Form Energy closed a $750 million funding round to scale manufacturing of its long-duration energy storage batteries, which can discharge power for 100 hours straight. The company has already locked in Google and Crusoe Energy as customers, validating demand for extended grid storage solutions.
Long-duration storage remains one of grid decarbonization's hardest problems. Most lithium-ion batteries max out at 4 to 6 hours of discharge. Form Energy's iron-air batteries solve this by using abundant, cheap materials instead of scarce minerals like cobalt and nickel. The economics work at scale. A 100-hour battery becomes feasible when the active material costs pennies per kilowatt-hour.
Google's commitment signals real enterprise demand. Tech giants face mounting pressure to run 24/7 on clean power. Data centers cannot simply turn off when the sun sets or wind stops blowing. Crusoe, which runs AI compute clusters and crypto mining, faces identical constraints. Both customers need baseload renewable energy, not variable solar and wind.
Form Energy's manufacturing expansion marks a transition from lab success to commercial reality. The company demonstrated technical viability years ago. Now it races to build factories that produce batteries at scale and cost. Early-stage deployment contracts with Google and Crusoe provide revenue and reference installations that attract utility customers and other tech companies.
The funding round positions Form Energy against other long-duration players like Eos Energy, which raised $50 million from Equilibrium Capital earlier this year, and Ambri, which counts Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures as a backer. But Form Energy's customer wins and capital total give it clear momentum.
Utilities increasingly recognize that hitting decarbonization targets requires storage beyond batteries. California's grid operator has already procured long-duration resources. Form Energy's iron-air technology offers lower cost and simpler chemistry than