Moment Energy gives a second life to spent EV batteries

For four engineering students at Simon Fraser University, how to dispose of end-of-life electric vehicle batteries was a question they couldn’t quite shake. The long-time friends had wanted to start a company for years, and changing the fate of spent lithium-ion batteries seemed a great place to start.  

“We saw a problem,” Gurmesh Sidhu, the chief product officer and one of the four co-founders of Moment Energy, told ESS News. The Canadian startup repurposes retired EV batteries into second-life stationary energy storage systems. “Various recyclers told us it would cost around $4,000 at the time for someone to recycle their own Chevy Bolt battery, for example.” 

Sidhu, along with now CEO Edward Chiang, CTO Gabriel Soares and COO Sumreen Rattan, decided to find a more sustainable solution for used batteries — many of which still retain up to 80% of their capacity, according to a report from Aviloo and the P3 Group. Yet they were being discarded or underutilized. 

Gurmesh noted that though other companies have attempted to repurpose spent EV batteries into new systems, most shied away from commercialization for safety or supply reasons. That’s why Moment made safety and consistent supply the key pillars of their approach.  

The company relies on an in-house testing and integration process, where they assess each module and new automaker individually to determine if they can be safely reused and identify ideal use cases. 

“We test the batteries using cyclers and other technologies to ensure they’re safe and reliable,” said Sidhu, adding that the company also does visual inspections and a variety of other tests before assembling the modules into racks that are monitored and balanced by a proprietary BMS. Afterward, he said, “It’s a lot closer to traditional BESS manufacturing.” 

The resulting systems are then incorporated into customized energy storage solutions specifically designed for mid-sized applications. Most of Moment’s systems range from 400 kWh to five MWh, though the company has also worked on a few larger projects, including an in-progress project with Hydro Ottawa.  

“I’m seeing a lot of storage projects get larger, and there’s this gap in the middle that we’re targeting,” Sidhu said, noting Moment’s focus on commercial and industrial markets will help eliminate that gap and make it easier for businesses to acquire large-scale, high-power capacity solutions.  

“It’s a lot less crowded, so it’s an interesting space to focus on,” he added. 

In the five years since its founding, Moment Energy has since established partnerships with major automakers like Nissan North America and Mercedes-Benz to secure used batteries and developed a BESS for Vancouver International Airport that provides EV charging.  

More recently, the company secured a $15 million Series A funding round to build its second factory overall and its first manufacturing plant in the United States.  

The buildout of the new gigafactory, which will be located in Taylor, Texas, will also be supported by a $20.3 million award by the U.S. Department of Energy and is expected to create over 250 skilled clean energy jobs.