OfferUp co-founder sees ‘mini power plants’ in buildings full of EVs
Former OfferUp CEO Nick Huzar co-founded Juicer Energy with a focus on EV charging, but now sees a bigger role for batteries in helping buildings manage electricity demand and costs. Eventually, that could include tapping the energy stored in cars plugged in downstairs. Read More
Nick Huzar co-founded Juicer Energy in 2023 to make electric vehicle charging more widespread and reliable. Now the Seattle-area startup is pursuing a broader goal: helping buildings manage rising electricity demand and costs.
Juicer installs and operates EV charging systems at apartment buildings, hotels and other properties. It is also developing battery systems to store electricity on-site and help manage the power needed for charging and other building uses.
The push comes as data centers and the growing use of electricity for transportation, heating and other needs put more pressure on the grid. Batteries can help balance supply and demand by storing energy when electricity is plentiful and releasing it when demand peaks. In some cases, they can reduce the need for costly grid upgrades or new power plants built to meet peak demand.
“We think there’s a big opportunity there,” Huzar said. He spoke at an event this week hosted by GeekWire and Bank of America at the Bellevue showroom of Ferrari of Seattle.
Other companies are similarly pairing EV charging with battery storage. Fellow Seattle startup Electric Era has deployed battery-backed fast chargers at retailers including Costco and convenience stores. ADS-TEC Energy and XCharge also sell fast-charging systems with integrated batteries.
Huzar, OfferUp’s co-founder and former CEO, sees an opportunity to make buildings more self-sufficient by combining hardware and energy-management software. He said Juicer has a project scheduled to come online in 2027 with 70 chargers in one building.
His longer-term vision also includes tapping the energy stored in vehicles connected to those buildings.
“Imagine you’re an apartment owner and you have 20 EVs, 40 EVs plugged in,” Huzar said. “That is a huge amount of power. Like you’re a mini power plant at that point.”
He described feeding excess electricity back to the grid as a possibility that remains years away. He also predicted that most businesses, apartments and homes would have on-site batteries within the next decade, in part because battery costs continue to fall.
Juicer started with EV charging, Huzar said, “but the more we’ve gotten into this, the more we realize that we actually can build an asset for buildings versus relying on the grid.”
