Second-Life Batteries: European Market and Shortcomings in Policy Making

The transportation electrification is growing fast, especially with batteries and electric vehicles (EV) decreasing prices. Based on the growing number of EV close to end-of-life, a topic became popular, second-life batteries (SLB). SLB are batteries removed from EV when their energy and power density degraded below required level but are still performant enough for other applications. The transportation sector is trending towards electrification, which means a significant change to used batteries’ availability for energy storage systems. Such change has two sides, clean transportation, and battery discard’s increasing volume. SLB also have come in response to the growing number of discarded batteries from expanding EV industry. The objective of this study is to analyse the European scenario for second-life batteries and the policies related to this mater. Data was collected from each European country on sales, collecting and recycling and the current legislation and proposed ones were carefully analysed. Even though there is no reuse data, the collection data of waste batteries is very low, being below target in some countries. Europe has no regulation related to SLB, and the current regulation has many grey areas as it is not adapted to current technology, characteristics, and volume of batteries in the market. Directive 2006/66/EC aims to minimize environmental impact by promoting waste battery recycling and reuse. However, this regulation is outdated and inefficient by today's standards. The EV market growth is leading to fast accumulation of retired batteries. Reusing batteries and extending its life expectancy can reduce environmental impact and improve economic advantages.