Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.

Tech Brew

Electric Grid

Jordyn Grzelewski

emergingtechbrew.com

 amid cooling demand and the looming expiration of federal incentives.

Flexibility could be the name of the game for EV sector players in the coming months and years—and a new deal between General Motors and battery recycler Redwood Materials may point to a promising opportunity: energy storage.

In a July 16 news release, the two companies announced a non-binding memorandum of understanding “to accelerate deployment of energy storage systems using both new 

 and second-life battery packs from GM electric vehicles.”

GM touted the deal as “a significant step toward taking GM’s advanced battery technology beyond EVs.” The automaker already had been sending used EV battery materials to Redwood under an existing agreement.

GM has its own burgeoning energy business, which in October 

 a stationary energy storage unit for EVs dubbed “PowerBank.” The product allows users to transfer and store energy from the grid. Other automakers, like Tesla, also offer energy storage products.

Driving the agreement, according to GM and Redwood executives, is the surging demand for electricity, in part from a proliferation of new data centers.

“The market for grid-scale batteries and backup power isn’t just expanding, it’s becoming essential infrastructure,” Kurt Kelty, GM’s VP of batteries, propulsion, and sustainability, said in a statement. “Electricity demand is climbing, and it’s only going to accelerate. To meet that challenge, the US needs energy storage solutions that can be deployed quickly, economically, and made right here at home.”

JB Straubel, founder and CEO of Redwood and Tesla’s co-founder and former chief technology officer, in a statement noted that “electricity demand is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, driven by AI and the rapid electrification of everything from transportation to industry.”

 around recovering end-of-life batteries and recycling their raw materials. The company reports receiving over 20 gigawatt hours of batteries per year, or the equivalent of about 250,000 EVs, “representing about 90% of all lithium-ion batteries and battery materials recycled in North America.” Redwood’s battery recycling customers include Lyft, Amazon, Nissan, Toyota, Ford, and Tesla and Panasonic’s battery manufacturing partnership, The Verge 

 dubbed Redwood Energy that it said would help “meet surging power demand from AI data centers and other applications.” Company leaders identified opportunities to put leftover usable capacity from used EV batteries back to work before recycling the batteries.

Redwood has established what it describes as “the largest second-life battery deployment in the world and the largest microgrid in North America,” which powers a data center for AI infrastructure company Crusoe.

In a story about Redwood’s new energy storage business, 

 noted that the company’s location east of Reno could be opportune given its relative proximity to data centers for the likes of Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

“Traditional grid expansion can’t keep up,” Redwood said in a release on its new line of business. “Renewables are intermittent. And imported, new energy storage is still too expensive to address the entire problem.”

The answer, according to the startup: “Repurposing used battery packs…into modular energy storage systems that bridge today’s infrastructure gaps with speed and scale.”

What’s driving a new energy storage partnership between GM and Redwood

Electricity demand from new data centers is expected to skyrocket in the coming years.

Tricia Crimmins

TBR: VPP audio embed

California has a problem: It’s producing more renewable energy than it’s able to use. Solar and wind energy production ramp up in the middle of the day, when electricity demand is low. And because that renewable energy doesn’t have anything to power, it gets 

Folks in the solar industry call the dilemma the “duck curve” because of what the difference between energy supply and demand looks like on a chart when renewables are over-contributing to the mix of power—

. And the duck curve is an issue other states will face as they bring more and more renewables online, PG&E Principal Project Manager Trevor Udwin told Tech Brew.

But excess clean energy doesn’t have to go to waste: It can be distributed to consumers and homes via virtual power plants (VPPs). That extra solar and wind energy can be taken from the grid and put into VPPs to be used at a later time or date—through projects like PG&E’s Seasonal Aggregation of Versatile Energy (SAVE) VPP, which Udwin worked to bring to life—which in turn helps stabilize the amount of energy the grid is taking in and pumping out. And that, Udwin said, transforms the duck curve from looking like mountains and valleys to smaller dips and hills.

