Redwood Supplies will recycle stationary storage batteries because it expands its scope

Redwood Supplies has recycled e-bike batteries and Tesla batteries. Now, it’s able to stage up a couple of sizes. 

The electrical automobile battery recycling and manufacturing enterprise based by the previous chief technologist of Tesla introduced immediately that it’ll assist decommission and recycle a 4MWh stationary storage substation in Kauai, Hawaii, as a part of an enormous photo voltaic array. The decommissioning not too long ago wrapped and the batteries at the moment are being transported to the corporate’s facility in north Nevada for recycling.

It will likely be certainly one of Redwood’s first battery power storage methods and an necessary step within the firm’s broader effort to show that lithium-ion batteries and power storage merchandise of all sizes can have a brand new life past their present ones. 

For JB Straubel, former Tesla CTO and founding father of Redwood, it’s a mission that has come full circle. Straubel was concerned in the preliminary set up by Tesla in 2015.

The Kauai mission consists of a 52 megawatt-hour battery set up plus a 13MW SolarCity photo voltaic farm. Tesla and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC), the facility firm that ordered the mission, initially mentioned the mission would scale back fossil gasoline utilization by 1.6 million gallons per yr.

“In the case of renewable power deployment, Hawaiʻi has at all times been a pacesetter, energizing a number of the earliest and largest photo voltaic plus storage initiatives on earth,” Straubel mentioned in an announcement. “Our partnership with KIUC to decommission and recycle the first-generation storage mission on the Anahola substation, demonstrates their true dedication to sustainability.”

To make sure, the batteries which can be being decommissioned and recycled are usually not the Tesla batteries; these batteries are at a separate KIUC set up. “That one continues to be powering away and can be for a lot of extra years!” the corporate mentioned.

The storage system that Redwood can be recycling is KIUC’s Anahola substation, a 4MWh battery storage system with a 6MW energy score that consists of lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide chemistries. The system consists of eight battery containers for a complete of two,320 modules that weigh 44,544kg (98,202 kilos or 49 tons).

Redwood sees large enterprise in stationary storage decommissioning and recycling, noting that 4.8GW had been put in final yr within the US alone. The corporate not too long ago partnered with Southern Firm and EPRI to recycle one of many earliest grid-scale lithium-ion battery storage system in Cedartown, Georgia.

“As we take into consideration long-term battery circularity, stationary storage decommissioning and recycling are an integral a part of our enterprise,” the corporate mentioned. 

Redwood Supplies was based in 2017 by Straubel. Along with breaking down scrap from Tesla’s battery-making course of with Panasonic, Redwood additionally recycles EV batteries from Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Specialised, Amazon, Lyft, Rad Energy Bikes, and others. The corporate additionally produces anodes and cathodes, crucial battery elements, at a facility in South Carolina.

Most of the batteries from these first-wave electrical autos, just like the Nissan Leaf, are simply now reaching the tip of their lifespan and are in want of recycling. After receiving batteries from its numerous companions, Redwood begins a chemical recycling course of through which it strips out and refines the related components like nickel, cobalt, and copper. A sure proportion of that refined materials can then be reintegrated into the battery-making course of — 95 % of key battery metals on common, in line with Redwood.