Second-Life

Retired EV batteries are becoming a real option for powering AI data centers in the US. Redwood Materials, the battery-recycling company founded by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, built a 12-megawatt, 63-megawatt-hour microgrid at its Sparks, Nevada campus that pairs solar generation with retired-EV-battery storage, bringing it online in June 2025. A 20-acre solar array generates the power, and hundreds of retired EV battery packs store it for use after dark. When the microgrid first came online, the data center load it served was a modest 1 MW. ...

Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment signed a memorandum of understanding on August 7 at the Korea Productivity Center in Seoul, titled “Strengthening Mutual Cooperation on Used Battery Policy.” Vice Minister Moon Shin-hak represented MOTIE and First Vice Minister Geum Han-seung represented the climate ministry. The agreement’s substance: link up the information systems and certification schemes the two ministries have each run separately for used batteries, so businesses no longer have to deal with each ministry on its own track. ...

The certification a business actually has to clear to repurpose a used battery for another application isn’t KC 62619. As the previous piece in this series, KC 62619 Explained: Scope, Procedure, and Where It Strains Against Used Batteries, laid out, KC 62619 was built around new industrial lithium cells, and that new-cell assumption strains against what a used battery actually is. Korea’s government filled that gap with a separate safety inspection regime, detailed under KC 10031. This piece covers what KC 10031 actually governs, how far its scope reaches, what an inspection under it involves, and where that creates friction for a business trying to repurpose used batteries. ...

Anyone putting lithium batteries into an ESS runs into KC 62619 first. Written for new industrial lithium cells, it also reads like the natural starting point for businesses trying to repurpose retired EV batteries. Apply it in practice, though, and clauses built around a new-cell assumption start to strain against what a used battery actually is. This piece lays out what KC 62619 covers, how certification under it actually runs, and where that strain shows up when the object in front of you is a used battery rather than a new one. The certification path for remanufacturing — putting a used battery back into its original role — belongs to the next piece in this series. ...

Korea’s supply of retired EV batteries is growing fast. According to the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, domestic volume reached 8,321 units in 2025 and is projected to hit 107,500 by 2030. That 2030 figure is still just a projection, though, and past forecasts have missed actual volume by a wide margin — a gap this piece revisits later as a supply-side variable. Ask where all of that can go, and the answer so far converges on one thing: energy storage systems (ESS). Anyone evaluating a second-life battery business wants to know why so few other uses have shown up, and whether that’s likely to change. Rather than listing applications, this piece starts from what actually changes inside a battery once it comes out of a car, and works forward from there. ...

Gumi, an industrial city in North Gyeongsang Province, has launched a roughly 70-member public-private-academic “Advanced Industry Innovation Task Force.” At a kickoff meeting attended by Mayor Kim Jang-ho and Vice Mayor Jeong Seong-hyeon, the city named six strategic fields — robotics, semiconductors, defense, AI/AI transformation, secondary batteries, and industrial complex development — and set up a sub-task-force for each. Among them, the secondary battery task force is focused on batteries for robotics, defense, and energy storage systems (ESS). The city said it plans to use a battery-as-a-service (BaaS) pilot base and a battery testbed to build a full-cycle industrial ecosystem — from materials, components, and equipment manufacturing through to the reuse and recycling of used batteries. ...

Three South Korean companies — EV diagnostics and logistics firm Wica Mobility, charging platform operator Softberry, and EV maintenance and battery remanufacturing company Futurex — signed a three-way strategic MOU on August 6 at Softberry’s headquarters to build what they’re calling the “K-EV Alliance.” The goal is to connect charging, diagnosis, maintenance, battery remanufacturing, and used-car resale into a single chain for EV owners. Each company has so far operated in a separate part of that chain. Wica Mobility runs its own diagnostic platform, WESCAN, which inspects vehicle condition, uses AI to estimate value, and handles vehicle transport and resale. Softberry operates the EV Infra charging platform, offering mobile reservations, payment, and electronic diagnostic reports and warranties. Futurex runs hub-based diagnostic centers that handle high-voltage battery replacement and powertrain maintenance, and operates Eco ChainX, a platform for remanufacturing used batteries. ...

On July 29, the Korea Environment Corporation (KECO), a public agency under South Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, signed an agreement with the Korea Auto Recycling Business Association and Energy Eco Solution to launch a pilot program for the safe transport and storage of used batteries. The signing took place at the Metropolitan Future Waste Resource Collection Center in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province. The pilot applies, for the first time in the field, a cryogenic freezing technology that had been under development as a government R&D project. ...