How can electric car batteries be reused at the end of their life? The question is an important one and, right now, many manufacturers are investigating alternative methods of recycling them, even when their efficiency is not sufficient to power the vehicles' zero-emission motors.
Among them is Porsche, which announced that in the last few days of July it activated the new energy storage facility at its Leipzig factory, built with batteries from pre-series and pre-production Taycans.
A major project
The storage plant designed by Porsche for its Leipzig factory is the size of almost two basketball courts and consists of 4,400 battery modules.
More specifically, it is a stationary energy storage system, which, as mentioned, was built using the used batteries of some Taycan cars that are no longer useful or cannot be sold. The technical specifications of the system include a total capacity of 5 MW and a storage capacity of 10 MWh.
But that's not all. According to Porsche, the system can be used with an overload of up to 20 per cent for short periods in order to be able to store or distribute as much electricity as possible in the shortest possible time in emergency situations, such as blackouts.
The energy storage system of the Porsche plant in Leipzig
A zero-emission factory
The Porsche plant in Leipzig achieved 'zero-emission factory' status in 2021, about a year after the Zuffenhausen plant, thanks to a series of measures to improve its energy efficiency.
The electricity stored in the storage system built from Taycan batteries is in fact partly generated by solar panels installed on the factory roof: a system with a peak power of 9.4 MW.
The Porsche factory in Leipzig
The Porsche factory in Leipzig
Today, the factory is not only the home of the popular models, but also one of the most efficient and sustainable in the world, thanks to an intensive improvement programme that also involves the employees themselves.
More Porsche charging news:
Gallery: Porsche plant in Leipzig powered by Taycan batteries
