Greening the grid of Indonesia - Second life application for Lithium-Ion Electric Vehicle batteries in Indonesia’s Energy System

Abstract: With the increasing energy demand from urban electrification, the growing economy and global warming, Indonesia has some extensive challenges ahead. Additionally, growing demand for Li-ion batteries is causing shortages of virgin battery minerals in parallel with the increasing demand for energy storage to accommodate electrification. On the contrary, the future abundance of used electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries in Indonesia could support variable renewable energy generation and therefore a cleaner energy mix, while at the same time improving grid flexibility and reliability. Repurposing used batteries will also diminish the need for raw material mining and battery production, lowering the production emissions, reducing battery waste, and consequently increasing the chances of Indonesia reaching net-zero emissions in 2060. In the present thesis it has been investigated how to accommodate Indonesia’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by examining how to leverage spent electric vehicle batteries. Product concepts were generated as possible technical applications of the batteries. Because of both political and technical challenges and opportunities, a concept for rural electrification with second life battery energy storage systems showed to be a feasible solution and was chosen for further evaluation. The requirements that need to be fulfilled to enable repurposing for use in battery energy storage systems were found, and recommended parameter values for the given concept were listed.