Automakers have been focusing significant energy on producing more environmentally friendly vehicles. Vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf have entered the market in the last few years, electrical vehicles which generate no greenhouse gas emissions themselves. However, these vehicles do use electricity which is largely from non-renewable sources. Due to this situation the demand for renewable electricity for electric vehicles has arisen.
This is why the Nissan Motor Corporation has taken to innovating a system which uses the very same batteries which are in their Leaf vehicles. Nissan is looking to use solar energy to generate electricity and Leaf batteries to store the electricity, electricity which can be used to operate Leaf vehicles. Not only is this an innovative way in which to power the vehicles, it is also a potential way to use old Leaf batteries.
The life of a Leaf battery is significantly longer than the expected life of a Leaf vehicle. According to estimates, eighty percent of the battery storage capability remains even after the life of an average Leaf vehicle is extinguished. Therefore, these used but still capable vehicle batteries can be given new life and used to store excess solar electricity.
Recently Nissan demonstrated this concept at the Nissan headquarters in Yokohama, Japan. The corporation demonstrated the charging of a Leaf with solar-generated electricity. 488 solar cells placed on the roof of the building were used to charge four Leaf batteries which were used as a storage system. These four batteries store enough electricity to charge 1,800 Leaf vehicles in a year.
Overall, one Leaf battery has been found to be able to contain enough electricity to power all household uses for up to two days. Do to this and the storage capability shown at the Nissan headquarters, Nissan is hoping to sell storage devices like the Leaf batteries used in the demonstration for home use by 2012.
