Ambrosia Energy has begun work on a battery factory near Austin, Texas, to supply its planned network of solar-powered plants for data centers.

The 150,000-square-foot facility is designed for 10 gigawatt-hours of battery production, with full output targeted within two to three years.

Co-founder and CEO Ben Longmier announced the project Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

The startup is developing solar and battery systems to deliver continuous electricity at $100 per megawatt-hour, using daytime generation to power customers and store energy for use after sunset.

“That allows us to build about a 300 megawatt power plant per year out at our field sites,” Longmier said.

Ambrosia emerged from stealth in June with a plan to build power plants serving data centers. Longmier and co-founder Sara Spangelo chose solar paired with batteries because they considered it the cheapest option and the fastest to deploy.

The pair previously founded satellite constellation startup Swarm, which they sold to SpaceX.

Their power plant design assigns solar generation two jobs during daylight hours: supplying the data center and charging batteries. Stored electricity then supports operations at night and during cloudy conditions.

The approach requires substantially more solar generating capacity than the continuous power supplied to the customer. Ambrosia is also beginning work on its first commercial power plant in West Texas later this year, according to Longmier.

That project pairs 300 megawatts of solar panels with 660 megawatt-hours of battery storage. 3%.

Source link