EV Battery Recycling Project
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) signed an MOU with Hyundai Motors on Sept. 27 to jointly develop energy storage systems (ESSs) to recycle waste batteries from electric vehicles (EVs).
The two companies will operate a pilot 2 MWh ESS and conduct a feasibility study on it in conjunction with Hyundai Motor's solar power project at its Ulsan plant. Then, they will shift their focus to a 10 MWh commercial model. The two companies will invest 850 million won by 2020.
KHNP plans to supply waste battery recycling ESSs of 3 GWh by 2030 in conjunction with large-scale renewable energy projects.
To this end, KHNP plans to build an environment-friendly virtuous cycle that collects batteries used in electric vehicles, dividing them via performance evaluations and recycles some of them for ESS use. An ESS will be built with batteries with grades of 70 percent or higher through electric vehicle battery performance diagnosis technology. Valuable metals such as nickel and manganese will be recovered from disqualified batteries.
“We will kill two birds with one stone –- resolving the problem of treating waste batteries from electric vehicles and the intermittence of renewable energy. We will grow waste battery disposal into a new value added industry,” said Chung Jae-hoon, president of KHNP.