Ambrosia Energy has begun work on a 10 GWh battery factory near Austin, Texas, CEO Ben Longmier announced at TechCrunch Disrupt. The 150,000-square-foot facility is expected to reach full production in two to three years, enabling the company to build roughly 300 MW of power plants per year at its field sites.
Ambrosia emerged from stealth in June to build off-grid power systems for data centers. Its approach combines solar panels with batteries: solar carries the daytime load and charges the batteries, which then discharge overnight and during cloudy periods. The company says this setup can deliver continuous power at a cost of $100 per MWh, undercutting natural gas turbines that many hyperscalers are considering.
The startup is also starting work on its first commercial plant in West Texas later this year, pairing 300 MW of solar with 660 MWh of batteries to deliver 30 MW of continuous power with a target of 99.3% uptime. Longmier said a pilot-scale version has already run continuously for over 100 days. To hit its cost targets, Ambrosia manufactures many components in-house, including battery packs with far fewer parts than competitors; Longmier said this brings pack costs to about 1.3 times the cost of the bare cell, compared with 5 to 7 times for typical stationary storage.