Testing for Second-Life use
What is the residual capacity of the battery?
The potential uses of second-life batteries from electric vehicles are many and varied. The applications range from home storage, emergency power supplies and power buffers to energy storage for solar power or wind energy.
Bidirectional programmable DC power supplies
For this application, it makes sense to use bidirectional laboratory power supplies for further investigation. With only one device, it is possible to test whether older batteries from electrically powered vehicles can still be used in other applications. If these applications are predominantly static and if the residual capacity is sufficient, these batteries will find their second-life use e.g. in stationary energy storage systems.
In this test, the battery is first fully charged with the bidirectional power supply and then discharged in a controlled manner with the same device. The capacity (SOC) and state of aging (SOH) are measured and the energy is fed back into the power grid with an efficiency of over 96%.