Ambrosia Energy will build a 10 GWh factory in Texas to make batteries for off-grid data centers
Startup Ambrosia Energy will build a massive factory to crank out batteries to augment solar panels, creating a round-the-clock clean power plant.
Key points
- Ambrosia Energy has started building a 10 GWh battery factory near Austin, Texas, with full production targeted in two to three years.
- The startup plans its first commercial power plant in West Texas later this year, pairing 300 MW of solar with 660 MWh of batteries for 30 MW of continuous power.
- Ambrosia says it can be profitable at $100 per megawatt-hour, making it competitive with natural gas turbines.
Ambrosia Energy has begun construction on a 10 gigawatt-hour battery factory near Austin, Texas, co-founder and CEO Ben Longmier announced Tuesday onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.
The factory will cover 150,000 square feet, and Longmier said Ambrosia plans to reach full production in two to three years. He said the capacity allows the company to build roughly a 300 megawatt power plant per year at its field sites.
Plans for West Texas
Ambrosia is also starting work on its first commercial power plant in West Texas later this year, Longmier said. The facility will pair 300 megawatts of solar panels with 660 megawatt-hours of batteries to deliver 30 megawatts of continuous power, with a goal of 99.3% uptime.
The startup emerged from stealth in June to build power plants for data centers at a cost of $100 per megawatt hour. Longmier and co-founder Sara Spangelo chose solar plus batteries as the cheapest option that is fastest to deploy, with panels powering the data center by day and batteries discharging at night and on cloudy days.
That allows us to build about a 300 megawatt power plant per year out at our field sites.
— Ben Longmier
Cost and pilot progress
Longmier said that even with overbuilding solar and batteries to deliver continuous uptime, the company can be profitable at $100 per megawatt-hour, making it competitive with natural gas turbines that many hyperscalers plan to use for their data centers.
Sections of Ambrosia's first pilot-scale power plant have operated continuously for more than 100 days, Longmier said. The pilot can generate 200 kilowatts of electricity around the clock.
To hit its cost targets, Ambrosia has simplified components including solar mounts and battery packs. Longmier said the company buys existing cells and makes its own pack in-house, with the fewest parts by a factor of about 100 compared to any other competitor it has seen.
Founders' background
Longmier and Spangelo previously founded the satellite constellation startup Swarm, which they sold to SpaceX.
