Overview
Demand for energy storage is surging, with capacity expected to grow eightfold in the next decade. To meet that demand, Moment Energy wants to shortcut a supply chain that now flows largely through China, by domestically repurposing EV batteries into new grid-connected storage systems.
Moment Energy’s four founders met while studying mechatronics engineering in college and worked together on a team that built and raced electric cars. After graduating, they scattered to companies including Tesla and Apple, but aimed to someday work together again.
Then, after two tornadoes tore through parts of Ottawa in 2018, taking hospitals and cell towers offline—and putting the now-CEO through his first full-scale power outage—the foursome sensed an opportunity. The team began disassembling Nissan Leaf batteries in a garage in British Columbia and repackaging them to deliver backup systems to homes and businesses. The battery business was growing quickly: in 2019, just as Moment Energy launched, battery storage capacity was expected to balloon 40 times by 2040.
Today, their vision looks prescient. Disasters including hurricanes and wildfires continue to spur blackouts, and booming data center demand has expanded the market for energy storage even further. Moment now works with tech companies looking for ways to manage their power supply as well as customers preparing for potential outages.
Ongoing trade battles between the US and China have been a shot in the arm for the company. Nearly all battery manufacturing is rooted in China and batteries imported to the United States face steep tariffs (though the future of some of those duties remains uncertain). Meanwhile, Moment will soon be able to categorize its repurposed batteries as domestic products in both Canada and the US, where it’s building its next plant. The company also claims to be the only “second life” battery company to receive important certifications from independent safety evaluator UL, which financiers and insurers use to evaluate whether a battery system is a secure investment.
Key indicators
- Industry: Battery repurposing
- Founded: 2019
- Headquarters: Vancouver, Canada
- Notable fact: The company’s bylaws contain a promise that it will never send a battery to a landfill.
Potential for impact
Details
Last year, the world deployed 1.2 terawatt-hours of electric vehicle battery capacity, according to the International Energy Agency. And while EVs account for the great majority of battery use worldwide, battery storage is now the fastest-growing power technology.
Producing all of those batteries, though, is resource-intensive: The minerals must be mined and processed, manufactured into a final product, and then shipped (often from China) to ports around the world. What’s more—when an EV reaches the end of its useful life, as much as 80% of the car’s battery capacity remains.
Recycling is an expensive process, and the great majority of battery recycling capacity is in China. So battery materials from North America must be shipped back across the ocean to be stripped of useful minerals and metals. (Though the Trump administration in August said it would ban this practice, in a bid to stem the stream of critical materials headed for recycling in China.)
Repurposing can bridge initial use and recycling. After Moment receives a used battery pack, the company screens each cell for health and safety, plugging metrics into proprietary AI models that quantify its remaining life, and recycles any cells that are not up to snuff. The rest are linked together and repackaged in 20- or 40-foot-long steel containers. Moment’s systems are designed to extend a battery’s useful life for another 10–30 years. Global warming potential, resource use, and impacts to human health are all reduced when repurposing a battery before recycling it, according to a 2023 analysis.
More than one million EV batteries worldwide could reach the end of their lives by 2030. Moment says that its model could reroute more than two gigawatt-hours of batteries from landfills or recycling facilities every year.
Caveats
Today, Moment represents a tiny slice of the overall energy-storage market. The company has deployed 11 systems since its founding, initially for off-grid homes and more recently for grid-connected hospitals, airports, and other commercial and industrial facilities that need additional power supply or want to avoid costly system upgrades for new power sinks like EV chargers.
How significantly the company can scale will depend, in large part, on the stream of EV batteries it can obtain and how quickly it can test and repackage them. Today, the company sources used batteries from around 20 car companies, including Nissan and Mercedes-Benz.
Moment must also compete against cheap, new batteries flowing in from China. The company says its systems now cost under $90 per kilowatt-hour. Average costs for energy-storage batteries reached $70 per kilowatt-hour in early 2026. Even when accounting for tariffs and shipping costs, some new batteries may still undercut repurposed models.
Next steps
In June, the company cut the ribbon on its Megafactory 1 in Vancouver. Slated to repurpose one gigawatt-hour of battery capacity per year by 2030, it is the world’s largest facility for repurposing EV batteries. It took just six weeks to bring the facility online.
Using funds from the US Department of Energy and part of the $100 million the company has raised thus far from investors including Amazon and Liberty Mutual, Moment is now finishing an even bigger facility in Texas. Even together, though, the two hubs will be able to process only a fraction of the batteries retiring from North American roads. To realize its full climate potential, the startup will need to sustain its early momentum and scale up dramatically.
Source
Originally published at www.technologyreview.com.