Smartville’s New Mana Energy System Makes It Simple To Use EV Batteries For House Vitality 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 means again in an unassuming nook of the present flooring. Hidden of their sales space in an unassuming grey field was maybe essentially the most thrilling piece of tech we noticed on the present.

They name it Mana Energy, and it’s a field that enables 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 residence. Mana Energy gives 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 linked with Smartville CEO Antoni Tong for a cellphone interview to dive deeper afterwards.

Tapping Into Second Life Batteries

After giving used EV battery packs a well being examine with Periscope, it’s time to place them to make use of as stationary storage, and Smartville’s Mana Energy is the device that makes all of it doable. Once we first noticed the prototype of Mana Energy at Intersolar in San Diego, it was an unassuming pair of 3D packing containers with just a few cables popping out of the again. The packing containers hosted the facility electronics and cables to connect with the battery bundled along with a show for the person.

The cable sprouting out the entrance faucets immediately into the plug on an EV battery. There are at present completely 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 automobile.

To make full use of the battery for AC energy output, the Mana Energy should be linked to an exterior inverter. Smartville at present makes use of 400 volt inverters for the packs at present supported and extra choices will probably be added sooner or later as help for extra battery packs are added. If the house 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 properly.

From there, the system acts like every other stationary vitality storage system in a house. It should be wired into the house’s electrical panel and linked to an automated switch swap, however every part from the pack on out exists already in right this moment’s strong 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 method 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 corporations constructing merchandise that permit clients 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 automobile putting in a Mana Energy system simply as a backup energy supply within the occasion of a protracted period energy outage. When the facility goes down, you possibly can 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

Presently, 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 functions, 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 influence these costs, and transportation is a key piece of that puzzle.

Smartville’s Periscope gadget is a handheld device that’s at present constructed right into a briefcase-sized Pelican case and comes with just a few adapter cables for various battery packs. Salvage yards join the device as much as the pack and begin the well being examine, which runs via the battery pack’s state of well being from prime to backside. Salvage yards don’t purchase the device, however as an alternative pay Smartville every time they run the device on a pack.

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

Wanting past Smartville, the flexibility for salvage yards to promote EV battery packs with a standardized invoice of well being gives a stable basis for much more corporations and clients to construct one thing from. “They’ll have a battery feedstock coming from round use,” Tong mentioned.

A Renewed Focus

Smartville first got here onto our radar with its Periscope product that enables salvage yards, restore outlets, DIYers, and automotive corporations to run via a full well being examine of used EV battery packs. I began speaking to Tong about this, but it surely rapidly 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 will probably be joined later this 12 months by Mana Energy. This mixture makes it doable — for the very first time — to rapidly 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 vital knowledge from the packs alongside the best way. When Periscope does a well being examine on a battery pack, Battery Join logs the entire related knowledge into its Entire Battery Catalog database. They think about this catalog changing into a repository for info as they proceed to triage EV battery packs, put them into service, and construct out vitality storage options transferring ahead.

The Entire Battery Catalog gives traceability and gives the information essential to help EU Battery Passport necessities. “We try to create a path of knowledge,” Tong mentioned. The primary level of knowledge after the OEM builds the pack is when Smartville’s Periscope connects to the pack and begins its take a look at.

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 transferring ahead.

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

Shifting Ahead

“The business is so small,” Tong mentioned. He see immense worth that the market is at present lacking out on, largely as a result of uncertainty across the well being of the battery pack itself. Others are constructing numerous components of the EV battery pack second life ecosystem, however Tong mentioned, “we wish to deal with the entire enchilada.” The corporate is at present exploring opening up a seed spherical of funding to allow it to develop even additional and sooner.

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 clients to evaluate extra used EV battery packs, extra precisely to disposition them, and in the end squeeze as a lot life as doable out of them. That’s nice information for purchasers, suppliers, salvage yards, automotive corporations, and the planet.

Smartville is constructing adaptable, versatile options that may evolve as packs change. At current, Tong mentioned the crew is “working arduous to get our product out. This 12 months goes to be a vital 12 months.” This firm is doing among 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 observe them on X.