EV manufacturer Rivian announced a partnership with battery recycler Redwood Materials to deploy second-life Rivian battery packs for on-site energy storage at Rivian’s EV manufacturing site in Normal, Illinois.
Redwood Materials
“Electricity demand is accelerating faster than the grid can expand, posing a constraint on industrial growth,” said JB Straubel, Redwood Materials Founder and CEO. “At the same time, the massive amount of domestic battery assets already in the U.S. market represents a strategic energy resource. Our partnership with Rivian shows how EV battery packs can be turned into dispatchable energy resources, bringing new capacity online quickly, supporting critical manufacturing, and reducing strain on the grid without waiting years for new infrastructure. This is a scalable model for how we add meaningful energy capacity in the near term.”
Redwood Materials will take more than 100 second-life Rivian battery packs and provide the site with 10 MWh of dispatchable energy.
“EVs represent a massive, distributed and highly competitive energy resource,” said Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe. “As energy needs grow, our grid needs to be flexible, secure and affordable. Our partnership with Redwood enables us to utilize our vehicle’s batteries beyond the life of a vehicle and contribute to grid health and American competitiveness.”
EV batteries are often the longest-lived part of the vehicle itself, designed to last many hundreds of thousands of miles and, in many cases, to remain healthy even when the vehicle is retired, they are extremely valuable as stationary energy storage devices.
Redwood Materials last year announced a relationship with General Motors to deploy energy storage systems using both new and second-life battery packs from GM EVs.
