Turning Retired EV Batteries Into Commercial Energy Savings with Gurmesh Sidhu

A chance meeting on the show floor turned into a deep dive on one of the fastest-moving opportunities in clean energy: giving retired EV batteries a second life as commercial storage that slashes peak demand costs and keeps critical operations online. We sit down with Moment Energy to unpack how they test, package, and deploy end-of-life EV packs into safe, high-voltage systems that deliver real savings and resilience for industrial and commercial sites.

We break down the tech without the jargon. Their advanced battery management system reads cell-level health and dynamically routes current to bypass weak cells, maintaining performance without chemical refurbishment. We also get into the nuts and bolts: 960 volts DC on the pack side, 480 or 600 volts AC output, trenching to code, and modular enclosures roughly the size of a 20-foot container. If you’ve wondered how second-life batteries actually integrate with facilities—and what electricians, EPCs, and GCs should expect—this conversation maps the process end to end.

The economics in British Columbia are striking. With BC Hydro funding 80 to 90 percent of fully installed storage projects, customers keep most of the value—peak shaving, demand response participation, and backup coverage—while the utility gets a flexible tool to reduce grid strain. We also explore high-impact use cases like pairing storage with EV charging at Vancouver International Airport, where buffering charger spikes makes electrification practical and affordable. Finally, we look ahead to denser next-gen systems and why second-life supply is set to grow as EV adoption accelerates.

If you’re a commercial operator, contractor, or facility planner staring down rising energy costs and outage risks, this is a practical roadmap to act now. Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of construction, electrification, and resilience, and leave a review to tell us where you want storage to go next.

PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
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Transcript

Chance Meeting And Warm Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Alright, Gramesh, how are you doing today? I'm doing great.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

It's a wonderful show out here.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Some wonderful sunshine in Vancouver. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Because this was a cool experience because Miguel and I were like, what did I see you? I saw you I was walking. On the street?

unknown 0:14

Yeah, on the street.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

On the street. Yeah, that's funny. That was hilarious. So yeah, he was on he was on the street, and I could tell he he was going to get like a power bar or something, and I was like, oh, last minute run. And anyway, so he was getting some from the booth, and then we started talking, and now you're here. Awesome. Well look at that happen.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Marketing manager doing his job. Great.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Beyond doing his job. That's like that's uh it's called good intuition, is what that is. Yeah, hard to find. So yeah, keep on with this. Yes, definitely. Yeah, very, very cool. Welcome to the Site Visit Podcast Leadership and Perspective from Construction. Your host, James Baldwin.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Recorded live from the dope floor and building Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver.

Who Moment Energy Serves

SPEAKER_00 1:05

All right, so let's just talk about your company. You're here. I can see your booth down there. You're busy. You got a lot going on. And uh so it's Moment Energy.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yeah, Moment Energy.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Okay, so gimme the like the gimme the elevator pitch, or like you have to do every time you're at a barbecue somewhere, hey uh moment energy. What do you guys what do you do? Give it to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, so what Moment Energy does is we take batteries that are no longer useful and we make them useful for stationary storage applications.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Okay, well, okay. I'm really, again, that are no longer useful. Yeah. Okay, what kind of batteries? So end-of-life EV batteries. So from cars.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

From cars, exactly. Stranded batteries. A lot of Model S's out there? Uh a lot of a variety of we work with almost every automaker. The first ones that were Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah. So um and and those are the the typical cells, like those, what are they called, those?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

The the cells are called like 18650s or cylindrical cells, but we work with uh larger form factors, so the packs and the modules.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

The packs that have those in them.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Exactly, yes. But you have to replace some of those though, no? No, no, we don't. We have some technology within our system that actually can see the state of every cell within the system and optimize, so there's no uh limitations from that.

Battery Management System Innovation

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Holy crap. Like, okay, that's uh that's pretty sweet. So um all right, so now I get the the main part. So take so the end-of-life batteries, or considered end of life, are you able to revive them somehow?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah, exactly. So we don't do any chemical processes processes to revive them, but we have some testing and some infrastructure that we do with our uh electronics within our system that enable these batteries to be useful. So that BMS or the battery management system I just mentioned can control each, can detect each individual cell and ensure there's no bottlenecks within the system. You can think of uh a battery pack kind of like driving a car. If you're in a single lane, there's no passing lane to let the electrons or let the cars go by, but our battery management system enables a passing lane. So it enables constant flow of traffic, even if it's one slow car, a one-week cell.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

So one slow. Oh, I get it. Okay. So I remember um uh Musk talking about batteries, and it was saying, like, why is why does it take so long for the battery to get um full at the top of the charge, whereas it's so fast at the bottom? And he says it's because cars trying to find parking spots in an empty lot rather than cars trying to find the electrons have to go and find a spot.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, kind of the same concept.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Same concept, but but what you're saying is that you your battery management system allows for if you got one dead cell, that the the the there's no, you're getting rid of the cholesterol basically and opening up that to make that work. Exactly. Okay, cool. Yeah, I uh the banner battery, so are all packs um designed that way for to be able to get that information back to the battery management system?

