Japanese automaker Nissan is testing a super-green way to recharge its Leaf electric vehicle using solar power, part of a broader drive to improve electricity storage systems.
Nissan’s Leaf went on sale late last year, but the automaker is looking ahead to about five years time when aging Leaf vehicles may offer alternative business opportunities in using their lithium-ion batteries as a storage place for electricity.
Nissan Motor Corp acknowledges that, once the Leaf catches on, a flood of used batteries could result as the life span of a battery is longer than an electric vehicle’s.
NEW CONCERNS
Electricity generation and storage are drawing attention in Japan after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused massive blackouts in the country’s northeast. A nuclear power plant that went into meltdown, Fukushima Dai-ichi, after backup generators were destroyed by the tsunami, is also renewing fears about a power crunch.
In the new charging system, demonstrated to reporters yesterday, electricity is generated through 488 solar cells installed on the roof of the Nissan headquarters building in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo.
SOLAR POWER
Four batteries from the Leaf had been placed in a box in a cellar-like part of the building and store the electricity generated from the solar cells, which is enough to fully charge 1,800 Leaf vehicles a year, according to Nissan.
Although interest is growing in renewable energy such as solar and wind power, a major challenge is the storage of electricity, which remains expensive without a breakthrough in battery technology.
Other Japanese automakers, such as Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co, are working on similar projects, such as linking hybrids with solar-equipped homes as part of energy--efficient communities called “smart grids.”
STILL USEFUL
Even after a Leaf is ready to be scrapped, its battery is likely to have 80 percent of its capacity. On the plus side, the Leaf, with its high-capacity battery, can store the equivalent of two days of household electricity use, Nissan said.
“What’s important for Nissan is to show solutions through EVs [electric vehicles], step by step,” corporate vice president Hideaki Watanabe said.
A joint venture with Sumitomo Corp, called 4R Energy Corp, plans to offer electricity storage systems like the one at Nissan headquarters for business and public facilities as a commercial product by 2016.
Nissan also hopes to start selling such storage systems for regular homes by the fiscal year starting in April next year. It will carry out field tests from December, 4R Energy president Takashi Sakagami said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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