Cummins Inc. has partnered with a university to research how batteries used for the electric powertrain systems it designs and manufactures can have second lives after they’re no longer useful for powering vehicles.
The Columbus-based company with global operations announced Tuesday a multi-year partnership with the University of California San Diego and its battery validation lab to analyze viable business and technical approaches to effectively reuse and repurpose electric vehicle batteries, according to a news release.
Batteries retired from electric vehicles still maintain significant battery capacity. While that capacity may no longer meet the minimum requirements for the initial application, they could provide sufficient capacity for less demanding applications, Cummins officials said.
Repurposing batteries to less-demanding applications not only provides a higher value through the life of the battery, it increases sustainability by postponing recycling, the company added.
Cummins started its Electrified Power business at the start of 2018. It designs and manufactures fully electric and hybrid powertrain systems, along with components and subsystems to serve commercial markets as they adopt electrification.
UC San Diego will perform accelerated testing and real-world application testing, and will develop an outdoor second-life demonstration system comprised of Cummins battery modules, the news release said.
This will allow Cummins to acquire data on the aging behaviors of its battery modules, test integration solutions for second-life battery systems and validate stationary energy storage system performance under grid energy storage applications, the news release said.
“Electrification has the potential to play an enormous role as we move toward decarbonization of many industries, but in order to maximize that potential, it’s crucial that we focus on the sustainability of the entire product life cycle,” said Julie Furber, Cummins vice president — Electrified Power.
“One piece of the puzzle that requires additional research is the second-life of batteries, and Cummins now has a highly-skilled and capable partner in UC San Diego as we move towards the development of reuse solutions,” she added.
The partnership with UC San Diego represents one of the first lithium-ion battery projects to exclusively study second-life battery capabilities with batteries that were designed for commercial applications, the news release said.
“Battery module design is a crucial aspect to making second-life more feasible and their experience will be invaluable as we continue to develop solutions,” said Mike Ferry, Director of Energy Storage and Systems at the Center for Energy Research, University of California San Diego.
