Eaton, US power firm, has partnered with Nissan to create home energy storage systems.
Nissan is recycling electric car batteries to create energy storage units. Nissan, a Japanese carmaker, will be repurposing the batteries to offer them at a lower rate. Each energy storage unit will be assembled in Morocco and manufactured at Nissan’s Sunderland location in the UK.
Eaton, a US power management firm, is working in collaboration with Nissan to sell the energy storage units. According to Eaton, the British-made home batteries will save customers approximately £43 a month when used in combination with a green energy source.
Dubbed the XStorage Home system, Nissan’s new energy storage unit is approximately the size of a heat only boiler. The XStorage Home system will cost approximately £5000. The final price may increase substantially if the lithium-ion batteries are purchased as a new unit rather than recycled.
New energy storage units come with a 10-year warranty, whereas repurposed home batteries are only covered for 5-years.
According to Cyrille Brisson, Eaton’s vice president of EMEA, “We’re clearly going into this market with a view to becoming the leader of the market, with the weight of Nissan and its factory in Sunderland, and with Eaton’s very strong base of installers. We believe we have the knowledge and capacity.”
Eaton has also announced a scheme with Manchester City football. The sponsorship deal will enable fans to purchase a special, Man City-branded version of the energy storage system.
Home installations are set to begin this July, however, the XStorage Home system faces fierce competition. Tesla, owned by the billionaire Elon Musk, makes solar panels, electric cars, and their patented home battery, the Powerwall.
On average, the price of Tesla’s energy storage unit is approximately £5,400. To compete with this well-known company, Nissan is capitalizing on the old, unused batteries. Doing so makes it possible for Nissan to offer their energy storage units at a lower rate.
According to SmartestEnergy, a renewable power buyer, there were 20 MW of commercial batteries in operation during 2016. SmartestEnergy went on to speculate that this amount would increase approximately 27-fold by the year 2020.