Repurposing EV batteries for grid storage

Catalyst · 24 Jul 2025 · 27m

What this episode covers

Colin Campbell, CTO of Redwood Materials, explains how the company repurposes end-of-life EV batteries for grid storage through its Redwood Energy division. Campbell details the technical inspection process, noting that packs with ~20% capacity loss are often viable for low-cost, hot-swappable integration into stationary assets. He highlights that second-life batteries are economically competitive against new LFP systems, particularly for long-duration storage applications where lower discharge rates mitigate cell imbalance issues.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Hardware to Save a Planet · 53m

    The Role of Energy Storage Systems in Combating Climate Change with Mike Wietecki of Powin and John Thomas of ESS

    Mike Wietecki of Powin and John Thomas of ESS discuss the scaling of battery energy storage systems to combat climate change. They compare lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which dominates short-duration applications, with ESS's iron flow batteries designed for long-duration storage. The panel highlights critical industry challenges, including interconnection queues, transformer shortages, and the need for clearer domestic content rules under the Inflation Reduction Act.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 07m

    Road trip to the deep space network

    Dave Jones of EEV blog and Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics discuss their recent hardware meetups in Sydney and New Zealand, highlighting projects like a hand-soldered LED matrix and a portable Hakko soldering station. They then debate the future of energy storage, arguing that lithium-ion batteries are unsuitable for grid-scale applications and advocating for flow batteries or solid-state alternatives. The conversation concludes with a critique of US university costs and a proposal for a soldering time-trial contest board.

  • Hardware to Save a Planet · 41m

    10x Grid Storage: How Mesh Batteries Are Revolutionizing Home Energy

    Cole Ashman, CEO and founder of Pila Energy, explains how his company is disrupting the home energy storage market with a mesh battery system that is significantly cheaper and more accessible than traditional whole-home solutions like the Tesla Powerwall. Ashman, drawing on his experience at Tesla and Span, details the technical architecture of Pila’s 1.6 kWh batteries, which use a sub-gigahertz mesh network to coordinate power distribution and enable bi-directional energy flow in the future. He discusses the regulatory hurdles for balcony solar and distributed backup, the supply chain strategies that allow for low unit economics, and the vision of embedding these batteries into appliances and multi-tenant buildings to create a resilient, distributed grid.

  • Hardware to Save a Planet · 36m

    Transforming CO2 Into an Ally in the Fight Against Climate Change with Claudio Spadacini, Founder and CEO of Energy Dome

    Claudio Spadacini, Founder and CEO of Energy Dome, explains how his company uses compressed CO2 to create a long-duration grid energy storage system called the 'CHU battery.' He details the thermodynamic cycle involving compression, thermal energy storage in water tanks, and expansion through a turbine, highlighting the system's 75% round-trip efficiency and 30+ year lifespan. Spadacini discusses Energy Dome's strategy of standardizing units to achieve economies of scale, reducing costs below lithium-ion batteries, and expanding into the US market.

  • EE Times Current · 37m

    Solving a Renewables Problem with Electric Vehicles

    Ritesh Tyagi, head of product innovation and growth strategy at Infineon, explains that while power generation is sufficient, the electrical grid's 100-year-old infrastructure struggles with transmission and managing peak demand from renewables and EVs. He argues that Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology allows the massive battery capacity of EVs to act as distributed storage, stabilizing the grid. Tyagi emphasizes that modernizing the grid requires next-generation semiconductors like silicon carbide and gallium nitride, along with increased sensor integration and AI for intelligent load management.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Catalyst. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.