Crusoe makes massive battery buys for its information facilities

Data center developer Crusoe is ramping up its energy storage capacity with battery buys from Form Energy and Redwood Energy.

The company said it will buy 12 gigawatt-hours of Form Energy’s 100-hour batteries. It’s the second large sale made by Form, which last month said it would build a 30 gigawatt-hour battery for Google in Minnesota. That deal was worth about $1 billion, according to The Information. 

Form, which didn’t disclose the value of the sale, will start delivering Crusoe’s batteries in 2027.

Crusoe’s smaller purchase should still bring Form hundreds of millions in new revenue as the battery company embarks on a $500 million funding round. Form has raised $1.4 billion to date, according to PitchBook. Previously, Form had signed smaller contracts with utilities interested in testing the technology.

Form’s iron-air batteries discharge when oxygen from the air flows over iron pebbles inside the battery. The oxidation process produces rust and electricity. To charge the battery, electricity essentially de-rusts the iron, releasing oxygen.

Form began expanding its first factory in West Virginia last year in anticipation of big contracts that are now materializing.

Crusoe also announced that it’s expanding a partnership with Redwood Materials, the battery recycling and reuse company founded by ex-Tesla CTO J. B. Straubel. The data center company has been operating a 12 megawatt, 63 megawatt-hour battery on a microgrid since June, which was the largest second-life battery installation at the time. Redwood will deliver an additional 8 megawatts of power using repurposed EV batteries.