Rivian and Redwood Plan Second-Life Battery Storage at Illinois EV Plant

EV Batteries Get a Factory Afterlife

Rivian and Redwood Materials are turning used electric vehicle battery packs into a stationary energy storage system for Rivian’s assembly plant in Normal, Illinois, extending the useful life of packs that still retain value after vehicle service.

Under the partnership, Rivian will provide more than 100 second-life EV battery packs to Redwood. The system will initially provide 10 MWh of energy to the factory, with the goal of reducing utility costs and lowering grid demand during peak periods. The announcement places a practical industrial use case behind a concept that has often been discussed as a future battery circularity strategy.

Redwood founder and CEO JB Straubel said the partnership shows how EV packs can become dispatchable energy resources that add capacity quickly, support manufacturing and reduce strain on the grid without waiting years for new infrastructure.

Why Second-Life Storage Is Attractive

Electric vehicle battery packs can reach the end of their automotive life while still retaining enough health for less demanding stationary uses. A vehicle requires high performance, predictable range and stringent reliability under vibration, weather and rapid charge-discharge patterns. A factory storage system can use batteries differently, often in more controlled conditions and with operational software that manages charge and discharge.

That gap creates an opportunity. Instead of sending packs directly to recycling, companies can first repurpose them for energy storage, extract more economic value and then recycle materials later. Rivian said second-life use can extend battery usefulness and help defer large amounts of cost that would otherwise be tied to new storage or grid infrastructure.

The Illinois project is also connected to a larger shift in Redwood’s business. In June 2025, the company announced Redwood Energy, a unit focused on assembling and deploying low-cost stationary storage systems for AI data centers and other commercial applications. The Rivian deployment brings that strategy into a manufacturing environment where peak power costs and grid constraints are direct operational concerns.

Industrial Power Demand Is the Bigger Story

The partnership is not only about recycling or sustainability. It is also about electricity demand. Straubel said demand is rising faster than the grid can expand, creating a constraint on industrial growth. At the same time, the United States already has a growing base of domestic battery assets in the market. Redwood’s thesis is that those batteries represent an energy resource, not just future recycling feedstock.

For Rivian, the system offers a way to deploy stored power at its own factory during expensive or constrained periods. That can reduce peak grid demand and help the company avoid buying more expensive electricity when demand is high. In a manufacturing setting, where energy use is large and schedules matter, storage can become an operating tool rather than a demonstration project.

The project also illustrates how EV supply chains and grid infrastructure are beginning to overlap. Automakers, battery recyclers, storage developers and large electricity users are increasingly working across boundaries that used to be separate. A battery pack can be part of a vehicle, then part of a factory energy system, and eventually a source of recoverable materials.

A Scalable Model, If the Operations Work

Rivian said Redwood’s storage system is scalable and offers cost benefits by using proven EV batteries. The most important test will be operational: whether second-life packs can be aggregated, monitored and dispatched reliably enough to meet industrial energy needs.

If that model works, it could create a bridge between today’s EV battery fleet and tomorrow’s grid storage demand. The U.S. market is accumulating more battery packs each year as EV deployment grows. Not all of those packs will be suitable for reuse, and each project will need safety, diagnostics and integration work. But the supply base is real, and so is the demand for fast-deploying storage.

The Rivian-Redwood project is modest in grid terms, with an initial 10 MWh system, but it is meaningful because it connects circular battery use to a live manufacturing site. It shows how energy storage can be built from assets already inside the domestic EV ecosystem, potentially reducing the need to wait for new grid infrastructure before adding flexible capacity where power demand is rising.

This article is based on reporting by Utility Dive. Read the original article.