Repurposing retired EV batteries could lower Europeans’ energy bills and prevent wind and solar farms from being switched off.
Retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries could transform Europe’s outdated energy grid – preventing billions of euros wasted on electricity annually.
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While the renewables boom helped the EU save €51 billion last year by lowering oil and gas imports, the continent's infrastructure is struggling to keep up with the clean energy transition.
According to a 2026 report by consulting group AFRY, commissioned by non-profit Beyond Fossil Fuels, 375 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy projects and 455 GW of battery storage projects are currently trapped in distribution grid queues across the continent.
That leaves more than €100 billion of renewables effectively waiting to connect to the grid, delaying access to solar panels and heat pumps for Europeans grappling with skyrocketing energy bills. But there’s a solution waiting in what many think of as waste.
Why Europe’s energy grid is struggling
Europe’s energy grid was originally built around coal, and later gas, which tends to operate from centrally located plants.
However, green energy projects such as wind and solar farms tend to be located in remote areas – including offshore – making it harder to transport the electricity being produced to residential homes and businesses.
Renewables such as solar and wind also rely on certain weather conditions to generate electricity rather than responding directly to demand.
When supply outstrips demand, as it often does, electricity prices can fall below zero and operators may be forced to turn off wind and solar farms or put them on a reduced output – a practice known as curtailment.
In 2024, 10 TWh of renewable energy was curtailed in the EU alone – enough to power three million homes for an entire year. This represents a whopping €4.3 billion in wasted electricity.
While battery energy storage systems (BESS) have been identified as a key factor in reducing curtailment across Europe, investment is far from where it needs to be. Experts say that retired EVs could easily fill the gap.
Could retired EVs save Europe’s power grid?
Just because an EV battery is second-hand doesn’t mean it is of no use.
In fact, most EV batteries are retired with as much as 70 to 80 per cent of their original capacity remaining. While this is not enough to meet automotive requirements, it could help provide power for homes, businesses or even smaller vehicles.
“Old EV batteries really are a gold mine,” Adrian Hiel, director of Electrification Alliance, tells Euronews Earth.
“Even if their performance has degraded to the point that they aren’t great for a car anymore they can easily have a second life, measured in decades, as storage for the grid, for businesses or domestically.”
Currently, Europe is reliant on getting batteries from EVs that are more than 10 years old, or from vehicles that have been in accidents.
The problem with this is that Europe wasn’t buying many EVs a decade ago and cars back then had much smaller batteries, many of them just 22kWh or 24kWh.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), only 215,000 EVs were sold in Europe in 2016 – compared to the 4.2 million sold last year. This marks a staggering 1,853 per cent increase.
“In contrast, modern cars can have anything from a 50kWh to a 100kWh battery,” Hiel explains.
“So we are looking at two different trends that could radically change the grid in 10 to 15 years."
Last year, the EU added 27GWh of batteries to the grid. At the same time, the bloc added around four or five times as much battery storage in the form of EVs.
“When those EVs eventually retire and their batteries become standalone storage, it will transform how the grid is run and operated,” Hiel adds.
“With each year as those storage levels increase we should see bigger and bigger price decreases in electricity - it is a very exciting virtuous circle.”
Europe risks becoming an EV battery graveyard
More than a million EV batteries could reach end-of-life by 2030, according to the IEA. If they aren’t efficiently repurposed into the grid, experts warn that they will become one of the world’s “fastest-growing waste streams”.
While EV batteries can be recycled, it is notoriously difficult and costly to do so. Before a battery can even start the recycling process, it must undergo a time-consuming preparation phase that involves discharging, dismantling and separating its components.
There are also safety risks associated with chemical reactions used to recycle batteries, which can release toxic substances such as hydrofluoric acid. These compounds pose serious risks to worker health and safety, and can even damage recycling plant equipment.
While experts are calling for an expansion of recycling infrastructure to recover critical minerals from EV batteries, placing them in the grid could be more useful.
Solar panels produce electricity during the day (when it is sunny), but this is when electricity consumption in domestic households is at their lowest, as people are often out of their homes for work or school. Instead of being wasted, this excess power could be stored in second-life EV batteries and used later in the evening, when household demand peaks.
“This is the famous duck curve where grid consumption lowers during the day and then ramps up very quickly as the sun goes down and people return home from work,” Hiel says.
“And it’s not just about solar but wind will also benefit. The batteries will move solar from midday to the evening peak in summer and they will move wind from overnight to daytime peaks in the winter.”
The idea is already being deployed around the world.
In California, for example, a 12 megawatt-hour (MWh) facility from energy system developer B2U, uses hundreds of second-life Honda EV batteries that are charged by 1.5 MW of solar generation. The project sells electricity and grid services into the California Independent System Operator market.
And in more remote regions, second-life EV batteries can help provide a much more affordable supply source for communities. The World Bank estimates that more than 160,000 mini-grids are needed to address power accessibility needs in Sub-Saharan Africa – connecting 380 million people with reliable energy.
