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Smartville confirmed as much as Intersolar 2024 in San Diego this yr in a sales space within the startup hall tucked method again in an unassuming nook of the present flooring. Hidden of their sales space in an unassuming grey field was maybe essentially the most thrilling piece of tech we noticed on the present.
They name it Mana Energy, and it’s a field that permits DIYers, electricians, photo voltaic installers, and extra to faucet immediately right into a Nissan LEAF or Tesla battery pack and use its saved energy for his or her house. Mana Energy gives a hardwired connection to the battery and forces it to play good with a vehicle-to-grid system. We picked up the fundamentals of the system on the present and related with Smartville CEO Antoni Tong for a cellphone interview to dive deeper afterwards.
Tapping Into Second Life Batteries
After giving used EV battery packs a well being verify with Periscope, it’s time to place them to make use of as stationary storage, and Smartville’s Mana Energy is the device that makes all of it potential. After we first noticed the prototype of Mana Energy at Intersolar in San Diego, it was an unassuming pair of 3D containers with just a few cables popping out of the again. The containers hosted the ability electronics and cables to hook up with the battery bundled along with a show for the consumer.
The cable sprouting out the entrance faucets immediately into the plug on an EV battery. There are at the moment completely different leads for Tesla packs and one other for the Nissan LEAF. In Teslas, the excessive voltage battery connector is below the rear seat, although the Mana Energy system was designed for use with packs which might be now not in a automobile.
To make full use of the battery for AC energy output, the Mana Energy should be related to an exterior inverter. Smartville at the moment makes use of 400 volt inverters for the packs at the moment supported and extra choices can be added sooner or later as help for extra battery packs are added. If the house owner already has an inverter as a part of a house photo voltaic system and it makes use of an LG battery system, Smartville is ready to faucet into that inverter for the Mana Energy system as properly.
From there, the system acts like another stationary power storage system in a house. It should be wired into the house’s electrical panel and related to an automated switch change, however every little thing from the pack on out exists already in right now’s sturdy photo voltaic and storage trade.
[Disclaimer: This is not a DIY guide by any stretch of the imagination. Do be inspired, but also go out and do your own research before doing any electrical work. High voltage electricity can be hazardous to your health any may require help from an electrician. When in doubt, consult with a certified electrician before proceeding.]
Smartville deliberate to ship the primary items to beta testers in July 2024, with plans to develop additional after a interval to assemble and combine learnings from these early customers. Extra particulars about this technique and for all the opposite issues Smartville is doing, together with its bigger containerized power storage programs that give post-consumer EV batteries a second life, head over to the corporate web site.
It’s fairly cool to see exterior the field thinkers and non-conforming corporations constructing merchandise that enable prospects to do much more with the sources they have already got. It’s not a horrible stretch to think about somebody who owns a Tesla automobile putting in a Mana Energy system simply as a backup energy supply within the occasion of an extended length energy outage. When the ability goes down, you possibly can seize the cable to the Mana Energy system, pull up the again seat within the Tesla, and plug it in with little or no effort.
Again From The Useless
At the moment, used 60-80 kWh EV battery packs vary in value from $500-1,000 when headed to the recycler, round $4,000 for packs appropriate to be used in second life, non-EV purposes, and round $6,000 for packs that may be put again into an EV as a used pack. There are a variety of variables that impression these costs, and transportation is a key piece of that puzzle.
Smartville’s Periscope system is a handheld device that’s at the moment constructed right into a briefcase-sized Pelican case and comes with just a few adapter cables for various battery packs. Salvage yards join the device as much as the pack and begin the well being verify, which runs by means of the battery pack’s state of well being from high to backside. Salvage yards don’t purchase the device, however as a substitute pay Smartville every time they run the device on a pack.
This course of helps salvage yards dispatch incoming battery packs to recyclers and EV elements corporations. It additionally conveniently gives an upstream provide of vetted batteries for Smartville to faucet into for its Smartville 360 power storage programs, Tong stated.
Wanting past Smartville, the flexibility for salvage yards to promote EV battery packs with a standardized invoice of well being gives a stable basis for much more corporations and prospects to construct one thing from. “They may have a battery feedstock coming from round use,” Tong stated.
A Renewed Focus
Smartville first got here onto our radar with its Periscope product that permits salvage yards, restore retailers, DIYers, and automotive corporations to run by means of a full well being verify of used EV battery packs. I began speaking to Tong about this, however it shortly grew to become clear that Smartville has a a lot bigger plan in thoughts.
Periscope will proceed to be one of many core merchandise at Smartville and can be joined later this yr by Mana Energy. This mix makes it potential — for the very first time — to shortly and precisely assess the well being of a used EV battery pack and put it to work as stationary storage. Underpinning each of those instruments is the third pillar of Smartville, and that’s Battery Join.
Battery Join is the software program powering each options, capturing essential knowledge from the packs alongside the best way. When Periscope does a well being verify on a battery pack, Battery Join logs the entire related knowledge into its Entire Battery Catalog database. They think about this catalog changing into a repository for data as they proceed to triage EV battery packs, put them into service, and construct out power storage options transferring ahead.
The Entire Battery Catalog gives traceability and gives the info essential to help EU Battery Passport necessities. “We are attempting to create a path of information,” Tong stated. The primary level of information after the OEM builds the pack is when Smartville’s Periscope connects to the pack and begins its check.
Lastly, Smartville plans to proceed leveraging Periscope, Mana Energy, and Battery Join internally to construct and promote its turnkey Smartville 360 power storage programs. These programs make the most of an array of battery packs and melds them collectively right into a single power storage system with Mana Energy and Battery Join. Smartville has already deployed over 15MWh of full service power storage programs and plans to proceed this because the core of the enterprise transferring ahead.
To fund this work, Smartville has secured a bunch of presidency grants, with $26 million in funding up to now. Most not too long ago, Smartville secured $2.65M from federal and state funding to flesh out its second life battery repurposing options.
Shifting Ahead
“The trade is so small,” Tong stated. He see immense worth that the market is at the moment lacking out on, largely as a result of uncertainty across the well being of the battery pack itself. Others are constructing numerous elements of the EV battery pack second life ecosystem, however Tong stated, “we wish to concentrate on the entire enchilada.” The corporate is at the moment exploring opening up a seed spherical of funding to allow it to develop even additional and sooner.
This begins with the approaching launch of Periscope this summer season, adopted by the launch of Mana Energy within the again half of the yr. Scaling up these merchandise will enable Smartville and its prospects to evaluate extra used EV battery packs, extra precisely to disposition them, and finally squeeze as a lot life as potential out of them. That’s nice information for patrons, suppliers, salvage yards, automotive corporations, and the planet.
Smartville is constructing adaptable, versatile options that may evolve as packs change. At current, Tong stated the staff is “working onerous to get our product out. This yr goes to be a vital yr.” This firm is doing among the most fun work in clear tech so far as we’re involved, and we’ll be eagerly watching to see what they’re as much as at each alternative.
For extra details about Smartville, head over to the corporate web site or observe them on X.
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