all times,” says Vincent Gauthier, Director of the Forsee Power Services activity.
This is not the first cooperation in this area for Forsee Power as the French company is also collaborating with the British company Connected Energy, which also builds stationary energy storage systems based on disused (second life) electric vehicle batteries. A first joint project with a volume of around 3.5 MWh is planned for the second half of 2023. A second, much larger energy storage system with around 40 MWh is also scheduled to go into operation in the UK from the third quarter of 2024.
Forsee Power has an extraordinary diversity of activities in the sustainable transport sector, ranging from batteries for electric micromobility vehicles, to electric off-road, large public transport and commercial vehicles as well as batteries for the maritime sector. The company says it is the leading provider of electric bus battery systems in Europe. Forsee not only provides batteries for purely electric vehicles, but also for hydrogen fuel cell powered electric vehicles for the public transport, maritime and commercial vehicle sector with fuel cell technology in a partnership with Ballard.
Forsee Power is already supplying a wide range of vehicles that require batteries (fuel cell vehicles also require batteries, simply smaller ones). These vehicle sectors Forsee are covering are primarily are focused on applications in which operators run fleets, ie more easily retrievable batteries for second-life applications – this is optimal for the battery manufacturer to foray out into the dynamically emerging second-life battery market. This market is forecast to boom in the next few years as the batteries currently being used in the increasingly expanding electric vehicle market, will all have lucrative second lives in other applications before they are recycled.
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