(Bloomberg) — Redwood Supplies launched what it says is the most important deployment of reused batteries globally on Thursday. They’re powering a knowledge heart operated by Crusoe, a member of OpenAI’s Undertaking Stargate.
Demand for clear, dependable energy is rising, spurred by the rise of knowledge facilities powering synthetic intelligence. Grid-scale batteries are key to fulfilling this demand and supporting intermittent renewables.
The two,000-GPU information heart is positioned on Redwood’s Sparks, Nevada, campus, the place the agency runs a big battery recycling operation. The storage system makes use of lots of of repurposed EV batteries, in response to Cal Lankton, the corporate’s chief industrial officer. Photo voltaic panels assist present electrical energy for a system with 12 MW of energy and 63 MWh of capability. That’s sufficient to energy about 9,000 houses. The system is the most important microgrid in North America, in response to Redwood.
Redwood founder and chief govt officer JB Straubel stated in an interview on Bloomberg TV that the corporate is “aiming at tasks which can be 20 to 100 instances bigger than this” for its subsequent deployments. “There’s rather a lot to come back within the pipeline,” Straubel stated.
Knowledge facilities are placing a larger pressure on the grid. A brand new BloombergNEF report printed Wednesday discovered that their power demand in 2024 was equal to 1.4% of world provide. Practically half of all information heart capability is within the US.
Based in 2017 by Straubel, who additionally co-founded Tesla Inc., Redwood recycles, refines and produces battery supplies and is likely one of the greatest battery recyclers in North America. The top-of-life electrical car packs and modules it takes in are now not appropriate for transportation because of demand for larger vary and higher battery well being. However they’re nonetheless usable for grid-scale storage, Lankton stated, which would be the focus of its new division dubbed Redwood Power.
“Consider this nearly like a retirement residence for these batteries,” Lankton stated of the brand new set up. He added that Redwood’s reused batteries are half the price of new lithium-ion programs however supply the identical efficiency. That’s attainable, he stated, as a result of stationary storage is much less laborious on the batteries than powering an EV. When paired with renewable power sources like wind and photo voltaic, stationary power storage programs assist stabilize the grid whereas decreasing prices by smoothing out fluctuations in energy demand.
Redwood generated about $200 million in income final 12 months via its recycling operations, and Lankton stated the corporate expects a “significant enhance in income within the again half of 2025 as we deploy extra storage tasks.” He declined to call prospects of upcoming tasks.
“One of many main features to the bottleneck for power actually is the pace,” Crusoe co-founder and CEO Chase Lochmiller stated on Bloomberg TV. “Persons are making use of for grid interconnections, and so they’re discovering themselves in multi-year – five-, 10-year – queues to principally get that load approval.” The Crusoe and Redwood challenge got here collectively in 4 months, he stated.