“It’s not just about shaving the peak; it’s about filling the trough,” Udwin told Tech Brew.

A VPP is a network of batteries that pull energy from the grid at specific times based on signals from utilities or homeowners. More broadly, though, a VPP is any type of load management, so a VPP can also be a network of batteries that store renewable energy generated by solar panels and wind turbines and redistribute it to a network of homes, separate from the grid.

Though a single stationary battery can store energy, one battery alone can’t solve the duck-curve issue. Because so much renewable energy is coming into the grid from different locations at a time when demand for power is low, multiple, connected batteries are needed to soak up the excess energy.

“Different parts of energy transition call for different solutions,” Blake Richetta, the CEO of VPP provider Sonnen Inc., told Tech Brew, “sustainable solutions to handle the intermittency of renewables and the difficulty of electrification.”

 power plants is because they’re a virtual replacement for a power plant: Instead of using an extra power plant, the grid can turn to the virtually networked batteries as a power source. In this way, VPPs replace power plants (and even more importantly, 

) and other general electrical infrastructure, which the US doesn’t have enough of in an era of increasing electricity demand.

Beyond providing flexibility for where extra energy can go, VPPs also help avoid power outages by balancing the frequency of the grid and preventing electrical abnormalities. In addition to helping ensure the excess renewable energy being produced gets used, VPPs can help balance increasing amounts of renewables being added to the grid and more electric-powered products needing to charge from it—electrical loads that are 

“You have…this crazy new erratic load that’s coming out of the electrification of all things—specifically electric vehicles, heat pumps, things like this—that makes the grid even more difficult to manage. You put those things together, there is a wall that we hit,” Richetta said. “When you have a certain amount of renewable energy in the grid and a tremendous increase in load, the grid no longer can manage itself in the way that it has for a really long time.”

That’s why it’s important to use load-shifting products—like VPPs—to “

” the erratic nature of renewable energy with the grid’s needs.

“We’re going through a major energy transition,” Richetta said. “[The way] we can evolve into this kind of renewable, electrified energy system that’s fossil fuel-free is to harness renewable energy and harmonize it with the actual grid’s needs and dispatch it only in a way that serves true value to the grid.”

Correction 07/11/25: This piece has been updated to correct the title of Sonnen Inc. CEO Blake Richetta.

Three green batteries with a solar panel on one, a lightning bolt on the other, and a wind turbine on the third.

How virtual power plants help renewable energy power grid

Tech Brew spoke with battery and utility innovators about how virtual power plants store renewables and put them to good use.

How VPPs help renewable energy power the grid

The Trump administration’s Department of Energy is cutting billions in funding for some green tech maneuvers, and announcing millions for others.

Earlier this week, the DOE announced $8 million specifically for “microgrid innovation” in Alaska, Nevada, and South Dakota as part of the department’s Community Microgrid Assistance Partnership (C-MAP) program. Of the 14 municipalities, nonprofits, unions, and businesses that received shares of that funding, 12 are located in Alaska—where there are already more than 200 

. The funding will support the modernization of power systems to avoid outages and “prioritize local energy supply chains” to lower energy bills, among other things.

“Microgrids in remote Alaska are far too often dependent on flying or barging in diesel fuel, facing outages caused by extreme weather or aging conditions, and overcoming workforce shortages or logistical nightmares,” Erin Whitney, director of the DOE’s Arctic Energy Office, said in a press release. “These C-MAP investments will play an outsized role in propelling these communities forward.”

While it’s unclear if the microgrids that will be supported by the influx of C-MAP funding will run in part or entirely on renewable energy, the department’s release mentions that the program will be working with Renewable Energy Alaska Project and is administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

And the program seems to be something of a pilot from the DOE: Dan Ton, C-MAP’s lead for the Office of Electricity, said in a release that “microgrids come in many forms, and we have more technologies for generating and managing power than ever before. However, adoption is limited by microgrid system complexity, capital costs, and commissioning times. I believe the United States can lead the world in standardized, modular, and scalable microgrids, but this requires research-backed demonstrations that can be replicated nationwide.”

