Hidden between two massive buildings in the Nevada Desert hills, 805 Batteries evolved are in an orderly formation, each wrapped in indescribable white canvases, and hidden in sight.
It is possible that a passerby does not realize that this most large micrix is the largest microred in North America, which is promoting a 2,000 GPU modular data center for the IA Crusoe infrastructure company, or that it reprens and Cotswood, the next great Straubel.
Redwood Materials announced on Thursday an event in its installation of Sparks, Nevada, which was launching an energy storage business that will take advantage of the thousands of EV batteries that it has collected as part of its battery recycling business to the colleagues. And begin with the AI data centers.
The new business, called Redwood Energy, is starting with partner Crusoe, a startup Straubel inverted in 2021. The old EVs, who are not yet ready for recycling, stores energy generated from an adjacent solar matrix. The system, which generates 12 MW of power and has 63 MWh capacity, sends energy to a modular data center built by Crusoe, a better known company for its large -scale data center campus in Abilene, Texas, the initial site of the Stargate project.
The Redwood battery collection operation scale is amazing, and an opportunity. Redwood said it recovers more than 70% of all used or discarded battery packages in North America. Today, it processes more than 20 GWh of batteries annually, the equivalent of 250000 EVS.
He has applied the legs that store batteries that are not ready for recycling, with more than 1 Gigawatt-Gor Worth in his inventory already. In the coming months, he hopes to receive another 4 hours from Gigawatt.
By 2028, the company said it plans to implement 20 hours of storage on the network, placing it on the road to become the largest impactor of EV batteries used.
Straubel’s confidence in the effort was the team in every detail of the launch event. To illustrate Redwood’s commitment and by extension, Straubel-Everrything in the event from music and the projection on the big screen to a laser light show that included giant ghosts of Pac-Man who sailed through the ranks of the EV batteries were fed by microid.
“We wanted to go to all,” Straubel said, breaking into a wide and teeth smile. Leaving aside the spotted effects for the event, the Microred with Crusoe configuration is not a demonstration project. Straubel said that this is an income generating operation, which was built in four months, and one that is profitable. He added that even more of these will be implemented with other customers this year.
“I think this has the potential to grow faster than the central recycling business,” he said.
Redwood Materials has been in a tear of expansion in recent years. The company, why has it raised $ 2 billion in private fundsIt was founded in 2017 by Straubel, the former CTO of Tesla and current member of the Board, to create a circular supply chain.
The company began recycling scrap of the production of battery cells, as well as consumer electronics such as cell phone batteries and laptops. After processing the discarded thesis of goods and extracting materials such as cobalt, nickel and lithium that are typical of the mine, Redwood supplies those who return to Panasonic and other customers. Approximately time, the company has expanded beyond recycling and cathode production. Generated network $ 200 million in income In 2024, much of which comes from the sale of battery materials such as cathodes.
The company’s footprint has also grown, and far beyond its headquarters in Carson City, Nevada. He has locked deals with Toyota, Panasonic and GM, began the construction of a South Carolina Factoryand He made an acquisition In Europe.
Redwood Energy is the next step and one that is not linked to configure its systems to be out of the network. Withdrawal EV batteries can be fed by wind and solar, or they can be tied to the grid. In the case of the Crusoe project, the system works with solar energy.
“No green intention is required here,” said CTO Colin Campbell a duration of the micorred. “It is a good economic choice that is also carbon free.”
The business model addresses a long data challenge in the energy storage sector. For more than a decade, companies have a leg that promise to build grid storage from used EV batteries, but only materialized in small quantities. Redwood, which has its beginnings as a company of battery and recycling materials, is creating a new line that promises to deliver very necessary energy storage gigawatts in just a few years.
“This really demonstrates how economical is the hierarchy of waste actually,” Jessica Dunn, an expert in batteries of the union of worried scientists, told Techcrunch. That a great recycler like Redwood recognized the potential for gains in reused EV batteries shows “where this end of life market will go,” he added.
The reuse of batteries is a clear business opportunity for Secuoya, but it could also be a commercial imperative. Redwood was founded to build a supply chain that could handle the wave of used EV batteries that will reach the market. But that wave has not materialized as fast as some predicted.
“If Redwood did not enter the reuse market, then you would get a reused battery action. They would have to wait five, 10, 15 years until they retired,” he said. Meanwhile, other companies could sell the batteries for the storage at the network of the network, eliminating the Secaya of the income years.
Straubel recognized this, pointing in an interview that, in many ways, red wood materials began a little early.
“We started very early, and in a way we started Redwood almost too early,” he said, and pointed out that the company was initially collecting consumption batteries and production scrap before the next wave of EV.
The current state of the recycling market underlines the challenge. “At this time, the recycling market is mostly scrap manufacture, consumption electronics and EV batteries that have failed under guarantee,” said Dunn. That has enough bone for the SECOY to process around 20 gigawatts annually. But it pales compared to the 350 Gigavatios-Hora in today’s electric vehicles and the 150 gigawatts are expected on the road every year.
Redwood currently has a recycling installation on its 175 Acres campus in Sparks, Nevada, and is developing a 600 acres installation In Charleston, South Carolina. The letter will remanufacture the cathode and anodic copper role, which contain critical minerals that the United States would prefer to remain inside their edges.
The company said previously that it will be able to manufacture 100 hours of gigawatts annually of active cathode material and anode sheet for the end of this year. At the end of the decade, he hopes that production will reach 500 Gigavatios-Hora.
