Rivian Turns Old EV Batteries Into Factory Power Source

Electric carmaker Rivian just found a brilliant way to make its vehicles cheaper while helping the planet.

At its Illinois factory, the company will soon power operations using more than 100 retired batteries from its own electric vehicles. Instead of recycling these batteries immediately, Rivian is giving them a valuable second act.

The system works beautifully simple. The factory charges these old batteries when electricity is cheap and abundant, typically when solar panels and wind turbines are generating excess power. Then during expensive peak hours, when everyone cranks up their air conditioning on hot summer afternoons, the batteries discharge to power the plant.

"This can generate significant cost savings that directly contributes to a reduction in the cost of our vehicles," says Andrew Peterman, who runs Rivian's advanced energy program. Those savings go straight to customers.

The factory already runs on renewable energy. Rivian installed solar panels and a massive 2.8 megawatt hour wind turbine that together provide enough clean power to fully charge each new vehicle before it leaves the lot. Now the battery system connects everything together, making the whole operation even more efficient.

Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company founded by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel, designed the technology to manage these used battery networks. They'll operate the new system at Rivian's plant.

The Ripple Effect

This approach does more than save Rivian money. When the factory draws power from its batteries during peak demand times, it relieves pressure on the electrical grid exactly when communities need it most.

That means fewer brownouts and blackouts for everyone nearby. It also means more room on the grid for renewable energy, since stored wind and solar power can fill in when the sun sets or wind dies down.

Peterman sees this as part of a bigger vision. "There's always been this shared vision of transportation and what we're doing on the automotive side and linking that to grid transformation, enabling affordable, reliable, and cleaner electricity for everyone," he says.

Redwood already proved the concept works at its Nevada campus, where used EV batteries store solar energy and power an adjacent data center. That project is now expanding.

The innovation solves two problems at once: what to do with old EV batteries and how to store renewable energy affordably.