It's Wednesday. GM made its name putting batteries in cars. Now it's betting a different chemistry, sodium-ion, will help run the grid, and it's writing a check to prove it.
In today's edition:
🔋 GM backs sodium-ion grid storage with an investment in Peak Energy
🔌 Quick Hits: a grid operating system, a space solar grid, a flow-battery first
💰 Capital: Panasonic bets $2B on data-center batteries
📋 Policy Watch: a court restores the solar safe harbor, Brazil opens storage
📊 Chart: Summer power supply climbs
The Big Story
GM bets on sodium-ion batteries for the grid.
General Motors is partnering with Peak Energy to develop and deploy next-generation sodium-ion battery cells built specifically for grid storage, backed by a strategic investment from GM Ventures. GM will develop the cell in its Michigan battery labs and keep exclusive manufacturing rights, while Peak folds it into its passively cooled storage systems.
"The application should determine the battery, and for grid-scale stationary storage, sodium-ion is the right solution." Kurt Kelty, VP of Battery and Sustainability, GM, via PR Newswire, June 9, 2026
Peak's passively cooled sodium-ion system drops the active cooling that lithium-iron-phosphate needs, which it says cuts storage costs about 20% and delivers more than 99% uptime.
GM brings automotive-scale cell-development expertise to stationary storage, a domestic-manufacturing play against an LFP supply chain dominated by China.
Peak, founded in 2023 by veterans of Tesla, Enovix, and Apple, has already signed a 4.75 GWh deal with Jupiter Power and an agreement for MISO's first sodium-ion grid battery.
It is one of the clearest signs yet that sodium-ion, long dismissed as too low-density for cars, is finding its killer app in the grid.
Source: PR Newswire
Quick Hits
Small bites from across the grid.
Technology from orbit to the substation, all from the last 48 hours.
GE Vernova launched GridOS for Transmission, software that pulls real-time operations, dynamic line ratings, wide-area monitoring, and forecasting into one control-room view to wring more capacity from existing lines. WebWire
Star Catcher is building a space-based solar grid to beam power to satellites, with its CEO likening today's self-powered spacecraft to pre-industrial water mills. pv magazine
Invinity says a 2.1-GWh vanadium flow battery paired with a Swiss data center will be a world-first at that scale, carving out a niche for flow chemistry in long-duration, high-cycle use. Energy-Storage.news
New York's large-load interconnection proceeding is drawing stakeholder comments on how data centers should connect and at what clean-energy bar, with EnergyTag among the latest to weigh in. Alex Piper / LinkedIn
SpaceX detailed its "AI1" data-center satellite ahead of a reported ~$1.75T IPO, each unit carrying roughly 150 kW of orbital AI compute on Starlink-derived solar, a moonshot pitch to run AI workloads in space rather than straining the terrestrial grid. Bloomberg
The Capital Stack
Panasonic bets $2B on data-center batteries.
Panasonic will invest about $2 billion to ramp battery-storage manufacturing, adding a US production line, expanding capacity in Osaka, and growing its Mexico footprint, all aimed at the storage demand created by AI data centers. The company says it plans to triple its data-center energy-storage revenue, a sign that the buildout race is pulling component makers, not just developers, to reorganize around AI load.
Source: pv magazine
Also in the capital stack:
Hecate Energy's CEO Chris Bullinger makes the case for the solar developer going public and reinventing itself as an IPP on the back of data-center demand, a read on where capital and co-location strategy are heading. Latitude Media
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Policy Watch
A federal court vacated IRS Notice 2025-42 and restored the 5% safe harbor for wind and solar, calling the IRS move "arbitrary and capricious," which steadies project-qualification math ahead of the OBBBA July 4 grandfathering deadline. Utility Dive
Brazil approved a regulatory framework clearing the way for its first energy-storage auctions this year, opening one of the largest untapped storage markets to developers. Energy-Storage.news
Chart of the Day
Summer power supply climbs to meet a hotter, AI-heavy grid.
The EIA’s June Short-Term Energy Outlook forecasts U.S. electricity generation will rise about 3% this summer over summer 2025, with above-average heat and data-center-driven demand met mostly by solar, up 19%, and wind, up 10%. The added load is concentrated in the ERCOT and PJM footprints.
