A new era of data centre power could be imminent, as used EV batteries find a second life within them.
Even though EV batteries may lose the capacity needed to be able to power a car, they are not rendered entirely unusable. Some packs retain enough energy storage potential to serve stationary applications, where weight and packaging constraints matter less.
Redwood Materials, working in conjunction with Rivian, wants to use retired electric vehicle batteries as battery storage systems.
Redwood says its battery recovery work provides valuable information about how packs deteriorate over time. Engineers and manufacturers can use that knowledge when deciding how to incorporate different batteries into energy storage systems – or to recover the valuable materials from within, instead.
Redwood ultimately plans to combine its battery systems with energy sources in order to develop large microgrids that can supply data centres, which they say can help bring facilities online without relying on new grid connections to come into action.
Rivian already operates a 10-megawatt-hour second-life battery system at its factory in Normal, Illinois.
