Redwood Materials has launched a new second-life battery storage division with its first major deployment also North America’s largest battery-powered microgrid, in a 12 MW / 63 MWh configuration powering a data center for Crusoe Energy.
The system, located at Redwood’s Sparks, Nevada campus, uses hundreds of repurposed EV battery packs and is paired with solar generation. According to the company, it is the largest second-life battery deployment to date. The modular data center it supplies contains 2,000 GPUs and is designed for AI workloads with high energy demands.
Redwood, founded by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, is one of North America’s largest battery recyclers. Until now, its business has focused on recovering critical minerals from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. The new unit, Redwood Energy, extends that model by identifying packs still suitable for stationary storage before recycling them. Many EV batteries retain over 50% of their original capacity, the company says—enough for lower-stress grid applications such as load shifting, solar smoothing, and backup power.
The company estimates that more than 100,000 EVs will be retired in the U.S. this year, representing a growing pool of reusable batteries. It currently processes over 20 GWh of batteries annually and expects to expand its deployment pipeline by 5 GWh in the next year. Redwood said it has already begun designing projects over 100 MW in capacity.
Redwood Materials reports that as it collects the 20 GWh of used lithium-ion batteries from around 250,000 EVs per year, the list of cells recovered from modules and packs come from almost every EV brand. Redwood has recycling agreements with major automakers including Volkswagen/Audi, Toyota, BMW, Ford, Nissan, GM/Ultium, Isuzu (trucks), and partnerships with micromobility and fleet operators such as Lime scooters/bikes, Rad Power e-bikes, Lyft fleets, Amazon deliveries, and more.
Chief commercial officer Cal Lankton said reused packs can be deployed at roughly half the cost of new systems, while offering comparable performance in stationary settings, and described the concept as “a retirement home for these batteries.” The microgrid at Crusoe’s site is already operational and delivering electricity below grid prices, Redwood said.
From ESS News
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.