Rivian, the once secretive company that made its public debut in November with an electric pickup truck and SUV, intends to present its batteries another life and set them to work at a solar microgrid job in Puerto Rico.
The automaker is teaming up with The Honnold Foundation, a company started by Alex Honnold, the professional climber and topic of the documentary Free Solo, on the microgrid Undertaking. Honnold and Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe will discuss the job Saturday at Denver. The discussion, which will be scheduled for 6 pm MT, will likely soon be live-streamed.
The microgrid project is going to be put in Adjuntas, a town of approximately 20,000 individuals in midwestern Puerto Rico that has been severely impacted by Hurricane Maria at 2017. Casa Pueblo, an environmental watchdog located in Adjuntas that has been on the lookout for ways to establish affordable resources of community power, is also a partner in the undertaking.
Rivian is providing 135 kilowatt-hour battery packs from its growth vehicles to support the microgrid. Earlier this year, battery engineers from Rivian along with The Honnold Foundation visited Casa Pueblo and met with community leaders to design a site-specific system that will power lots of the businesses located in the Adjuntas town square.
The solar microgrid endeavor will serve two functions. It will give residents access to power for core business if the primary source of power is now gone. The microgrid will likewise be utilized daily to offset the high cost of electricity in Puerto Rico, which will be double the national average of the U.S.
The system is expected to launch in 2020.
“Second-life batteries are a large enabler to accelerating widespread adoption of renewable energy, also it’so exciting to envision this system contributing significantly to a neighborhood. This project enables us to simulate an customized energy storage solution that takes into consideration space limitations, tragedy resiliency and energy independence,” Scaringe stated.
The project marks the start of the firm ’s long-term strategies to locate a wide array of applications for second-life batteries.
The business designed its pack, battery and module control system to transition from automobile energy storage to stationary energy storage at the end of their automobile life. The module itself is thin, a design that allows for second-life applications that are space-efficient and also customizable.
Rivian is an electric automaker centered on experience vehicles such as pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. The business announced in February that it had raised $700 million in a round led by Amazon.
The business has spent the initial part of its life running from the eye. It was originally launched as Mainstream Motors at 2009. From 2011, the name changed into Rivian and proceeded from Florida. Today, the Business has over 1,000 employees split between growth locations in Plymouth, Mich., San Jose and Irvine, Calif. and Surrey, England. Additionally, it has a 2.6 million-square-foot factory in Normal, Ill..
Rivian intends to establish the R1T electric pickup truck along with the R1S SUV in the U.S. in late 2020, together with introduction to additional international geographies starting in 2021.
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