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/daily ·19 AUG 2026 ·WEDNESDAY ·2 MIN READ ·6 STORIES

Form's $750M, CATL's carbon decree, and what 4.3 cents means

Iron-air battery maker Form Energy closed its biggest funding round yet, CATL's chairman declared zero-carbon production a competitive requirement, and Germany's solar auction set a price that competes with gas.

01 / The Day

WEDNESDAY 19 AUG 2026, ranked

06

Form Energy closes $750M Series G to build out iron-air long-duration storage

Form Energy, the iron-air battery startup, closed a $750m Series G financing round. The company is building a commercial factory in Weirton, West Virginia, and has signed offtake agreements with US utilities for multi-day grid storage — a duration well beyond what lithium-ion can deliver economically.

  • Iron-air batteries use the rusting and de-rusting of iron as the charge/discharge mechanism, using earth-abundant materials
  • Form targets storage durations of 100 hours at a claimed cost below $20/kWh — far cheaper than lithium on a per-hour basis
  • The Weirton facility is targeting initial commercial production in 2026; the Series G funds the ramp
Why it mattersLong-duration storage is the missing piece for high-renewable grids; $750m at commercial-plant stage suggests investors believe iron-air reaches utility scale, not just pilot scale.
01 energy-storage.news↗

CATL's chairman says non-zero-carbon batteries will be left behind

CATL founder and executive chairman Robin Zeng stated publicly that battery manufacturers failing to achieve zero-carbon production will be 'left behind by the times,' framing carbon accounting as the next competitive dimension after cost and energy density.

  • CATL has committed to supply-chain carbon neutrality by 2035
  • The comment is timed to Europe's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which began applying to battery imports in 2026
  • BYD and other Chinese makers have been investing in renewable-powered gigafactories partly in anticipation of this pressure
Why it mattersWhen the world's largest battery maker calls carbon footprint a competitive requirement rather than a regulatory burden, the whole supply chain's cost model shifts.
02 energy-storage.news↗

Translucent Energy opens a 1.2 GW solar module factory in South Carolina

Solar startup Translucent Energy has launched a 1.2 gigawatt per year module manufacturing facility in South Carolina, one of the larger US domestic solar factories to open this year. The company makes perovskite-hybrid modules claiming efficiency gains over standard silicon.

  • The 1.2 GW nameplate is larger than most US solar factories but well below leading Chinese facilities
  • Perovskite-hybrid modules carry an efficiency premium; whether it justifies the cost differential in the US market is still being tested by buyers
  • IRA domestic content bonuses apply to US-manufactured modules, supporting the economics of the investment
Why it mattersUS solar manufacturing is still a fraction of China's capacity; each new gigawatt plant is a data point on whether IRA incentives are sufficient to close the gap.
03 pv-magazine.com↗

Germany's solar tender clears 2.1 GW; lowest bid hits €0.043/kWh

Germany's Federal Network Agency allocated 2.1 gigawatts in its latest ground-mounted photovoltaic auction, with the lowest winning bid at €0.043 per kilowatt-hour — among the lowest prices recorded in a European solar tender.

  • The winning range ran from €0.043/kWh to €0.057/kWh; a volume-weighted average has not yet been published
  • Germany has been running frequent ground-mount tenders since removing its previous hard capacity cap
  • Sub-€0.05/kWh solar competes with baseload gas on a levelised cost basis in most European markets
Why it mattersThe German auction price sets a benchmark for European solar economics — and raises the question of what it does to investment decisions in gas-fired generation.
04 pv-magazine.com↗

Fourth-generation LFP chemistry is rewriting BESS system economics

Analysis in Energy-Storage.news examines fourth-generation lithium iron phosphate cells targeting energy densities above 200 Wh/kg while maintaining LFP's cost and cycle-life advantages. The chemistry improvements are beginning to appear in commercial BESS quotes.

  • LFP Gen 4 uses optimised cathode particle morphology and new electrolyte formulations to push density past 200 Wh/kg
  • Higher density means fewer cells and less cabinet space per megawatt-hour, directly reducing system cost and footprint
  • CATL and BYD are both expected to ship Gen 4 LFP in commercial BESS quantities by early 2027
Why it mattersLFP has displaced NMC in most grid storage applications; Gen 4 improvements could extend that dominance into segments where energy density previously excluded it.
05 energy-storage.news↗

California advances bills to formalise virtual power plant markets

California's legislature advanced two bills that would expand virtual power plant programmes and create regulatory pathways for distributed battery storage to bid into wholesale energy markets, with the aim of reducing retail rates.

  • One bill sets VPP procurement targets for the state's three investor-owned utilities through 2030
  • The second establishes a process for aggregated home batteries to bid directly into CAISO's day-ahead and real-time markets
  • California now has roughly 14 GWh of distributed home battery capacity eligible under the Cheaper Home Batteries programme
Why it mattersVirtual power plants need a legal market structure to replace the patchwork of utility programmes; California's bills would be the most detailed framework enacted in any US state.
06 energy-storage.news↗
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The Daily Archive

/WED 19 AUGForm's $750M, CATL's carbon decree, and what 4.3 cents means/TUE 18 AUGTuesday: the cheap-cell era, revised/MON 17 AUGCells Back Online/SAT 15 AUGScale, tangibly/FRI 14 AUGThe Quarter the Consumer Took Over/THU 13 AUGScotland gets a big battery, China gets the biggest/WED 12 AUGThe grid doubles, the river runs hot, and Amazon builds America's biggest gas plant/TUE 11 AUGMaking It Here/MON 10 AUGA gigawatt-hour in Rajasthan, a Joby milestone, and the cheddar test/SUN 09 AUG12.8 GWh in China, solar tariff shock, and RWE's billion-dollar exit/FRI 07 AUGUS hits polysilicon; Ørsted stacks 500 MWh in Texas/THU 06 AUGGrid delays, grid storage, and grid-scale bets/WED 05 AUGHome batteries scale up, microreactors raise $1B, and China ends the solar price war/MON 03 AUGFusion gets its billion; perovskite breaks 28%/SUN 02 AUGSurplus signals/SAT 01 AUGThe Heat Is the Story/FRI 31 JULCalifornia hits 51% monthly solar; China sets record targets/THU 30 JULThe Billion-Dollar Build Edition/WED 29 JULWednesday, 29 July — Sodium-ion arrives; Australia breaks records/TUE 28 JULMalaysia orders the grid; Australia scales the cell/MON 27 JULA Solar Farm Becomes a Data Centre, Wisconsin Campaigns Against Solar, and LONGi Breaks the Tandem Efficiency Record