Old batteries from electric vehicles as energy storage. Polish company to introduce innovative system

• Impact Clean Power Technology, a company based near Warsaw, wants to develop an innovative BMS in two years that will help extend the life of vehicle batteries by two years.
• Once the vehicle has finished working, the batteries can be used as energy storage.
• The Central and Eastern European market is flooded with Chinese products, and newly established factories in the region are assembling them.

A few days ago, the National Centre for Research and Development signed an agreement with Impact Clean Power Technology for co-financing the innovative Battery Management System (BMS) platform for batteries for electric vehicles in the amount of PLN 6.6 million.

Impact is a leader in the production of battery systems for electric buses and trucks. Over 4,000 electric buses equipped with its systems operate in Poland and worldwide.

The project, co-financed by European Funds, covers research and development work aimed at developing an innovative lithium-ion battery management platform (BMS) with built-in artificial intelligence algorithms (GenAI), aimed at increasing the efficiency and optimizing battery use while maintaining safety standards.

Impact's innovative BMS is to be developed faster

Sebastian Wojtas, director of new technologies at Impakt, in an interview with WNP believes that his company will complete this innovative project faster than is common in the industry.

"That's roughly three years, but for our project, we ambitiously set ourselves a two-year deadline. Because we already have a lot of data and 15 years of experience, we're currently working on the sixth generation of our BMS, with several variants for each generation. This allows us to accelerate this work," Wojas said.

A BMS manages the batteries that power electric vehicles. The device, or its peripherals—in simple terms—collects various data from the batteries, such as charge level, temperature, vibrations, moisture, and gases released from the cells.

"We're trying to introduce the largest possible batteries to minimize the number of batteries on a vehicle. This ultimately lowers the price per kWh. Because if we were to make 20 batteries and each one requires a BMS, we'd have to pay the BMS cost 20 times over. It's more economical to produce five batteries, but make them progressively larger . Currently, we have a maximum of 18 batteries," noted the Impact representative.

Our interlocutor argued that safety is a key aspect of the systems' operation, and each battery must be homologated before it is installed in a bus.

"The batteries are tested by independent teams in external laboratories, including a destruction test. They must shut down in the event of an uncontrolled temperature increase or flame, for example, due to a cooling system failure. But the driver is already aware of this and can react. The bus fleet manager and we also receive this information automatically," said Wojtas.

Longer battery life after introducing the new BMS

Battery life is also an important aspect. As Impact's director of new technologies stated, more and more European Union customers are looking for this factor before making a purchase. Impact's new systems are expected to extend battery life by two years .

"A bus, in terms of its mechanics, outlives its battery. Therefore, we want to reduce the number of necessary battery replacements to a maximum of one. This will eliminate the need to replace the battery pack three or four times, as they are very expensive for the vehicle's designed lifespan. Extending the lifespan by two years will result in a favorable battery lifespan ratio for operators, with the potential for resale of such a bus after its operational lifespan," he said.

Old batteries from electric vehicles can be used as energy storage

After their service life in the bus, the batteries can be used as energy storage . Impact is targeting large industrial and semi-industrial warehouses in this area.

"We, as people, want to go further with electric vehicles and quickly charge batteries. Batteries produced 8-12 years ago don't deliver the performance expected by today's market . But the functionality of the cell itself remains, hence the possibility of using it as an energy storage device. Customers must also take this into account when balancing the purchase of bus batteries. Otherwise, they'll have to pay for recycling," Wojtas believes.

Our interlocutor emphasized that the battery and battery systems market is extremely dynamic, both in Poland— the largest local battery assembler and cell manufacturer —and in the entire region. Major investments in this industry are being made in countries such as Hungary and Romania, where assembly plants for Chinese solutions are being established.

What sets us apart is that we are not tied to a single cell supplier. We continuously test approximately 60-80 different cell types from various manufacturers each year. We select the right cell for a given solution based on engineering analysis.

Is it possible to defend Polish production of battery cells and systems against the flood of this technology from China?

"It's not easy, but it's possible. Our project, which won the tender in Hong Kong, near China, demonstrated that it can be done. Our advantage is the highest energy density currently available on the market, the longest lifespan, and multivalency (use for various purposes and tasks - ed.). We don't sell batteries; we co-design solutions as engineers," concluded Wojtas.