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
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.
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