[Courtesy of Hyundai Glovis]
Hyundai Glovis said it has signed a business agreement LS Electric, a. manufacturer of electrical power equipment, and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), the state-run operator of nuclear power plants,
for the development of a renewable energy power grid model and complex in Sinan, a southwestern county that has hundreds of islands.
Hyundai Glovis will make energy storage systems using spent batteries and supply electricity. A demonstration project will begin in 2023. The final goal is to build a hybrid power generation complex that can produce electricity with hydrogen.
Because the lifespan of batteries that are used in electric vehicles is about 10 years, the government predicts that about 67,200 EV batteries will be discarded annually in 2030. Discarded batteries can be recycled to store electricity inside energy storage systems. When the battery is not efficient enough, it can be sent to special recycling centers to be broken down and retrieve rare metals.
Hyundai Glovis said it would work on a virtuous cycle of resources to recover and reuse spent batteries. "We will actively discover a business model, including UBESS, in line with the growing market for used electric vehicle batteries," an unnamed Hyundai Glovis official said in a statement on November 17.
In 2021, Hyundai Glovis developed a dedicated platform for the transportation of different types of spent electric vehicle batteries in one container. The patented container will serve as South Korea's first dedicated platform for the transportation of spent batteries. By adopting a variable rail structure to adjust its size, the container can carry batteries of different shapes, not limited to one model. For safe transport, insulation materials and a special fixing device were adopted.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
