LIFE RELIGHT PROJECT

Envirobat España, S.L., part of the ReLiGHT project formed by a consortium of six Spanish companies, which will carry out the tasks and objectives planned within it over seven years, is funded by the European Union’s LIFE Programme, which supports projects for environmental conservation, circular economy, climate action, and energy transition in Europe. The project has an estimated cost of €7.8 million, with public funding of 60%, of which Envirobat has been granted aid exceeding €1 million.

The main objective of the project is to increase resource efficiency by demonstrating the high capacity of a storage solution using batteries from electric cars after the end of their first life, whose current destination would be disposal as waste.

ReLiGHT gives a second life to used lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles by reusing them as part of an energy storage solution integrated into wind and solar farms. This reuse will lead to the development of a new type of hybrid renewable plant, which will provide a source of energy during periods when renewable sources are not guaranteed, thereby avoiding carbon-based energy sources.

At the end of this extended useful life of the batteries, the project will close the cycle through a recycling strategy led by Envirobat. Furthermore, the project is developing a second-life energy storage system of 5.6 MW/11.2 MWh, which will be validated in a renewable plant led by Capital Energy, the coordinator of the consortium. This plant comprises a 52.2 MW wind farm and a 76.5 MWp photovoltaic plant. The actions will be implemented throughout the entire battery value chain, including their reception, testing, and classification, the assembly of new battery packs, their integration into the renewable energy plant, the replacement of batteries at the end of their useful life, and final recycling.

ReLiGHT has a planned execution period of seven years and aims to achieve results such as the reduction of up to 102.31 tons of used batteries through their transformation into new second-life products for stationary energy storage, thus extending their ¹ useful life by 10 years. It also aims to reduce primary energy consumption by 4 GWh/year and CO2eq emissions by 600 tons/year, thanks to the efficient operation and management of the renewable plant and the project’s battery energy storage system.