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VDL and RWE repurposing EV bus batteries to stabilize the grid: ‘Project Anubis’

December 23, 2023

RWE and VDL Bus & Coach have launched ‘Project Anubis’, an initiative focused on the sustainable and circular use of raw materials, specifically bus batteries, in a central storage system in Moerdijk, Holland.

The project aims to repurpose intensively used batteries from VDL Bus & Coach electric buses for stabilizing the power grid. The 43 batteries from the VDL electric buses, with a total storage capacity of 7.5 megawatts, will be combined into one battery at the RWE power plant in Moerdijk.

The transport sector is expected to transition from fossil fuel-dependent to electric in the coming years. It is projected that by 2030, all buses and an increasing number of cars and lorries in the Netherlands will run on electricity, resulting in over 150,000 tonnes of batteries available for recycling annually. Currently, these batteries are classified as waste and are mostly sent to recycling plants abroad.

Battery systems are ideally suited for stabilizing the energy network, due to their fast response time. “With project Anubis, RWE and VDL are demonstrating that technical challenges related to the construction and operation of plants like this can be overcome. And with this project, we are actively contributing to a reduction in CO2 because after an initial phase in the VDL buses, the batteries will have an extended life at RWE. After that, they will undergo high-quality recycling,” said Roger Miesen, CEO of RWE Generation.

“In project Anubis, we are initially using batteries taken from 43 electric VDL buses operated by Transdev in Eindhoven since 2016,” said Paul van Vuuren, CEO of VDL Bus & Coach. “These vehicles are currently getting new and larger battery packs, but the used batteries still have enough capacity to be used in stationary applications. Providing a sustainable circular solution for our batteries is part of our strategy. However, its application still requires a lot of new knowledge and development. Together with RWE, we will therefore collect a lot of data in ‘project Anubis’ so that we can contribute even more to making our society even more sustainable.”