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Allye and SYNETIQ collaborate on repurposing electric vehicle batteries, creating a true circular economy for the UK.

January 19, 2024

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London

United Kingdom

London 09/01/2024: Clean-tech start-up Allye Energy, the smart battery technology platform for distributed energy storage at the grid edge, has entered into a strategic supply agreement with SYNETIQ, an IAA company and the UK’s leading integrated vehicle salvage, dismantling and recycling company, for the supply of repurposed electric vehicle battery packs.

Under the agreement, Allye will purchase electric vehicle batteries from SYNETIQ to install in the MAX Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), a 300kWh intelligent energy- storage-as-a-service (ESaaS) product for industrial and corporate customers to reduce energy bills by up to 50% and provide flexibility services to the grid to accelerate decarbonisation of the electricity network.

Jack Levy, COO and Co-Founder of Allye commented:

“We are delighted to work together with SYNETIQ, an organization that shares our commitment to being an ally to the grid, society, and the planet, as we work together for a more sustainable future. Our unique approach to repurposing the whole EV battery pack is the most sustainable way to deliver energy storage at scale, making best use of the finite resources available and helping ensure every EV battery has another chance to deliver what it was designed to do. Our unique approach at Allye allows us to build battery systems that provide flexibility and circularity at their core, by integrating cells of mixed chemistries, assorted voltage ranges, varying capacity and mixed state-of-health.”

As part of the agreement, Allye and SYNETIQ will deploy Allye’s diagnostic technology to assess all the battery packs SYNETIQ receives in the pursuit of recovering as many usable packs as possible, which can then be returned into the market.

Through their collaboration, SYNETIQ and Allye will significantly reduce waste and CO2 impact, enabling perfectly useable automotive battery packs to be repurposed to do what they do best – storing and discharging energy. Every pack repurposed directly reduces overall CO2 emissions by eliminating production of a new battery pack (more than seven tons of CO2 for a typical 75kWh pack according to McKinsey & Company) and restores value of a functioning battery already in the UK economy.

Allye will repurpose a range of healthy batteries from off-lease plug-in vehicles representing a variety of different car brands, models and chemistries. This reinforces the Allye MAX as the first BESS to combine multiple batteries of different lithium-ion chemistries into a single system. In the future, Allye will work with SYNETIQ to access EV batteries of different chemistries, including solid state and lithium-free, as they enter the automotive supply chain.

The EV packs in the vehicle recycling chain are an untapped part of the UK’s circular economy for batteries. In 2023, SYNETIQ received thousands of plug-in electric vehicles, and the numbers are increasing year on year.

Tom Rumboll, UK Managing Director for IAA and Chief Executive Officer of SYNETIQ commented:

“We're excited to work with Allye to repurpose entire EV battery packs and address a key challenge in our industry. Having a safe, climate-conscious, and affordable solution for EV batteries is crucial to maximising their environmental and economic benefits, in total alignment with SYNETIQ's core principles. Working together to promote reuse will build strong and sustainable markets, benefiting consumers, the automotive sector, and the planet.”

SYNETIQ is committed to the principles of reduce, reuse, remanufacture and recycle, the four R’s, as part of its “Road to Tomorrow” plan, leading the way on sustainability in the vehicle recycling industry. SYNETIQ already recycles 96.4% of all vehicles it dismantles, an industry-leading recycling figure.

The batteries SYNETIQ will supply are from vehicles that have been prematurely written-off as they are beyond economical repair. These vehicles are typically less than five years old, and the battery packs, if undamaged, have a long remaining useful life. Together, SYNETIQ and Allye intend to repurpose over 4,000 EV battery packs over the next five years, resulting in a net saving of 28,000 tonnes of CO2.E