- Enel Group is set to pioneer the battery project “Second Life” for the Spanish enclave of Melilla.
- The pioneering Melilla storage facility could represent a technologically feasible model for more plants of this type.
Enel Group is set to pioneer the battery project “Second Life” for the Spanish enclave of Melilla. The Second Life project, which Enel developed in collaboration with Nissan, uses advanced technology based on a simple idea. Once the batteries used within a Nissan LEAF electric vehicle have ended, these car batteries are recycled and assembled in a large stationary storage system, accumulating energy. This is integrated with the conventional energy plant already in use in Melilla to avoid load-shedding events, improve the grid’s reliability and guarantee network continuity service to the local population.
Melilla is a Spanish city with approximately 90,000 inhabitants. It is located on the North African coast and is surrounded by Moroccan territory. It is served by a local electricity network powered by a thermal plant and, like an island, is isolated from the national distribution grid. And, just like on a real island, the security of the electricity supply is reinforced by a storage system in Melilla.
The solution created by Enel Global Thermal Generation in Melilla involves reusing over 90 electric car batteries, which are connected, providing a total available power of up to 4 MW, with a maximum accumulated energy of 1.7 MWh. The plant has obtained all the necessary authorisations and will be ready to start functioning by the end of the summer. The pioneering Melilla storage facility could represent a technologically feasible model for more plants of this type, especially given the forecast for a sharp increase in the number of electric vehicles in circulation and, consequently, the number of batteries available for recycling, over the next few years.