Irvine, California, electric vehicle (EV) automaker Rivian is collaborating with Redwood Materials to recycle its end-of-life EV batteries and give them a second life for energy storage.
The companies are expanding their relationship to allow Redwood to recycle battery scrap generated at Rivian’s manufacturing facilities.
So far, the companies have deployed 10 megawatt-hours (MWh) of battery energy storage using repurposed Rivian battery packs from Rivian’s Normal, Illinois, manufacturing plant.
“Giving Rivian battery packs a second life in stationary storage is a massive unlock for the energy transition," said RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO at Rivian. "By partnering with [Redwood CEO] JB [Scaringe] and the Redwood team we're turning retired EV batteries into a powerful tool to make the grid more reliable and lower energy costs for everyone.”
EV batteries still have some life left
While these EV batteries no longer have enough power for vehicles, often the batteries have energy capacity for stationary energy storage, Rivian said.
Energy storage is rapidly expanding in the U.S. During the first 18 months of the Trump administration, U.S. battery energy storage has nearly doubled to 165 gigawatt-hours (GWh), up from 88 GWh.
This growth has come as AI data centers and infrastructure continue to put pressure on the grid, potentially threatening brownouts or blackouts for communities. Energy storage stores electricity to dispatch to data centers and other infrastructure during these high-demand periods.
Once the batteries cannot be used in energy storage applications, they are recycled in Redwood’s process to reclaim minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper. Redwood claims a recovery rate from recycled batteries of over 95%.
"Every Rivian battery pack that comes back to us is a potential source of domestic grid energy storage in addition to critical materials," said JB Straubel, founder and CEO at Redwood Materials.
