Experts share how EV batteries could soon power data centers
Automakers say the batteries that power electric vehicles could provide a new way to store energy to help meet the growing electricity demand from data centers, artificial intelligence, transportation electrification and manufacturing reshoring.
Last month, Ford Motor Co.’s stock surged after it announced a plan to repurpose electric vehicle, or EV, batteries as energy storage systems for electric utilities and data centers. General Motors later followed suit with plans to develop a new type of battery that could support data centers and increase vehicle-to-grid capabilities.
Virginia Tech engineering experts Ali Mehrizi-Sani and Samji Samira explain how EV batteries could help power data centers and support the ever-increasing energy demands.
Why are EV batteries attracting so much attention in the power space right now?
"AI training and inference require far greater computational resources than traditional cloud computing and therefore much more electricity," said Mehrizi-Sani, director of the Power and Energy Center at Virginia Tech. “Repurposed EV batteries offer a potentially lower-cost and already-available way to deploy energy storage.”
He added, “While an older battery may no longer meet the performance requirements of a vehicle, it can still provide valuable storage capacity in stationary applications. For data centers, these batteries can help shave peak demand and smooth large load variations.”
What makes lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries ideal for power generation?
“Batteries enhance both reliability (preventing downtime and data loss) and resilience (enabling continued operation during power disruptions), making them an essential component of modern data centers,” said Samira, assistant professor of chemical engineering.
These batteries are ideal for use in data centers because they are efficient, have a high-energy density, a long lifespan, and have operational advantages over traditional lead-acid batteries.
“Lithium-ion batteries can store more energy in a smaller footprint, and they have a long lifespan and high cycle life,” Samira said. “Think about a cell phone: An iPhone battery typically lasts four to six years before needing replacement. From a data center perspective, this reduces replacement frequency and maintenance costs.”
However, current lithium-ion technology is approaching its practical performance limits, particularly in terms of energy density, Samira added.
“The current generation of lithium-ion batteries has been extremely enabling for our society, which resulted in the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 for its inventors,” he said.. “Given the insatiable need of humanity and data centers to store more energy per unit mass, we will need to move beyond them.”
About Mehrizi-Sani
Ali Mehrizi-Sani is a professor and Bradley Senior Faculty Fellow with Virginia Tech’s Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Power and Energy Center. He leads research on power and energy systems, including grid resilience, integration of new energy resources, and the evolving interaction between energy infrastructure and large-scale computing and data centers.
About Samira
Samji Samira is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. His research expertise focuses on electrocatalysis for energy conversion and storage, structure-performance relationships to enable active site design, and alkali metal-air battery catalyst design.
Interview
To schedule an interview with Ali Mehrizi-Sani or Samji Samira, please email mediarelations@vt.edu.