The announcement comes days after DOE Secretary Chris Wright canceled almost $4 billion in funding for decarbonization and carbon sequestration projects.

“The Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on investment,” Wright said in a statement.

Image conceptualizing a smart city or microgrid.

DOE pledges millions for microgrids in Alaska, South Dakota, and Nevada

The microgrids will be supported by the department’s Community Microgrid Assistance Partnership program.

In a sector where reliability and uptime tend to hog the spotlight, the top reported concern in a recent survey of EV charging industry leaders came as something of a surprise to EVolve CEO Andrew Bennett.

The “most pressing challenge for EV charging network operators in 2025” is “

 constraints,” according to a new study commissioned by Driivz, an EVolve subsidiary and software provider for charge point operators (CPOs).

“As we think about policy in the United States, whether it’s fueled by EV charging or increasing manufacturing, we’re going to need more capacity. We’re going to need more [energy] generation,” Bennett told Tech Brew. “And then we’re going to need a regulatory environment that really thinks about the distribution system.”

More than 80% of network operators said their networks “are only minimally or moderately scalable,” the Driivz study found. Respondents said their priorities are improving the charging experience for their users, “maintaining network stability and availability 24/7,” and increasing the number of charging sites and fast chargers.

 that are impacting the EV charging sector, including the Trump administration’s move to 

 from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, which made $5 billion in federal grants available to states to build fast charging stations.

Despite the federal government rescinding its support for electrification, Bennett said his conversations with CPOs suggest that industry leaders are far from panicked, in part because the charging sector is still trying to catch up on demand from the EVs that are already on the road.

“It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t helpful, because I think it helped with public sentiment, more visible charging,” he said. “But I haven’t talked to a CEO of a charge point operating company in the United States who’s said that it’s a big deal, that it’s changed anything for them about their trajectories.”

 over the NEVI funding freeze. But from Bennett’s perspective, “It’s kind of a political thing, not necessarily a business thing…And something else I’ve heard several of these CEOs say is, ‘While we love federal funding and interest, you don’t want an industry to be dependent on it.’”

Despite what analysts at JD Power earlier this month described as “a cloud of uncertainty around future EV interest,” the firm’s latest US EV Consideration Study found that demand for EVs “has remained stable.”

Unchanged from a year ago, 24% of vehicle shoppers are “very likely” to consider buying an EV and 35% are “somewhat likely.”

Brent Gruber, executive director of JD Power’s EV practice, said in a press release that the industry needs to “better educate consumers about EV ownership to ease concerns—many of which, such as those related to public charging, are less problematic than they might seem when it comes to actually owning an EV.”

More than half of respondents cited “charging station availability” as a reason not to consider an EV.

Earlier this month, Hyundai announced that its MyHyundai with Bluelink app would now enable EV drivers to plug and charge, which eliminates “the need to use smartphones or physical credit cards,” per a news release.

The brand also unveiled an “in-app-charging feature” that allows users to “find and pay for charging within the MyHyundai with Bluelink app.”

“These new features not only simplify the charging process but also enhance the overall ownership experience, reinforcing our commitment to making electric vehicle charging more accessible and user-friendly,” Manish Mehrotra, VP of digital business planning and connected operations for Hyundai Motor North America, said in a statement.

A map of the US lit up by the electric grid with an EV charger plugged into the center of the map

Charge point operators are worried about the grid

Findings from a new survey of charge point operators, EV charging improvements from Hyundai, and other charging-related news from May.

Things that might help keep you cool this summer:

The idea behind a new partnership between vehicle-to-grid integration platform ChargeScape and software platform Leap is that EVs don’t have to be liabilities to the electric grid, but can collectively serve as assets on the scale of power plants.

The companies announced in a news release Wednesday that they’re teaming up “to accelerate electric vehicle participation in grid services programs across the United States.” ChargeScape and Leap said they’re trying to create “the largest EV virtual power plant” (VPP) in the country.

