en.Wedoany.com Reported - US energy storage company Peak Energy has selected Sacramento, California, as the site for what it calls the first US manufacturing facility dedicated to producing grid-scale sodium-ion energy storage systems. Located at Sacramento Metro Air Park, the plant spans 183,000 square feet and is designed with an annual production capacity of 4 GWh of energy storage systems. According to Peak, at full capacity, this output could meet the electricity needs of nearly 4 million households annually, with shipments expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027.
The project involves a capital investment of approximately $71 million and is expected to create 239 local jobs within 18 months, with an average annual salary exceeding $90,000. Ahead of production, the company has secured customer commitments of more than 6 GWh, including agreements with independent power producers Jupiter Power, Energy Vault, and RWE Americas. The California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development provided $10.5 million in California Competes Tax Credits for the plant, awarded in May from a pool of over $920 million allocated this fiscal year to businesses expanding in the state.
Peak's technological selling point lies in its passive cooling architecture, designed to eliminate the active cooling equipment required in traditional lithium-ion energy storage systems; meanwhile, its sodium-ion chemistry route reduces dependence on lithium resources. Peak deployed its first grid-scale sodium-ion energy storage system in 2025 and has since progressively expanded its commercial partnerships. On June 9, the company reached an agreement with General Motors to combine Peak's energy storage platform with next-generation sodium-ion cells being developed at GM's Michigan battery laboratory. GM retains exclusive manufacturing rights to these cells, while Peak integrates them into its own energy storage systems—a division of labor that splits the domestic supply chain into cell development and system manufacturing.
Peak's plant plans land amid a turbulent year for US sodium-ion manufacturing. Natron Energy, once the industry's most high-profile domestic player, shut down its Holland, Michigan, facility and Santa Clara headquarters in September 2025 after its board stated it could not raise sufficient funding, and canceled its planned $1.4 billion gigafactory in North Carolina before construction ever broke ground. This episode highlights the challenges the industry faces in commercialization rather than flaws in the chemistry itself, making Peak's construction project a key test case for whether domestic sodium-ion manufacturers can achieve commercial scale.
The timing of the project's launch aligns with shifts in how utilities and data center operators procure energy storage. The International Energy Agency estimates that by 2030, as AI operators need to manage volatile electricity consumption, global data centers could host 20 to 25 GW of battery storage, a trend that has brought renewed attention to long-duration energy storage technologies. Peak's plant plans also join broader efforts to build a domestic battery supply chain across mining, processing, and manufacturing. Peak states that its passive cooling design can reduce energy storage costs by 20% compared with traditional systems, targeting 99% uptime. Based on the company's cost assumptions, as more such architectures connect to the grid, eliminating battery cooling in California alone could save electricity users approximately $100 million annually.
