PARIS, Sept 18 (Reuters) - A consortium of French companies led by construction firm Bouygues has developed an electric car charging system based on old batteries that helps smooth out power demand when dozens of cars simultaneously recharge.

A similar block of prefabs has already been built four miles away in South Woodford, and now Redbridge Council and the construction firm Elliott have submitted planning applications to put 90 shipping container homes nz regulations homes on Brocket Way Park and Woodman Road, near Manford Way Park, for ten years. 

'They should put them on the brownfield sites in the area, but they don't want to because they can sell off those to developers for millions. It comes down to money and a total disregard for the local community.'

IHS Automotive estimates that in 2014, carmakers worldwide will produce more than 217,000 battery electric vehicles, or 0.25 percent of a global production forecast of 87.7 million vehicles, rising to nearly a million electric vehicles, or 0.9 percent of a forecast 104 million vehicles, by 2020.

The Eco2charge group, which also includes car maker Renault , electrical engineering group Alstom and cable maker Nexans, has developed a charging system that assembles old batteries from electric vehicles into a power storage bank that can soak up electricity at night and gradually charge vehicles during the day.

The system could likewise be part of a grid-wide demand-response system, and in the future it should also be possible to not only temporarily stop drawing power from the grid, but also to feed back power into it at times of peak demand.

Sam Chapman, 21, who has set up the Brocket and Manford Way Protest Group, said: 'We all want to help the homeless and vulnerable, but it has to be in the right area - not destroying greenfield sites. 

The project, which has a 13 million euro ($16.8 million) budget, has been trialed in two Bouygues and Renault pilot sites and the group aims to sell it to office buildings, parking lots, campuses and other sites where fleets of electric cars can park.

The car maker is also looking at developing utility-scale power storage systems, that would assemble as many as 50 recycled car batteries into one container for use with large solar power stations or wind parks.

Across Paris, Autolib operates some 2,500 cars and nearly 900 charging stations. It has several competitors, including Wattmobile, which opened a new charging station in the French capital on Thursday. ($1 = 0.7745 euro) (Additional reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

Utilities across Europe are very eager to boost usage of electric cars as they see it as a way to boost power demand, which has been flat or falling due to the economic crisis and increased energy efficiency.

But imagine a firm or institution where dozens of employees arrive in the morning and all start recharging their cars at the same time. That would put a huge strain on the building's power network and force it to upgrade its electricity connections.

For storage, Eco2charge will use end-of-life Renault electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries. Renault, which sells electric cars but rents the batteries to their owners, owns and manages some 47,000 batteries from four different models.