Smartville

Smartville is a California-based company developing sustainable energy storage solutions from repurposed EV batteries. The company’s first commercially available second-life energy storage solution, "MOAB," was launched in March 2023. It could hold between six to 10 repurposed battery packs from Tesla and Nissan’s Leaf—which are in varying states of health in a unified system—and is rated between 200–500 kWh. In September 2023, Smartville unveiled the The Smartville 360 Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), which builds on MOAB with a modular design. The solution starts at 360 kWh of available capacity and can be scaled to suit the application.

Smartville’s battery refurbishing process allows the company to bring batteries from different vehicle models and power-coupling formats into the same modular design, which is an important enabler for scalability. Smartville uses specially designed power converters and a conditioning process that deliberately slows down the battery testing process to balance the health of the batteries across the entire system. The company is also able to generate an additional revenue from selling electricity generated by the testing process, as it involves charging and discharging over several weeks. Additionally, Smartville is able to improve the total health of the battery system over time and provide a warranty on the performance of the repurposed batteries.

In December 2022, Smartville indicated that it aims to deploy 50–100 MWh of product capacity by 2024. The company also aims to obtain UL 1073, UL 1974, and UL 9540 certifications, which are needed to manufacture second-life storage systems by Q1 2024.

Key customers and partnerships:

In March 2023, UC San Diego deployed the MOAB/Smartville 360 system in a 500 kWh configuration that provides 48 hours of emergency backup power. The system was fed by a 200 kilowatt rooftop solar array. 

Funding and financials:

In November 2023 , the company secured USD 2.65 million in federal and state grants to develop its Smartville 360 solution. In September 2023 , Smartville was awarded a USD 10 million grant from the US Department of Energy's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to support the company in deploying Smartville 360 across six locations in four states.