Brothers Stefan and Nicolas Bahamonde are not only qualified engineers, they are also, and always have been, talented tinkerers who enjoy breaking down electrical devices into their components. This passion led to the creation of Libattion in 2018, a company that manufactures and sells what are known as second-life batteries. The starting point for these energy storage devices is worn-out batteries from electric cars. Although these batteries can no longer maintain full capacity, they still contain a lot of intact cells, which can be used to make new batteries.
To begin with, Libattion’s main source material was used e-bike batteries. The resulting second-life batteries were intended for light electric vehicles such as forklift trucks and robots. The company’s first customer was the Bern firm Rikscha, a manufacturer of electric cargo bikes. Businesses such as Edag Engineering (Germany) and Eurofork (Italy) have built the batteries into mobility solutions and robot palletisers. Thanks to Libattion’s battery management system, the second-life batteries used for this are reliable and durable.
More recently, the focus has shifted from mobile to stationary applications. To meet the growing demand generated by the energy transition, Libattion now manufactures large battery energy storage systems from worn-out car batteries. To this end, the company has entered into an exclusive partnership with the Stellantis automotive corporation. Energy storage systems can be used for a multitude of applications, such as peak shaving or optimised self-consumption with photovoltaic systems. Energy suppliers such as EBL in the canton of Basel-Landschaft use them as large grid storage systems, to hold energy in reserve to stabilise the electricity grid (‘control energy’) for example.
In 2024, Libattion launched a storage system in container format that offers a capacity of one to two MWh. The same year, the company commissioned a new factory that increased its production capacity tenfold. Now 8,000 small storage units, for mobile applications, and 850 large energy storage systems can be produced each year. The new production site enables the company to work directly with Librec, a company that dismantles worn-out batteries and provides the basic material for Libattion’s products.
Libattion AG