Sourcing Packs And Economics

SPEAKER_01 3:58

I'd say 95% of packs are designed that way. All modern packs are designed that way because the way they're wired. Yeah, just with the wired, because the safety system's in the original vehicle as well that we're leveraging to essentially replace without a battery management system.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Okay, cool. And so in terms of like how many so so so you so you get these um what's the like how do you get these batteries?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So we work with a variety of different groups to get these batteries. We work with automakers, we work with fleet owners, and we work with local networks to get these batteries as well. We're working with virtually every automaker in North America, uh, and we have major relationships with a lot of different uh fleet owners as well, including some of the largest EV fleet owners in North America.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Okay, and they and they say we got a vehicle that's got the batteries at its end of its life. Exactly. Um you see whether or not that's gonna fit in your program or not, and then um you buy it from them?

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah, exactly. Buy it buy it from them or we get it for free depending on the battery type. Yeah. Uh and then you know it's a fraction of the cost of buying a new cell from China.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Right. Gotcha. I I mean is this just a just a a quick question on that, is that changing? Is batteries gonna be or are they gonna be and this is better for your business, right? Whether or not like I know I've got a Model S. Yeah. Um there was a defect in it. I've had one for quite a while, but there was a defect. I went in to have my uh wiper washer uh sprayer fixed, and they're like, by the way, um your battery's being recalled. Oh wow. So I got a brand new battery at uh 130,000 kilometers. That's fantastic. And they they gave me a um P uh 90 battery for a P85. So it's rear wheel only with a discharge. That's ridiculous. It's like a muscle car. Um but anyway, yeah. Um but that pack is so much money, right? Like how much is one of those?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

To buy them brand new depends on the automaker. We don't have access to that price either, but it's in the thousands or tens of thousands, depending on the EV. Yeah. It's generally the largest cost of any EV, is the battery pack that goes into building it.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Right. And because of the the natural degradation of batteries, you got a pretty sustainable business on your hands here.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Exactly. There's hundreds of uh thousands of available EVs on the road today, and that number is only growing year over year.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Right.

unknown 6:24

Yeah.

From Batteries To Stationary Storage

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Okay. Um, so let's talk about the the applications. You get the batteries, you you found a way to um manage those batteries by a battery management system, and then what are you doing with those?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

We take the batteries and we deploy them on stationary sites. So oftentimes when someone's looking at an energy bill, there's a few sections of the bill that can't that are very high. One of them is peak demand charges. Uh so we can take the batteries from these end-of-life EVs, put them into our systems, package them, make sure they're safe and reliable, and then we can integrate them into these systems on these sites and help optimize the energy bill. So we're providing free backup bill savings for a lot of our customers.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Got it. Okay. So you guys are basically refurbishing old batteries and making new Tesla walls.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Exactly, but for commercial customers, so larger scale.

BC Hydro Incentives And ROI

SPEAKER_00 7:14

No, I got it, I got it, and that's cool. So, but that's essentially to the layman, that's basically what that is. Exactly, yeah. Okay, that's really, really cool. So you're getting a lot of interest here because people are obviously energy costs are going up, et cetera. So the peak management side of things, and also here, like what BC Hydro does, is there there's some peak management, is I mean, they're looking at doing that, or they do do that, or so they've implemented this amazing program where 80 to 90% of the capital cost of an installed battery project is covered from BC Hydro.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

So effectively you'd be able to get a million dollar asset paying only$100,000 for it for your business, but you get to take most of the value for yourself. They only want a small chunk that they can use during uh what they call uh uh demand response periods, and then the rest of it is for you to use for your peak shaving, which is that energy demand charge reduction, or for backup purposes, depending on what the customer wants.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Wow, crazy. Okay. Hmm. That seems very, very, very slick. Um so when people are coming by your booth right now, what is what's the what's the message there is making them stop?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

I think that they're very excited that there's actually a made in Canada product and a mating local local product. We're made around 40 minutes from here that's serving the market. And then a lot of people are really curious because they know renewables are big, but they don't really know where renewables sit in the BC landscape. So as one of the leaders in the BC battery storage space, we're able to educate them on that, learn teach them about the incentive that's amazing and help really helping deploy some projects, and also show them, hey, you can save your clients a lot of money annually just by simply deploying this asset, and they don't need to worry about power outages anymore.