A VPP is a pool of aggregated energy resources—like EV batteries—that can coordinate with grid operators to send power to the grid during times of need. Leap’s focus is on helping tech companies scale VPPs.

“We help them turn their millions of devices and customers into a resource that, to grid operators, looks just like a traditional power plant—only, as we all know, it’s much faster and much cheaper to build,” Jason Michaels, Leap’s CEO, told Tech Brew.

ChargeScape, meanwhile, is a platform that wirelessly connects with EVs and, in partnership with utilities, manages the flow of electricity in line with grid conditions. The startup, which launched last year, has the backing of BMW, Ford, Honda, and Nissan, with other automakers slated to join later this year.

Automakers are investing in the technology as part of the industry’s efforts to ease the EV charging experience for consumers, and deliver on the promise of 

 so that EV charging can actually benefit, rather than strain, energy grids. One of the potential benefits for EV drivers is the ability to sell power back to grid operators when demand is high.

“These automakers are committed to selling EVs, and they want to make the at-home charging experience as easy and 

 as possible for their customers,” ChargeScape CEO Joseph Vellone, who will be participating in Tech Brew’s 

 allow EVs to discharge power back to buildings and grids. The 

 around this technology are taking shape amid an increase in demand for electricity, driven in part by more EVs plugging in and construction of new data centers to support AI.

“There’s the immediate need of providing resiliency to the grid, and being able to have price-responsive loads that can reduce demand at critical times to be able to provide support to the grid and avoid blackouts,” Michaels told us. “There’s a chance for these EVs to be very responsive to grid needs and reduce loads at critical times when the grid is under stress.”

The initiative is rolling out just in time for summer, when the grid is especially vulnerable. PJM, the country’s largest power grid, 

 that expected extreme heat this summer could lead to power outages. After launching in California, Michaels said the companies are eyeing Texas and New York as their next markets.

“The other solution that this brings is not so much about the stresses we have now, but how do we enable the grid to absorb 50 gigawatts-plus of data center and AI load, as well as the electrification of everything? Bringing back manufacturing, electrification of transportation—that’s all increasing electrical loads in the US in a way that we haven’t seen before,” he said. “You really need these virtual power plants.”

Gif of vehicle-to-grid charging, showing energy flow from car to grid

ChargeScape and Leap partner to scale virtual power plants for electric vehicles

“There’s a chance for these EVs to be very responsive to grid needs and reduce loads at critical times when the grid is under stress,” software platform Leap’s CEO tells Tech Brew.

Pop quiz: What do energy experts and some House Republicans currently have in common? They’re both advocating for an all-of-the-above energy approach to meet the United States’ rising power demand.

 from S&P Global Commodity Insights commissioned by multiple energy entities, including the American Clean Power Association and the American Petroleum Institute, found that to satisfy the “record electricity demand growth over the next decade,” renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy will need to be used, along with resources like batteries. This conclusion echoes that of 

 sent by 21 House Republicans earlier this month underscoring the importance of using nonrenewables and clean energy to respond to energy demand.

Over the next 15 years, the study said, the US’s needs could increase up to 50% as a result of 

 and heating, and “underlying economic growth.” And that demand can be solved by a diverse supply of energy—specifically, more than 900 gigawatts of renewable power and batteries alongside 60 to 100 gigawatts of gas power.

“A diversified portfolio of generation technologies will be needed to ensure planning reserve margins are met and grid reliability is maintained,” the study noted.

And as S&P Global said, “the stakes are high”—which echoes a recent 

 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to increase power to meet demand, regardless of whether it’s from a renewable source. David Shepheard, an energy expert at Baringa, told Tech Brew earlier this month that the FERC’s decision was based on the reality that renewable energy isn’t currently as dispatchable as its alternatives.

