It's Thursday. Most data centers start with a call to the utility and a long wait in the queue. One startup would rather start with a factory and a big order of battery cells.
In today's edition:
🔋 Big Story: Ambrosia builds batteries for off-grid data centers
⚡ Quick Hits: Google's fuel cells, a 1 GWh German battery, China's SMR heats up, home batteries for a Georgia co-op, AI for FERC filings
💰 Capital: benchtop fusion, LFP recycling
📋 Policy Watch: SoftBank's 10 GW Ohio campus, Revolution Wind, Germany's fusion milestones
📊 Chart of the Day: New England's wind surge
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The Big Story
Ambrosia starts a 10 GWh Texas battery factory for off-grid data centers
Ambrosia Energy has begun work on a 150,000-square-foot, 10 GWh battery pack factory near Austin, CEO Ben Longmier announced at TechCrunch Disrupt. The startup builds solar-plus-storage plants that power data centers around the clock without a grid connection, and it says it can be profitable at about $100/MWh. Full production, expected in two to three years, would supply about 300 MW of plants a year, Longmier said.
"We've been able to get to about 1.3x the cost of the bare cell compared to about a 5- or 7x for most stationary storage systems."
Ambrosia buys existing cells and builds its own packs, which Longmier claims have about 100 times fewer parts than rivals'.
Its first commercial plant, planned to start work in West Texas later this year, would pair 300 MW of solar with 660 MWh of batteries to deliver 30 MW of continuous power at a 99.3% uptime target.
Sections of a 200 kW pilot plant have run continuously for more than 100 days, the company said.
Source: TechCrunch
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Quick Hits
Technology milestones from across the grid
Five items, from Wyoming fuel cells to a Chinese SMR.
Google signed a 20-year PPA with AEP for the 702 MW Cheyenne Fuel Cell project, a roughly $4 billion Bloom Energy installation for its Cheyenne campus due for full operation by the end of 2028. Data Center Dynamics
Vattenfall picked Fluence to build its largest battery, a 254 MW/1 GWh four-hour system at Brunsbüttel on 50Hertz's 380 kV network, with construction from 2027 and commissioning planned for the end of 2028. GlobeNewswire
CNNC began hot functional testing at the 125 MWe ACP100 (Linglong One) small modular reactor on Hainan, which targets fuel loading in 2026. World Nuclear News
Base Power signed its first utility deal outside Texas, a 50 MW, roughly 100 MWh program to put about 2,500 home batteries in Central Georgia EMC territory for a $95 setup fee, with installs starting in 2027. pv magazine USA
Permeta launched a beta of FERC.ai, an independent tool that lets AI assistants search more than 500,000 FERC filings and return cited links, at $200 a month. Renewable Energy World
The Capital Stack
Cambridge Heavy Industries raises $6.2 million for benchtop fusion
Cambridge Heavy Industries emerged from stealth with a $6.2 million seed round led by Azolla Ventures, with Overlay and MassCEC. Its laser-driven device grew out of an MIT lab and fires 50 to 80 shots a day. The near-term business is tritium production, a fuel that sells for about $30,000 per gram, while a power plant is about a decade out, according to the company.
Source: TechCrunch
Also in the capital stack:
NEU Battery Materials raised $7.6 million co-led by Shift4Good and SGInnovate and opened an LFP battery recycling plant in Singapore's Tuas that handles 1,300 tonnes a year. TechNode Global
Policy Watch
PJM filed a study agreement at FERC on Oct. 13 for SoftBank's Ohio AI campus, covering 9.6 GW of load, 10.2 GW of new gas through 2032 and three 765 kV lines; SB Energy says it will pay for the generation and transmission, a test of whether giant loads can fund their own grid. Utility Dive
Interior asked a federal court on Oct. 9 to remand its 2023 approval of Ørsted's 704 MW Revolution Wind, operating since March, Canary Media reported, a signal that even operating offshore projects carry permit risk. Canary Media
Germany's SPRIND innovation agency launched a €500 million milestone-based fusion program through 2029, modeled on DOE's and possibly rising to €2.5 billion, giving fusion startups a second public funder to chase. ANS Nuclear Newswire
Chart of the Day
New England's wind output is up 68% this year
ISO-NE wind generation averaged 68% higher in the first nine months of 2026 than a year earlier, and the 4,619 GWh produced so far already tops all of 2025, EIA said.
Source: EIA Today in Energy · October 14, 2026
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