UT Team Helps Nissan Find ‘Second Life’ for EV Batteries
The major selling point of electric vehicles has been their ability to reduce emissions while saving money through lower fuel costs. A potential impediment to this eco-friendly model of transportation is the shelf life of its power source.
EV batteries can no longer be used to drive electric vehicles when their charge capacity declines to about 70%. The batteries are expensive to produce and difficult to recycle or dispose of properly. Finding ways to repurpose them helps sustainability and minimizes the impact on the environment.
An engineering team from the University of Tennessee has been tasked with helping Nissan find a “second life” for its LEAF model electric vehicle batteries by turning them into power supplies at Nissan America’s Headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee. The Battery Energy Storage Solution (BESS) project also includes UT Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UTORII), Middle Tennessee Electric, and 7 States Power Corp.
The collaborative effort across UT’s engineering departments is being led by UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Electrical Energy Conversion and Storage Tom Zawodzinski. He is joined on the team by Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Chancellor’s Professor Leon Tolbert; Material Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Katharine Page; and Peng Zhao, associate professor in mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering at the UT Space Institute.