Rivian and Redwood Materials have announced a partnership to deploy battery energy storage at Rivian’s manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois, using more than 100 second-life Rivian battery packs.
The solution will provide 10 megawatt hours (MWh) of dispatchable energy, reducing costs and load on the grid during peak demand periods.
After Rivian provides the EV battery packs to Redwood, the critical materials company will integrate them into a Redwood Energy system so their stored energy can be used on-site by the plant in Normal.
The system, supported by Redwood Pack Manager technology, enables faster and more flexible energy capacity deployment at high-demand sites like manufacturing facilities.
“EVs represent a massive, distributed and highly competitive energy resource,” said Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe, in a statement. “As energy needs grow, our grid needs to be flexible, secure, and affordable.”
The battery of an EV usually is the part of the vehicle that lives the longest. Once an EV is retired, the batteries are often still valuable as stationary energy storage devices. By transitioning the packs into stationary assets before recycling them, companies like Redwood can reduce reliance on imported energy storage and defer billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades.
“Electricity demand is accelerating faster than the grid can expand, posing a constraint on industrial growth. At the same time, the massive amount of domestic battery assets already in the U.S. market represents a strategic energy resource,” said JB Straubel, Redwood Materials Founder and CEO. “This is a scalable model for how we add meaningful energy capacity in the near term.”
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