Rivian and Redwood Materials have announced a partnership to deploy a battery energy storage system at at Rivian’s electric vehicle production plant in Normal, Illinois. The system will use more than 100 second-life Rivian battery packs, integrated by Redwood into a Redwood Energy system and supported by the company’s Pack Manager technology, allowing stored energy to be used directly on-site at the Normal facility. The storage system is initially designed to provide 10 megawatt-hours of dispatchable energy, reducing costs and grid load during peak periods of demand.
In the future, the use of second-life EV batteries for battery energy storage is set to grow, offering a clear path towards a more circular economy. It’s already the case that EV batteries themselves outlive many other parts of a vehicle, and still have strong use cases as battery storage even after they’re no longer used in a vehicle.
Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe commented:
“EVs represent a massive, distributed and highly competitive energy resource. 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.”
JB Straubel, Redwood Materials Founder and CEO, added:
“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. 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.”
