The company has won both the 2022 Green Alley Award, Europe’s startup prize for the circular economy, and the EES (Electrical Energy Storage) 2022 Award, with its idea of extending the lifecycle of batteries from electric vehicles.

Founded in 2020, Voltfang, whose name literally means ‘volt catch’, or ‘catching power’, aims to repurpose used car batteries for stationary storage systems.

The idea grew from the company’s recognition that once an electric car’s battery is no longer able to power the vehicle, which is after just five years, there is still more than an 80% residual capacity left in the battery itself. This got them to thinking of a way they could harvest that power to not only reduce waste, but to close the gap in the transition towards sustainable energy.

Waste not, want not

With the number of EV’s expected to rise to 100 million units globally, and the government announcing the sale of petrol and diesel cars to be banned completely by 2030, the amount of waste from car batteries is only expected to rise. Combine this with the fact that there are currently no comprehensive or efficient recycling options for electric vehicle batteries – and when batteries are sent to recycling centres, they are expensive, and the raw materials are lost in the process.

Voltfang’s concept tackles the topic of green and sustainable energy and addresses how to take that energy to the next level – by questioning the best way to utilise the inevitable waste from an all-electric vehicle economy.

According to a study by Greenpeace, almost 13 million tonnes of batteries from electric vehicles will reach the end of their life between 2021 and 2030. Meaning the environmental impact due to the number of critical materials – lithium, cobalt, nickel, aluminium and manganese – that will need to be disposed of, is huge – even before the governments imposed 2035 deadline for an all-electric vehicle economy.

Voltfang’s stationary storage systems are loaded with a maximum C-value of 1, compared with electric car batteries that are charged and discharged with a C-value of 3-5. The difference enables the storage systems to have a second life, and Voltfang offer a 10-year guarantee on the storage capacity. The system also offers independence from the electricity grid and the constantly rising costs associated with it.

Completing the circle

The greener the power, the more demand there is for electricity. Natural energy solutions such as wind, water and solar power see peaks and troughs, making them great during times of optimum weather conditions, but not so great when the weather is bad. However, with Voltfang’s electricity storage systems, they can harness the excess energy that is already available, and store it for when it is needed the most – thus providing clean, natural energy to homes and businesses.

Reusing batteries from electric vehicles is a massive step forward in the prevention of depleting already limited resources, making it an important contribution to a functioning circular economy.