Made-In-Canada And Market Education

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Ah. Wow, cool. All right, so um, so what what what new things do you guys have coming up? Do you got anything you can share with us? Or is it uh you got some new innovations you're working on?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, I know we're very excited. In the next 12 months, we are gonna be deploying the uh deploying our new our next product. So we're gonna be building a product that is more dense, so takes up less space on a site, has better performance in terms of the.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

So how much space do they take up now?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Right now it's around the size of a twenty twenty foot by eight foot, so a twenty-foot container. Uh and we're bringing Whoa, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

20 foot by eight foot. So it's basically a shipping container.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Exactly. It's it's it's identical dimensions. Do you guys use those? No, but they look like we looks like we do. It looks like you do. Yeah, we manufacture our own and custom enclosures, but they look very similar to shipping containers.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Uh and then for Are they fully, fully dense, or can you walk in these things and do work on them or like so we we don't design them so you can walk in them, but they are not completely populated.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Uh you know, there's a few a few empty spaces in them for electronics to go in, et cetera. And we're optimizing that in our next system.

Next-Gen Denser Systems

SPEAKER_00 9:57

So how is that um where do they usually sit?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

They usually sit outside of outside of uh you know uh industrial site. So if you go to any large industrial site, there's lots of open space. Uh we take a little fence perimeter, we deploy our systems there, and then we hook it up to the site.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Wow, crazy. That's so cool. Um massive cables, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, thick. Yeah, yeah. It's lots of power grounds in there.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I mean, do you ever do you ever do you ever um you know dig in to put those lines through?

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Well almost all of our cables are dug in and put underground. Yeah, it's it's just electrical code and Canadian construction code. Right. Requires most cables to not be overhead unless it's on like uh temporary industrial site or something like that. Yeah. Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

So how many amps you got running through those?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Uh so depending on the system, uh our one megawatt hour system has around 500 amps running through it. And we can put multiple of those together. So we have a site with over a thousand amps of connection coming out of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Right. So are you are you uh changing the voltage on your side or on the other side? Is that what is it? Is that a 48 volt system?

Deployment, Cabling, And Power Specs

SPEAKER_01 10:59

It's no, it's not a 48 volt system. It's around 960 volts DC. Yes, lots of voltage. Uh and then uh we output 480 volts or 600 volts AC, depending on what the client needs. In Canada, obviously, 600 volts AC is the big talk. Uh and then in uh in America, you know, a lot of 480 volt AC coming up as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Crazy. Okay. So do you have a lot of electricians walking by going, wow, what's this?

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah, I think a lot of a lot of interest from electricians, and I think pretty curious about how to get involved with the technology and how it's gonna be impacting them and what they're gonna be after the installing in the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, no kidding. So in terms of the um uh you're saying that the government programs are pretty awesome for this. Um what percentage is that is coverage, you said?

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Uh eighty to ninety percent. Of your bill? Uh of the customer's bill, yeah. Oh, the customer's cost of installing the battery.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

So they're installing it, not the actual battery itself.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Including the installation, all of the engineering work, all of the construction work, and the actual purchase of the product, all included. Wow, all in, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

So you're riding that wave pretty hard.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yes, it's very exciting for us right now. Surf baby. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

That's a good one. That's a good one.

Utility Incentive Math And Grid Strain

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, and the math shows that it's not gonna go away. There's more houses being built, there's more infrastructure being built, and more EVs being bought. And what that means is we're gonna need to constantly be thinking of creative ways that we're gonna reduce the strain on the power lines. So this incentive is probably one of the cheapest ways for utility to do that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

That's amazing. Um is this are you doing that, are you putting this in EV charging areas as well?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yes, we actually have a project we're working on with Vancouver International Airport. Okay. Where we're deploying it alongside EV chargers. And that's what's happening on lots of sites throughout North America. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Wow. Um, so what's your website?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Our website is www.moment.com. But momentenergy.com. Momentenergy.com.

EV Charging Projects And Ideal Clients

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I think moment.com is taken by something else.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yes, exactly. Yeah, sorry. My marketing manager is about to school me here. Yeah, you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's cool. And then you guys are on LinkedIn?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Yeah, we're active on LinkedIn, Instagram, whatever social media uh is your cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

So what kind of what kind of customers are you looking for?

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Well, mostly commercial industrial sites as well as uh you know EPCs and general contractors who have access to these sites. So any site uh in British Columbia where you see there's a large general service or medium general service on your utility bill, we'd love to reach out and do a complimentary sizing for you and complimentary site walk to make sure that it's a good fit for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Nice, cool. Okay, well, this has been awesome. Um thank you very much for uh setting it up. That it worked out well. And uh yeah, nice to meet you. Awesome, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

And good luck with the rest of the show. Thank you. Thank you so much, Steve. Right on, I'm just gonna take a photo of you guys. Awesome, definitely. Thank you. Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

I know. Perfect. Okay, thanks very much. Thank you so much. Cheers. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Well, that does it for another episode of The Sitefit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at SlipMaxSystems.com slash the sitebit, where you'll get industry insights, protests, and everything you need to know about the SiteFitness Podcast and SiteFitz, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Slipmax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to go.