Smartville’s New Mana Energy System Makes It Straightforward To Use EV Batteries For House Power Storage

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Smartville confirmed as much as Intersolar 2024 in San Diego this 12 months in a sales space within the startup hall tucked approach again in an unassuming nook of the present ground. Hidden of their sales space in an unassuming grey field was maybe probably 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 supplies 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 telephone 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 software that makes all of it attainable. After we first noticed the prototype of Mana Energy at Intersolar in San Diego, it was an unassuming pair of 3D containers with a number of cables popping out of the again. The containers hosted the facility 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 totally different leads for Tesla packs and one other for the Nissan LEAF. In Teslas, the excessive voltage battery connector is underneath the rear seat, although the Mana Energy system was designed for use with packs which might be not in a car.

To make full use of the battery for AC energy output, the Mana Energy have to 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 shall be added sooner or later as help for extra battery packs are added. If the home-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 effectively.

From there, the system acts like every other stationary vitality storage system in a house. It have to be wired into the house’s electrical panel and related to an computerized switch swap, however all the things from the pack on out exists already in at the moment’s sturdy photo voltaic and storage business.

[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 models to beta testers in July 2024, with plans to develop additional after a interval to collect 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 vitality storage programs that give post-consumer EV batteries a second life, head over to the corporate web site.

It’s fairly cool to see outdoors the field thinkers and non-conforming firms constructing merchandise that permit 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 car putting in a Mana Energy system simply as a backup energy supply within the occasion of an extended period energy outage. When the facility goes down, you’ll be able to 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 Lifeless

At the moment, used 60-80 kWh EV battery packs vary in worth 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 software that’s at the moment constructed right into a briefcase-sized Pelican case and comes with a number of adapter cables for various battery packs. Salvage yards join the software as much as the pack and begin the well being verify, which runs by the battery pack’s state of well being from high to backside. Salvage yards don’t purchase the software, however as a substitute pay Smartville every time they run the software on a pack.

This course of helps salvage yards dispatch incoming battery packs to recyclers and EV elements firms. It additionally conveniently supplies an upstream provide of vetted batteries for Smartville to faucet into for its Smartville 360 vitality storage programs, Tong stated.

Trying past Smartville, the power for salvage yards to promote EV battery packs with a standardized invoice of well being supplies a stable basis for much more firms and prospects to construct one thing from. “They are going to 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 outlets, DIYers, and automotive firms to run by a full well being verify of used EV battery packs. I began speaking to Tong about this, but it surely shortly turned clear that Smartville has a a lot bigger plan in thoughts.

Periscope will proceed to be one of many core merchandise at Smartville and shall be joined later this 12 months by Mana Energy. This mix makes it attainable — 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 necessary information from the packs alongside the best way. When Periscope does a well being verify on a battery pack, Battery Join logs the entire related information into its Entire Battery Catalog database. They think about this catalog turning into a repository for data as they proceed to triage EV battery packs, put them into service, and construct out vitality storage options shifting ahead.

The Entire Battery Catalog supplies traceability and supplies the information essential to help EU Battery Passport necessities. “We try 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 vitality storage programs. These programs make the most of an array of battery packs and melds them collectively right into a single vitality storage system with Mana Energy and Battery Join. Smartville has already deployed over 15MWh of full service vitality storage programs and plans to proceed this because the core of the enterprise shifting ahead.

To fund this work, Smartville has secured a number of presidency grants, with $26 million in funding to this point. Most not too long ago, Smartville secured $2.65M from federal and state funding to flesh out its second life battery repurposing options.

Transferring Ahead

“The business is so small,” Tong stated. He see immense worth that the market is at the moment lacking out on, largely attributable to uncertainty across the well being of the battery pack itself. Others are constructing varied 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 quicker.

This begins with the approaching launch of Periscope this summer time, adopted by the launch of Mana Energy within the again half of the 12 months. Scaling up these merchandise will permit Smartville and its prospects to evaluate extra used EV battery packs, extra precisely to disposition them, and in the end squeeze as a lot life as attainable out of them. That’s nice information for patrons, suppliers, salvage yards, automotive firms, and the planet.

Smartville is constructing adaptable, versatile options that may evolve as packs change. At current, Tong stated the workforce is “working onerous to get our product out. This 12 months goes to be a vital 12 months.” This firm is doing a few of 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 comply with them on X.