It's Monday. The most talked-about missile shield in Washington just picked up an unlikely supplier, a battery chemistry built around zinc, water, and a Pittsburgh factory floor.
In today's edition:
🔋 Big Story: Eos wins a Golden Dome contract for its zinc long-duration batteries
⚡ Quick Hits: a 5.15GWh Indian battery plant, plug-in solar, and a reactor headed to sea
💰 Capital Stack: Constellation backs an SMR-plus-gas play for AI loads
📋 Policy Watch: FERC's PJM warning and a fight over solar-permitting software
📊 Chart of the Day: global nuclear capacity set to jump 44% by 2036
But first…
📅 Event Announcement: Energy Tech GTM Forum
Grid Innovation Hub, presented with INNOVIT
Wednesday, July 22, 5:00 to 8:00 PM · INNOVIT, 710 Sansome St, San Francisco
Selling technology into US energy is where good products go to wait: the average deal takes 12 to 24 months, and most of that time is spent in the buying process. On July 22, host Adam Shaw is bringing together 50 founders and go-to-market, product, and security leaders from energy-tech companies, alongside operators who have built and sold to utilities, IPPs, and co-ops. The program covers how to find buyers who are ready to buy, how to move a pilot into production, who really controls the budget, and how the best vendors shorten the sales cycle, followed by a fireside chat, a GTM tactics panel, and an energy-tech happy hour.
This is an invite-only gathering, and registration is approval-based, so space is limited, but Grid Innovation Hub subscribers are encouraged to register.
The Big Story
Eos wins a Golden Dome contract for zinc long-duration storage.
Eos Energy Enterprises, the Pittsburgh maker of zinc-based batteries, said it was awarded a Golden Dome for America contract to integrate long-duration energy storage into US defense infrastructure. The company said its Z3 system will first deploy as a prototype at an unnamed "critical installation," with the deal announced 15 July by President Trump at a defense summit in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Eos described it as a multi-million-dollar partnership. The dollar figure is small; the customer is the story, a non-lithium, domestically built battery chemistry winning a place inside a national-security program still years from completion.
"Today, we're proving that America can still manufacture advanced technology at scale and deliver for our nation's most critical missions."
Eos's Z3 uses a non-flammable aqueous zinc chemistry with roughly 91% domestic content, and the company says it meets Section 842 NDAA and foreign-entity-of-concern compliance standards.
Eos also posted preliminary Q2 results: record revenue of $68 million to $69 million, a gross-margin loss of 69% to 73%, about $364 million in cash, and an $807 million backlog, up roughly 25% from Q1.
The company said it is now running two commercial production lines across two Pennsylvania facilities, with its Thorn Hill plant, opened 16 June, ramping toward full output in Q4.
Separately, Frontier Power USA said it will deploy Eos's Z3 at the 100MW/400MWh Wildfire project in Caldwell County, Texas, part of a roughly 2GWh reservation with Eos.
Source: Energy-Storage News
Quick Hits
Small bites from across the grid.
Four milestones from across the stack this weekend, from a new battery megafactory to a reactor headed out to sea.
Waaree opened a 5.15 GWh battery storage assembly plant in India, marking its largest PV module maker as it moves into storage manufacturing at scale. Energy-Storage.news
APsystems launched the EZ1-LV, a plug-in dual microinverter delivering 900VA of continuous AC with integrated safety relays, aimed at the US balcony and DIY solar market. pv magazine
Bank of America projected AI data-center demand will outrun planned US utility capacity by more than 100GW through 2030, with 7.5GW of behind-the-meter generation already under construction, according to the bank's analysts. Utility Dive
A Korean SMR container-ship design received class certification, an early milestone toward putting a small modular reactor to sea, according to World Nuclear News. World Nuclear News
The Capital Stack
Constellation backs an SMR-plus-gas developer aimed at AI loads.
Constellation Energy took an equity stake in Blue Energy, a developer pairing BWRX-300 small modular reactors with gas generation to serve AI data centers and manufacturing loads, according to World Nuclear News. For the largest US nuclear operator, the appeal is a co-located generation model that could sit behind the meter next to the demand it serves, rather than waiting on interconnection. Terms were not disclosed, and the SMR at the center of the design is still years from a first commercial unit.
Source: World Nuclear News
Policy Watch
FERC Chairman Swett called PJM's latest capacity-auction results a "call to action," and at the commission's monthly meeting set a 31 December deadline for NERC to deliver reliability standards for large computational loads, ordered a CAISO-SPP Western seams study, and advanced a PSE&G cost-recovery complaint. The signal to developers: data-center load planning is moving from aspiration to enforceable rule. Utility Dive
A regtech executive argues that state mandates forcing NREL's SolarAPP+ automated-permitting tool onto municipalities are "picking winners and stifling innovation," warning that locking in one government platform freezes out competing permitting software. The op-ed lands as more states weigh permitting automation to cut solar soft costs. pv magazine
Chart of the Day:
Global nuclear capacity is set to jump 44% by 2036.
BNEF forecasts the world's nuclear fleet will reach 535GW by 2036, up 44% from 372GW last year, with 76 reactors already under construction, or 83GW, almost all conventional large-scale units rather than SMRs. China holds nearly half of what is being built.
Source: Canary Media · July 17, 2026
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