Redwood Materials is giving old EV batteries a second life as microgrids

Redwood Materials is repurposing aged EV batteries into vigor retention systems that outgo “substantially less” than marque caller retention projects, the institution said Thursday.

The electrical conveyance artillery recycling and manufacturing venture, which was founded by Tesla’s erstwhile main technologist, has created a caller part called Redwood Energy to negociate these projects. The purpose is to divert “depreciated but functional” EV batteries from the recycling watercourse and repurpose them into “low-cost, large-scale” vigor retention systems that tin assistance plug captious gaps successful the vigor grid.

Redwood says it receives implicit 20 GWh of batteries annually — the equivalent of 250,000 EVs— which represents astir 90 percent of each lithium-ion batteries and artillery materials recycled successful North America. And often times, the batteries it receives for recycling inactive person a batch of usable vigor capableness — up to 50 percent. These are batteries that are nary longer suitable to powerfulness an electrical vehicle, but inactive person capable beingness successful them to service immoderate purpose.

So alternatively than recycle those inactive functional batteries, Redwood is turning them into stationary retention systems. And the institution says this volition beryllium a increasing accidental arsenic much EV batteries scope the extremity of their lifespan. Redwood estimates that much than 100,000 EVs volition travel disconnected the roadworthy this twelvemonth alone.

After recovering the artillery packs, Redwoods engineers execute a diagnostics cheque to find whether its a suitable campaigner for betterment oregon recycling. If its reusable, the battalion is installed into “flexible, modular retention systems” which tin run independently oregon link to the grid. Redwood says it has “over a gigawatt-hour” of reusable batteries successful its pipeline, a fig it expects to turn by 5 GWhs successful the coming year.

Redwood has already deployed its archetypal microgrid powered by upcycled EV batteries. The grid, with 12 MW of powerfulness and 63 MWh of capacity, is located astatine the company’s field successful Nevada and is being utilized to powerfulness a 2,000-GPU modular information halfway for AI infrastructure institution Crusoe. Redwood calls it the “largest second-life artillery deployment successful the world” with capable vigor to powerfulness “9,000 homes, enactment 20 Amtrak trips betwixt New York and Washington, D.C., oregon complaint an EV for a 240,000-mile journey—the region to the moon.”

Redwood Materials was founded successful 2017 by JT Straubel. In summation to breaking down scrap from Tesla’s battery-making process with Panasonic, Redwood besides recycles batteries from Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Specialized, Amazon, Lyft, Rad Power Bikes, Lime, stationary retention facilities, and others. The institution besides produces anodes and cathodes, captious artillery components, astatine a installation successful South Carolina.