The expansion of AI computing power is bringing electricity supply to the forefront of the industry. According to TechCrunch, Ambrosia Energy, founded by two former SpaceX employees, has ended its stealth operations and is aiming to enter the hyperscale cloud provider and data center market with "solar photovoltaic + lithium battery" power stations, targeting sustainable power delivery in a shorter timeframe.
Mainly features power plants built in 12 months
The company has not introduced new battery or power generation technologies, but rather recombines existing solar panels with lithium-ion batteries. Its key selling point is construction timeline and cost. Co-founder and President Sara Spangelo said the company aims to reduce the timeline from contract signing to energization to 12 months, and ultimately scale projects to gigawatt levels.
According to Ambrosia, the target cost for this system is approximately $100 per megawatt-hour. For comparison, Lazard’s data shows that the capital and operational costs of newly built combined-cycle gas power plants are around $107 per megawatt-hour. More critically, gas turbines currently face a typical waiting period of five to seven years.
Reduce system costs through slow charging and discharging
Ambrosia’s cost-reduction approach does not rely on new materials, but rather on adjusting how the energy storage system operates. Most grid-scale batteries are typically charged and discharged frequently over 2-hour or 4-hour cycles, increasing system stress. Ambrosia instead charges slowly during the day and discharges slowly at night, simplifying the battery pack design.
The company stated that, combined with other engineering optimizations, this design reduces the total system cost to just 1.5 times the cost of the battery cells purchased, below industry norms. Spangelo also noted that this solution offers superior reliability compared to gas-fired power plants.
The first project has been tested in Texas.
The two founders, Sara Spangelo and Ben Longmier, previously worked on Starlink-related projects at SpaceX. SpaceX earlier acquired their satellite IoT company, Swarm. The two then launched Ambrosia with their own funds and recently secured investment from DFJ Growth, though the amount was not disclosed.
To validate the scheme, Ambrosia began construction of its first power plant in West Texas just one month after the company’s founding. Longmier stated that the project will be nearly halfway complete after this week, with some completed modules having been operational for six weeks and running at full capacity since then.
The company is initially starting with projects in the 20 to 30 megawatt range and plans to build a facility in Austin, Texas, in the future to reduce delivery times for larger projects. Longmier also noted that the company has engaged with partners to secure access to large tracts of land, and if conditions permit, individual project sizes could scale up to 30 gigawatts. Ambrosia aims to achieve gigawatt-scale deliveries before the end of this decade.