Imagine taking old electric car batteries and worn-out solar panels and giving them a second life instead of throwing them away. It's like refurbishing old furniture to make it useful again, but for energy hardware. This way, we can build cheap power systems for farms or homes while recovering rare minerals from the parts that are truly broken.
Current recycling for PV and EV batteries focuses on material recovery, ignoring the potential for reuse. Existing recycling processes are often too expensive, inefficient, and produce low-purity materials.
Three business models and use cases for decentralized energy: agrivoltaics, plug-in PV setups, and low-income community roof-top systems.
If you are an agrivoltaics operator dealing with high installation costs for energy storage — this project developed a setup combining second-life PV modules and EV batteries that lowers the cost of decentralized energy.
If you are a solar farm manager dealing with aging panels that need replacing — this project developed a repowering strategy that reuses these panels in low-cost decentralized systems instead of paying for disposal.
If you are a recycler dealing with low purity and high costs in material recovery — this project developed environmentally friendly technologies to increase the recovery of critical raw materials from end-of-life products.
The project focuses on developing low-cost decentralized energy systems by reusing second-life batteries and PV panels. Based on available project data, the goal is to create viable, guaranteed low-cost solutions for emerging markets.
The project is currently demonstrating three specific use cases: agrivoltaics, plug-in PV setups, and roof-top systems for low-income communities. Based on available project data, it is in the demonstration phase to establish an industrial value chain.
Based on available project data, there is no specific mention of patents or licensing terms, as the project is focused on demonstrating the technologies and business models.
SOLMATE is fully aligned with the waste hierarchy principles defined in the Waste Framework Directive, focusing on prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery, and disposal.
The project runs from 2024-01-01 to 2027-12-31. Initial progress on business models and use cases was reported within the first eighteen months.
The consortium is heavily industry-driven with a 76% industry ratio, comprising 13 industrial partners including 7 SMEs. This strong commercial presence, combined with 3 research entities and 1 university across 6 European countries, suggests the project is designed for rapid market integration rather than pure academic research.
VLAAMSE INSTELLING VOOR TECHNOLOGISCH ONDERZOEK N.V.
Contact us to connect with the SOLMATE consortium for second-life battery integration.
