A study into the making of a circular economy for electric vehicle (EV) batteries is planned.
Energy-storage company Connected Energy in the United Kingdom is working with Lancaster University doctoral researcher Thomas Jalili Tanha, professor Katy Mason and Dr Teea Palo on the project.
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the study will investigate how a circular economy for second life EV batteries can be established and incorporated into the business models of companies.
The aim is to turn sustainability into a competitive advantage through sales, profitability and social benefits.
“We argue that second life applications will be central to ‘closing the loop’ in the development of a circular economy for EV batteries,” Tanha says. “Instead of a ‘sourcing-making-disposing’ supply chain, the recycling of end-of-life battery materials back into the production process needs to become economically and ethically desirable.”
Connected Energy chief executive officer Matthew Lumsden agrees.
“Recent policy announcements, business news and our own expanding order book have illustrated the momentum building in the energy-storage sector, particularly in the area of second life EV battery installations,” he says. “We need to harness this momentum and growing social awareness of sustainability issues to promote the advantages of a circular economy approach,” Lumsden says.
“We are keen to understand how to do this better and share knowledge of how businesses can achieve it themselves.”
Tanha says they’re keen for others to get involved in the research as diversity of opinions is needed from the market, policy makers, regulators and energy businesses. The insights will be shared collectively through white papers.
Contact t.jalilitanha@lancaster.ac.uk for more information.
