Eos lands $400 million DOE loan to scale long-duration energy storage manufacturing
Grid Scale

Eos lands $400 million DOE loan to scale long-duration energy storage manufacturing

Eos Energy Enterprises, a provider of zinc-powered long-duration stationary energy storage systems, t announced Project AMAZE —American Made Zinc Energy, a $500 million planned expansion and a significant milestone to build 8 GWh of clean energy storage production capacity.

Project AMAZE supports Eos’ strategy to address increased long-duration energy storage demand driven by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) implementation, using its Eos Z3 energy storage system. The project secured an up to $398.6 million conditional commitment for a loan guarantee from the DOE LPO, which would fund 80% of Eos’ planned expansion.

In 2018, Eos brought its production and supply chain back to the United States from China, and the expanded facility would further build on Eos’ investment in American manufacturing. “Manufacturing has been in my family for generations”, stated Eos machine operator Bill Porter, “We’re making things that matter and this is what modern manufacturing looks like.”

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While the issuance of conditional commitment by the DOE demonstrates the department’s intent to finance the project, several steps remain for the project to reach critical milestones, and certain technical, legal, and financial conditions must be satisfied to the satisfaction of DOE before the department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan.

The Eos Z3 battery contains predominately American components and is specifically designed for mass production and meeting low-cost, long-duration, grid-scale stationary energy storage needs, the company said. Domestic production better positions Eos to access the 45X advanced manufacturing direct pay tax credits available under the IRA. The Eos Z3 battery is based on Eos’ 15-year history of developing the Znyth battery technology, which uses earth-abundant raw materials in its manufacturing and is intended to overcome many limitations in other stationary energy storage solutions.

Eos said the secular shift in the energy mix requires an accelerated implementation of its capacity expansion plan to meet the increased demand for Eos Z3 technology that is currently in semi-automated commercial production. Eos announced last week the selection of ACRO Automation Systems to partner in the design, development, and implementation of up to four high-output manufacturing lines.

“We are putting in place all the elements that will allow us to build an efficient, optimized, state-of-the-art production facility at scale to deliver on a nearly 200 GWh market opportunity,” said Nathan Kroeker, Eos’ Chief Financial Officer. “We believe we can pair the conditional commitment from the DOE with private capital and state and local investment programs to meet our requirements.”

Project AMAZE is expected to bring approximately 650 new green jobs to Pittsburgh once the facility successfully achieves full operational capacity, Eos said.