Redwood Materials is a battery recycling and energy story provider that works with a few automakers.
Rivian will provide Redwood Materials with older EV batteries to be made into an energy storage system for its Illinois factory.
This system will reduce the assembly plant’s demand on the local power grid and give a second life to batteries that would otherwise have been recycled.
The question of what to do with EV batteries once the vehicle they are installed in reaches the end of its useful life hasn’t been fully answered yet, but a number of solutions have been put forward.
Indeed, a few automakers have partnered with companies that will recycle used batteries and harvest their minerals to be used in new batteries, while others have found a way to use older EV batteries as an energy storage solution.
This is what Rivian intends to do with the batteries coming out of its older trucks and SUVs, thanks to a partnership with Redwood Materials, an American company that does both recycling and reuse of older battery packs.
In fact, the automaker is planning to install an energy storage unit at its assembly plant, in Normal, Illinois, that will be composed of batteries it will have supplied to Redwood Materials.
Rivian factory in Normal, Illinois | Photo: RivianSince the automaker only started selling vehicles in 2021, it will take quite a bit of time for its first models to reach the end of their life and donate their batteries to the project.
While no timeframe was given for this project, we expect Rivian to supply Redwood Materials with older packs it previously used for testing in order to have an operating energy storage system in the relatively near future.
This system is intended to both reduce the strain Rivian’s assembly operations put on the local energy grid while at the same time reducing the automaker’s expenses in utilities.
To do so, the system will charge its batteries during periods of low utilization where costs are lower and then distribute this power back out to the factory during more energy-intensive times of the day.
According to Rivian and Redwood Materials, the United States will need to deploy over 600 GWh of energy storage by 2030 in order to meet growing demand for electricity and stabilize peaks within the grid.
Volkswagen will Send its Used EV Batteries to Redwood Materials for Recycling in the US
This is mainly due to the rapid growth of energy-intensive industries such as EV manufacturing and AI data centers, which need more electricity than the current grid can provide.
On its own, Rivian’s planned energy storage system will use more than 100 second-life batteries and feature an initial capacity of 10 MWh, which will reportedly be easily expandable as needs dictate.
Even after years of use in electric vehicles, modern battery packs retain enough energy density to be effective stationary storage devices.
Once they degrade enough to no longer be useful even in that role, the batteries will be recycled and their minerals reused in new battery production, reducing the need for newly mined materials and rare earth metals.
