Setting up your own power supply and storage system is becoming increasingly easy, but getting hold of good high-capacity batteries is still expensive. Then why not consider a used Chevrolet Volt battery pack for your personal power needs?
Chevy says that even once a battery is depleted and no longer fit to be used in the car, it can still hold up to 80 percent of its initial maximum charge. That’s pretty good, and you can use multiple ones depending on how much juice you need to store.
The company is already demonstrating how this could work by using five of these packs and two small wind turbines to keep the lights on at the new Milford proving ground Enterprise Data Center.
They can not only power a building on their own, if you also have a means to charge them via wind or solar, but even if you don’t they can keep the lights on even in the event of a major blackout for hours, maybe days depending on how much power you use.
To give you a few numbers, it looks like a used Volt battery pack costs in excess of $2,000 and with 80 percent capacity left, it should still hold some 12 kWh. Evidently, you can get any battery pack out of any electrified vehicle and use it in the same way, so the capacity may vary.
The Enterprise Data Center setup is shown in the photos below.
Photo Gallery
