Federal support for Form Energy adds to company momentum toward batteries that last

That’s the bet that federal and state officials have made on Form Energy Inc., the Massachusetts-based battery maker that brought manufacturing back to the 55-acre site of the former Weirton Steel plant.

Officials on Friday announced that the U.S. Department of Energy selected Form Energy for an award negotiation of up to $150 million. The move sets up Form for a boost toward installing and operating a manufacturing line and hiring and training up to 600 employees in an enterprise it says will transform the nation’s electric grid.

With reversible rusting, a battery takes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust while discharging. An electrical current changes the rust back to iron while the battery charges, and the battery releases oxygen.

The energy potential of the iron-air design is great because of storing large amounts of energy safely and at a low cost using abundant source material, field experts say.

Form held a celebration Sept. 12 of its launch of trial battery system production, 18 months after it broke ground at the site.

In an agreement between the company and the West Virginia Department of Economic Development signed in January 2023, Form Energy said its multiday battery would “reform the global electricity system to reliably run on 100% low-cost renewable energy, every day of the year.�

The state agreed to provide Form Energy $290 million and retain ownership of the 55-acre property until the company employs 750 full-time workers. The pact requires Form to meet that employment threshold by the end of 2028.

Form agreed to pay minimum salaries of $62,937 — 71% more than West Virginia’s 2021 median annual wage that ranked third-lowest in the country.

Form CEO reports nearly $1 billion in capital raised

The up-to-$150 million newly set aside for Form by the Department of Energy is part of a $3 billion influx of investments for 25 projects across 14 states to supercharge domestic production of advanced batteries and battery materials nationwide.

Form Energy CEO Mateo Jaramillo stressed in a media call Friday that the Department of Energy support isn’t the first investment in the company, saying it has raised $900 million in equity capital.

“So this is an accelerant here,� Jaramillo said of the agency’s investment during the call hosted Friday by Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va. Manchin played a key role in shaping the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act enabling the federal funding stream. “This is not the first money in, the first risk capital into the company.�

A former Tesla energy storage executive, Jaramillo founded Form Energy in 2017 with other energy storage veterans.

Jaramillo plans to erase any doubts about the viability of his company’s Weirton work by “fully delivering — not just on the building, not just on the jobs — but on the product,� he said Friday.

Jaramillo reported a backlog of 18 months of production with contracted customers, saying batteries would be distributed from West Virginia through electric utilities. Jaramillo said customer deliveries would begin by the end of this year.

“As I tell the team over and over again, we get to change from being an equity-backed venture company to a business. We get to be a real business here,� Jaramillo said. “And so we’re going to see that transformation happen in the next few months.�

In July 2023, Minnesota-based electric utility Xcel Energy hailed receiving approval from state regulators to build a multi-day energy storage system that it said would help maximize the company’s use of renewable energy and maintain grid reliability through extreme weather.

Form Energy announced in January 2023 it was partnering with Xcel Energy to deploy iron-air battery systems at two Xcel Energy retiring coal plant sites in Colorado and Minnesota.

Also last year, Form Energy announced a partnership with Georgia Power, the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, to identify an energy storage project to be located in the utility’s service area.

The energy storage technology and manufacturing company plans to commercialize a battery that can economically store electricity for 100 hours, an exponential increase that could provide vital backup power for hospitals and offices — especially in rural and remote areas like those throughout West Virginia.

‘We’ll let them see it’

The portfolio of 25 Department of Energy-selected projects announced Friday is projected to support more than 8,000 construction jobs and over 4,000 operating jobs, the agency said.

West Virginia Senate Majority Whip Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, said the people of Weirton believed its days as a manufacturing hub were over for years because of the decline and closure of its steel industry.

“Now ... there is a renewed excitement for Weirton’s future,� Weld said in a news release from Manchin’s office cheering the federal support for Form Energy.

Giulia Siccardo, director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, defended the federal government’s massive investment in battery systems during Friday’s media call.

“Every dollar that we are putting in is at least matched by another dollar of private investment,� Siccardo said, “and we can therefore act in a de-risking function and enable what we call a crowding in of private capital that might be sitting on the sidelines and looking for some high-growth opportunities.�

Form Energy says each individual battery module is roughly the size of a side-by-side washer/dryer set with a stack of 50 or so cells roughly 3 feet tall, making them unsuitable for portable electronics.

But experts see advantages to iron-air over lithium-ion batteries beyond just cost, including more safety over repeated charge-discharge cycles and a greater abundance of source material.

Lithium deposits are limited worldwide and heavily concentrated in South America. China has dominated the lithium market.

Iron, though, is the fourth-most common element in the Earth’s crust, according to the World Economic Forum.

“When it comes to energy storage, we need to ensure that we are building a strong domestic supply chain of our own,� Manchin said during Friday’s media call.

Jaramillo said his company is poised to prove it and its batteries both are built to last.

“We’ll show people up front,� Jaramillo said. “We’ll let them see it.