Originally announced two years ago, a joint energy storage project between European energy firm Enel and Nissan has come online, giving LEAF batteries a second chance at life and ensuring electrical supply for more than 90,000 people.
DER, or distributed energy resources, are a huge deal in the utility space, which is scrambling to keep up with the ever-greater power demands of more, bigger high-compute data centers. EV batteries at the end of their useful life for automotive use have long been promised to be part of a more comprehensive solution, however — and now that promise is coming good.
Spanish-language site Motorpasión is reporting that the plan to put dozens of “second life” batteries from used Nissan LEAF EVs to work at Enel Group’s Endesa plant in Melilla (first announced back in 2022), is now online, ensuring steady delivery of energy for over 90,000 people.
Due to its location on the African continent and south of the Strait of Gibraltar, Melilla is disconnected from both the mainland Spanish and Moroccan electricity grids, making it fully dependent on a single thermal power plant to supply electricity to its inhabitants. That can lead to surges in energy demand that can cause brownouts or rolling blackouts — a situation that’s all too common during the Mediterranean region’s extremely hot summer months.
From the original press release:
As part of the collaboration, Nissan has provided the batteries from its electric vehicles and Loccioni, a system integrator, secured the proper integration between batteries needed for the circular process. The project leverages advanced technology based on a simple idea: once the useful life of a battery within an electric vehicle has come to an end, these batteries are recycled and assembled in a large stationary storage system. This system is integrated with Endesa’s Melilla facility to avoid the interruption of electricity supply during events of excessive load, to improve the reliability of the grid and secure the continuity of network service to the local population. The back-up generator is composed of 48 used Nissan LEAF batteries and 30 new ones.
This new Second Life facility is capable of storing up to 4 MW of energy and delivering up to 1.7 MWh on its own into Melilla’s electrical grid. That’s not enough to keep things going for more than a few minutes, but it’s enough time to restore the system and restart the power supply without interrupting critical operations, and more than enough to relieve loads on the main plant during peak hours.
Nissan LEAF + Enel Second Life project
“This is a project we strongly believed in since day one,” explained Ernesto Ciorra, Enel Group’s Chief Innovability [sic] Officer. “We involved important partners alongside counting on the relentless dedication of our colleagues and on a real, operating plant where we could implement storage solutions through second-life batteries. And what would have been called impossible only a few years ago became possible, became real.”
Nissan is currently using LEAF batteries in similar large BESS systems in Japan, where the batteries are used as city-wide backup batteries in the event of natural disasters. Other companies are looking to similar concepts to power equipment on remote job sites, as well, showing that EV batteries are lasting longer — and serving more people! — than the oil lobbies would have you believe.
SOURCES | IMAGES: Motorpasion, Nissan.
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