Form Energy, founded out of the labs at MIT and headed up by former Tesla Energy executive Mateo Jaramillo, claims the battery can be made cheaply using abundant materials, offering the grid viable ‘multi-day’ energy storage option.
The US$405 million Series F brings Form Energy’s investment raised to date to well over a billion dollars. It follows a US$450 million Series E closed in 2022 and comes soon after the company began constructing its first pilot project in Minnesota.
Form Energy notified media, including Energy-Storage.news, of the closing on Wednesday (9 October). Asset management group T. Rowe Price led the round, with GE Vernova joining existing investors in the startup.
Those include big names like Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, sustainable investors Capricorn and Energy Impact Partners, Singaporean firms GIC and Temasek and MIT’s impact venture capital (VC) fund, Engine Ventures.
“After seven years of dedicated R&D, product engineering, testing, and validation, and most recently trial production, our 100-hour iron-air battery system is ready for serial production and commercial deployment,” Form Energy CEO Jaramillo said.
“This Series F funding will foster American innovation by accelerating the expansion of our multi-day battery manufacturing, creating new jobs, and upskilling a manufacturing workforce, as well as advancing the development of a more efficient and scalable process for low-cost green iron production.”
GE Vernova collaboration
GE Vernova, formerly GE Power and Renewable Energy, has additionally signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate strategically with the battery company.
Specific areas of potential collaboration were not discussed in Form Energy’s announcement, but GE Vernova’s business areas include several forms of power generation, including gas, nuclear, hydroeelectric and wind, alongside electrification and power conversion technologies, plus consulting and financial services.
In the energy storage space, GE Vernova recently launched its own 5MWh lithium-ion (Li-ion) 20-foot containerised battery energy storage system (BESS) unit and won a deal to provide a 1GWh BESS solution to Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners’ ‘Supernode’ battery and data centre complex in Queensland, Australia.
“To meet the urgent demands to modernise the grid and enable higher renewable energy generation, it’s essential to speed up the rollout of affordable technologies that can decarbonise the power grid while ensuring it remains secure, reliable, and resilient,” GE Vernova president Jessica Uhl said, adding that the company would share its “deep manufacturing and engineering expertise” with Form Energy.
“Form’s innovative 100-hour iron-air battery systems can be a game-changer, and we’re excited to play a role in helping them achieve global impact.”
Form Factory 1 under construction in West Virginia
Having attracted media attention and US$1.2 billion investment even before it has built any projects or publicly shown a working prototype, Form Energy’s first factory is currently under construction in West Virginia, US.
Welcomed to the state by Governor Jim Justice, who signed off a US$105 million grant, Form Factory 1’s construction at a repurposed steel plant site began in May 2023, with a ceremony attended by dignitaries including Justice and US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Form is currently negotiating with the US Department of Energy (DOE) for US$150 million in potential funding for Form Factory 1 through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing programme.
In addition to the first 1.5MW/1,500MWh pilot for utility Great River Energy, on which construction began in August in Cambridge, Minnesota, Form Energy has signed agreements with other US utilities, including Xcel Energy, California’s Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Georgia Power and others.
A couple of months ago, the DOE agreed to support a major transmission upgrade project in New England, which would feature an 8.5MW/8,500MWh Form Energy storage system and enable the region’s states to better integrate rising shares of offshore wind generation.
Earlier this month, our colleagues at Solar Power Portal reported that a developer in Ireland has submitted a planning application to local authorities for a 10MW/1,000MWh iron-air battery project.
FuturEnergy Ireland, part-owned by state electricity company ESB, wants to build its project in County Donegal. It would be Europe’s first iron-air storage system, and the developer aims to follow it up with future projects, including an 8GWh system if the initial deployments go well.
