A model for system integration of second life battery, renewable energy generation and mobile network station

The use of lithium-based batteries in the automotive field is particularly demanding due to the need of significant installed capacity, high energy density and power-to-capacity ratio. For this reason, literature of the last decade suggested that even after being dismantled from vehicles, partially degraded battery would still be satisfactory for other “second life” uses. In parallel, the expansion of renewable energies such as photovoltaic panels both in civil and industrial energy market suggests that coupling such discontinuous generators with storage systems could improve system flexibility, while maintaining a low environmental impact. The present article describes the integration in a single simulation environment of a system including a second life battery, a photovoltaic generator and a grid-connected mobile network telecommunication station, which has been adopted as case-study. Subsystem characteristics, energy management strategy and boundary conditions are described; results obtained from the defined scenario are presented and include energy balance expected costs, assumed on the basis of the Italian scenario.