General Motors is backing a sodium-ion battery push aimed at making electricity storage cheaper for utilities and data centers.
Peak Energy, a sodium-ion battery startup backed by General Motors through its investment arm GM Ventures, announced on October 23 that it had raised $108 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round.
GM Ventures led the round, with participation from LG Technology Ventures and other investors, to support the company’s expansion into grid and data center energy storage.
The startup plans to expand manufacturing, fulfill more than $1 billion in existing customer orders, and bring its passively cooled battery storage systems to the data center market. Its platform eliminates active cooling equipment, which the company says can reduce storage costs and energy waste.
The funding builds on a partnership announced June 10. GM will develop next-generation sodium-ion cells at its Michigan battery laboratories and retain exclusive manufacturing rights, while Peak Energy will integrate the cells into its stationary storage systems.
A battery built for the grid
The partnership focuses on grid storage rather than electric vehicles. Stationary batteries have different requirements from vehicle batteries, making cost, reliability, and safety more important than packing maximum energy into a small, lightweight package.
Lithium-iron phosphate, or LFP, batteries currently dominate stationary storage. Peak Energy is pursuing sodium-ion as an alternative that uses more abundant, potentially lower-cost materials.
GM’s vice president of battery and sustainability, Kurt Kelty, said the chemistry suits the application.
“At GM, we know that the application should determine the battery, and for grid-scale stationary storage, sodium-ion is the right solution,” Kelty said.
“Peak is already demonstrating the value of sodium-ion through their innovative energy storage platform, and together we’re working to push those benefits even further with our next-generation cell – helping deliver more reliable, lower-cost energy storage at scale for the US grid,” he added.
Removing active cooling equipment
Peak Energy’s approach extends beyond battery chemistry to the equipment surrounding the cells.
Conventional LFP storage systems use active cooling to manage operating temperatures. That equipment adds components, consumes electricity, and increases system complexity.
The company says its sodium-ion platform operates with passive cooling, eliminating the need for those systems.
According to the company, the platform can lower energy storage costs by 20 percent compared with conventional systems while delivering more than 99 percent uptime. These figures are company-reported and have not been independently verified.
Peak Energy also estimates that replacing conventional LFP storage with its technology could reduce annual battery-storage energy waste across the US by up to two terawatt-hours.
That projection concerns potential savings from broader deployment, rather than energy already saved by installed systems.
Manufacturing for rising electricity demand
The new funding will support Peak’s manufacturing expansion as utilities add storage alongside renewable generation and electricity demand grows.
Data centers represent another target, particularly as AI infrastructure increases power demand. Peak Energy plans to bring its passively cooled storage platform to that market while working through its existing customer orders.