Key tasks for ensuring economic viability of circular projects: Learnings from a real-world project on repurposing electric vehicle batteries
Abstract
In order to reach sustainable consumption and production patterns at scale, the implementation of a circular economy (CE) and the corresponding circular business models (CBM) increasingly need to become competitive with linear alternatives. This is inhibited by a lack of customer focus when implementing circular projects today. To address this challenge, this study presents an in-depth study of a real-world project on repurposing electric vehicle batteries in stationary battery energy storage systems in Germany, which serves to investigate the role of market- and customer requirements in implementing CBM. By combining quantitative analysis based on sec- ondary sources with primary qualitative data collected at different stages of the project, the study offers unique insights into the practical key tasks for ensuring economic viability of circular projects from a multi-stakeholder perspective. These are identified as: i) Develop the product platform, ii) assess multiple value streams, iii) lever- age on resource value, iv) provide risk assurances on product quality, v) observe trends in targeted downstream markets, vi) acquire access to suitable financial capital and vii) carry out pilot projects under market conditions. By addressing these tasks, the value captured in terms of the contribution of repurposing to the reduction of bat- tery life cycle cost is found to be 109€/kWh in the case investigated. Based on the findings, the study concludes that implementing circular projects requires companies to provide resource, time and technical expertise for co- ordinating the identified key tasks and achieve competitiveness with linear alternatives. For future research, we hence suggest further investigation of the use of customer-oriented methods for assessing and developing CBM, as well as required policy-action to ensure commercial viability of CE strategies in industry.
Info
Journal Article, 2023
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Science/Technology
