NETHERLANDS
Batteries from VDL Bus & Coach are being given a second life by energy provider RWE. Its ‘project Anubis’ will see the bus batteries used as part of a central storage system in Moerdijk. RWE believes that with the increasing number of electric vehicles hitting the roads, over 150,000 tonnes of batteries will become available for recycling every year. These are currently classified as waste and mostly taken to recycling plants abroad. “In project Anubis, we are initially using batteries taken from 43 electric VDL buses operated by Transdev in Eindhoven since 2016,” explained Paul van Vuuren, CEO of VDL Bus & Coach. “These vehicles are currently getting new and larger battery packs, but the used batteries still have enough capacity to be used in stationary applications. In Europe, we are one of the forerunners in the field of electric public transport. Providing a sustainable circular solution for our batteries is part of our strategy. However, its application still requires a lot of new knowledge and development. Together with RWE, we will therefore collect a lot of data in ‘project Anubis’ so that we can contribute even more to making our society even more sustainable.”
The 43 batteries from the VDL electric buses, with a total storage capacity of 7.5MW, will be coupled into one battery at the RWE power plant in Moerdijk. RWE is also working on battery projects in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, with an ambition is to grow capacity to 3GW in the coming years.
Roger Miesen, CEO of RWE Generation, added: “With project Anubis, RWE and VDL are demonstrating that technical challenges related to the construction and operation of plants like this can be overcome. And with this project, we are actively contributing to a reduction in CO2 because after an initial phase in the VDL buses, the batteries will have an extended life at RWE. After that, they will undergo high-quality recycling.”