“The problem is you can’t get the energy at the time that you need it,” Shepheard said. “What we need is battery and gas-fired generation to back it up, or new nuclear [power] at some point.”

 having a place in the mix, though it said the technology won’t be “at scale until [the] next decade.”

Latest US power demand study advocates for all-of-the-above energy approach

The S&P Global Commodity Insights study was commissioned by multiple renewable and nonrenewable energy organizations.

Patrick Kulp

 a national emergency around the country’s aging and unreliable grid infrastructure. Gecko Robotics is betting that its fleet of wall-climbing robots, drones, and robot dogs might be part of the rescue effort.

The Pittsburgh-based startup just inked a $100 million deal with national power operator North American Energy Services (NAES) that will deploy 

 to help modernize power plants across the country. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro also lent his support in a press conference announcing the partnership, which has the option of growing up to $250 million depending on demand.

“To me, it is critically important that we get this done, and that we’re able to take [Gecko’s] idea and grow it into the national leader that is building robots for one of the nation’s largest energy suppliers, NAES,” Shapiro said in the press conference. “And I gotta tell you, this is really incredibly important work right now.”

The deal comes as the country faces a rush of new power demand driven in part by massive growth in 

. But experts say America’s aging power and electrical grid infrastructure is 

“This is a critical moment for energy in America; I truly feel this cannot be overstated,” NAES CEO Mark Dobler said during a press conference. “Coming from someone who’s been in this sector for over 30 years, demand growth in the near future will be unprecedented.”

Gecko’s robots feed data into an AI-powered software platform called Cantilever, which is able to flag health issues within power plants and boost their performance. The startup’s client roster already includes industrial giants like Marathon Petroleum and Siemens Energy. Gecko claims its tech can cut the need for reactive maintenance by 80% and double the lifespan of industrial assets.

“We’ll be powering [NAES] operations platform using Cantilever,” Gecko CEO and co-founder Jake Loosararian told Tech Brew. “They’ll be starting out with a few facilities. We’re trying to keep it nearby—Pennsylvania and the surrounding states as well. But then in the next 12 to 24 months, [we’ll] begin to deploy that to more and more facilities within the NAES portfolio as they expand it.”

The partnership will extend beyond just bringing Gecko’s tech to NAES plants. The two companies say they want to work together to attract new technical hires, investments in grid modernization, and government support.

Attracting top talent to an industry not seen as particularly flashy is a big roadblock, according to Loosararian and Dobler, who cited a stat that a quarter of plant operators are set to retire within the next five to ten years.

“Our industry is not a modern one, but it’s one of the most important,” Dobler said. “An incredible amount of talent and experience [is] leaving the industry. To further compound this issue, ours has historically not been viewed as technology-centric, and therefore we struggle to compete for top talent from…our schools and universities.”

Loosararian characterized his close partnership with Dobler as an unlikely duo in some ways: “Typically, you wouldn’t have a tech CEO and a guy who runs power plants come together.” But that image of the power industry will need to change in order for big grid modernization investments to actually pay off, he said.

“The biggest risk right now is with all these announcements of investments. And you see manufacturing, you know, ‘We’re gonna invest $100 billion here. We’re gonna invest $500 billion there.’...That sounds awesome. But like, look, guys, the people who know how to run these facilities—[around 33%] of them are 55 or above,” Loosararian said. “And for every four employees that leave, one gets hired right now. So it’s not exactly the most exciting industry to go into if you’re a really ambitious, smart engineer coming out of college, and we’re trying to reverse that trend.”

Loosararian said the industry is recognizing some of the looming problems with the power infrastructure, and major investment deals like the one between Gecko and NAES are becoming more commonplace as money is poured into modernization efforts.

“This year has been a year where there’s been a real large shift in these manufacturing and energy sectors, where people are really trying to figure out, ‘How do I solve a really large problem?’” he said. “And so there’s been a large influx of these sorts of deal types coming into Gecko right now. And so now it’s challenging a lot of our growth plans. So we’re looking to hire way more. We’re looking to invest more of the capital from our revenues into specific locations.”