Two SpaceX alumni have a pitch to hyperscalers, and it has nothing to do with outer space: They’re building power plants here on Earth that cost less — and get built faster — than a natural gas power plant
Ambrosia Energy, which has been operating in stealth until now, hasn’t invented a new technology. Instead, it’s pairing solar panels with lithium-ion batteries to keep electrons flowing around the clock for $100 per megawatt-hour.
“A power plant should be able to be built at any scale in 12 months from contract signing to power on,” Sara Spangelo, co-founder and president of Ambrosia Energy, exclusively told TechCrunch. “Our ambition is to go to gigawatt scale.”
To bring costs down, the startup has been able to simplify the battery pack. Most grid-scale batteries cycle in two or four hours, a speed which puts more strain on the system. But Ambrosia trickle charges its batteries throughout the day and slowly discharges them at night.
Those changes, plus some other engineering refinements, has brought the cost for the entire package down to 1.5-times what the company pays for battery cells, less than the industry standard.
