Can EVs batteries provide solutions to elevator blackouts in 2023?

Godfrey Elimian
Nissan and Hitachi Building Systems Co Ltd. are focusing on keeping elevators working when the power supply is interrupted with latest trial
Can EVs batteries provide solutions to elevator blackouts?
Can EVs batteries provide solutions to elevator blackouts?

On Friday, Japanese automaker Nissan Motors and a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. announced that they plan to use technology to run elevators during blackouts by pulling power from the batteries of electric automobiles (EVs).

Few cars today are capable of bi-directional charging, where vehicles can become a power source for homes or feed energy back into the grid. However, carmakers such as Ford Motor Co and Renault SA are jumping on the bandwagon.

Audaciously, Nissan and Hitachi Building Systems Co Ltd are focusing on keeping elevators working when the power supply is interrupted in what looks to be an early attempt in a fast-paced tech-growing nation like Japan to explore these other solutions and greater usage of EV batteries.

The companies claimed that during a pilot project announced on Friday, they could run a nine-person elevator at a moderate speed for ten hours by using the battery of a Nissan Sakura, a fully electric micro “kei” car.

Can EVs batteries provide solutions to elevator blackouts?

Electric vehicles have a battery instead of a gasoline tank and an electric motor instead of an internal combustion engine. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are a combination of gasoline and electric vehicles, so they have a battery, an electric motor, a gasoline tank, and an internal combustion engine.

Read also: Global roundup: Tesla recalls 54,000 vehicles over self-driving software issues

What this means for global EVs adoption

2022 was a record-breaking year for Ev adoption globally. EVs are expected to make up 13% of light-duty vehicle sales, and the world is on track to hit a 2030 milepost en route to net zero by mid-century, Protocol reports.

Can EVs batteries provide solutions to elevator blackouts?

The surge was due to more EV sales in European and Chinese markets, according to an instalment of the International Energy Agency’s Tracking Clean Energy Progress report released this week.

However, the report notes that “electric vehicles are not yet a global phenomenon”, and sales in the Global South have lagged due to high sticker prices and a charging infrastructure deficit. (Exported gas-powered cars keep many emerging countries stuck on fossil fuels.)

If these new solutions pen out, not only will the demand for EVs surge globally, but the demand for lithium used to manufacture the batteries is expected to surge also. This might lead to multiple social consequences: An increase in emissions from the use of lithium in environments and an increase in the global cost of EVs.

We know that sales of electric cars doubled in 2021 compared to the previous year, reaching a new high of 6.6 million. Only 120 000 electric vehicles were sold globally in 2012. More than that much will be sold each week in 2021. In 2021, the market share for electric vehicles was about 10% worldwide, up from just 2% in 2019.

This brought the total number of electric cars on the world’s roads to about 16.5 million, triple the amount in 2018. Global sales of electric cars have kept rising strongly in 2022, with 2 million sold in the first quarter, up 75% from the same period in 2021.

Emission concerns

According to new research, the US’s switch to electric cars could require three times as much lithium as is now supplied for the global market, leading to unnecessary water shortages, Indigenous land grabs, and environmental degradation both inside and outside the country.

Hence, there are concerns that unless the US’s dependence on cars in towns and cities falls drastically, the transition to lithium battery-powered electric vehicles by 2050 will deepen global environmental and social inequalities linked to mining – and may even jeopardize the 1.5C global heating target.

Can EVs batteries provide solutions to elevator blackouts?

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What we know

The biggest market for lithium, a soft, white metal used in all of today’s rechargeable batteries, is already electric vehicles. Lithium mining is risky, and the increased demand for EVs is causing social and environmental problems and bottlenecks in the worldwide supply chain.

However, EVs produce no tailpipe emissions. While charging the battery may increase pollution at the power plant, total emissions associated with driving EVs are still typically less than those for gasoline cars—particularly if the electricity is generated from renewable energy sources like wind.

While experts broadly agree that plug-in vehicles are a more climate-friendly option than traditional vehicles, they can still have their environmental impacts, depending on how they’re charged up and manufactured.

“The reason electric vehicles look like an appealing climate solution is that if we can make our grids zero-carbon, then vehicle emissions drop way, way down,” said Jessika Trancik, an associate professor of energy studies at M.I.T. “Whereas even the best hybrids that burn gasoline will always have a baseline of emissions they can’t go below.”


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