Ore Energy bets rust-and-air batteries cover Europe's multi-day renewable gaps

Ore Energy builds grid-scale iron-air batteries: 40-foot containers that store electricity for up to 100 hours by rusting and de-rusting iron electrodes, sold to utilities and energy suppliers to cover multi-day gaps in wind and solar output.

That wind-heavy grids will pay for days-long storage, so Ore builds rust-based iron-air batteries storing power 24–100 hours instead of chasing lithium-ion economics.

$43M Series A led by Plural and HV with participation from Positron, announced August 2026; total raised above $61M.

Ore Energy was founded in 2023 by Aytaç Yilmaz, Rutil Özdemir and Yaiza Gonzalez Garcia, spinning out of TU Delft research. The founding observation was structural: lithium-ion storage shifts solar by a few hours, but wind-heavy European grids face multi-day lulls in renewable output, and the gas plants that fill those gaps are exactly the cost and emissions problem grids wanted to escape. As Yilmaz put it, short-duration batteries cannot fix this - they shift solar by hours, while wind grids need storage that works across days.

Ore de-risked in real utility settings before chasing volume: a grid-connected iron-air installation in Delft validated integration with European distribution infrastructure, then a pilot at EDF in France ran between August and November 2025, storing and discharging energy for up to four days and billed as Europe's first grid-connected iron-air long-duration storage pilot. In June 2026 Ore signed a 1 GWh agreement with Budget Thuis (part of Nuts Groep, with over one million customers) - the largest iron-air offtake in continental Europe and the first with a European energy supplier - starting with a committed 400 MWh first phase planned for 2028. The August 2026 Series A is funding Ore's first manufacturing facility on the path to GWh-scale production by 2028.

Still live and scaling as of 2026-09-02: total funding above $61M, a first commercial 1 GWh contract with Budget Thuis, and a first factory underway with GWh-scale manufacturing targeted for 2028; no revenue figures have been disclosed.

The customer problem is structural: as wind and solar penetration rises, multi-day lulls recur and short-duration batteries cannot cover them economically, so the market grows with renewables.

The chemistry picks cheap, abundant materials - iron, water and air - so Ore's cost floor depends on supply chains Europe controls rather than lithium, cobalt or leading-edge components.

Ore de-risked with field evidence before scaling: Delft and EDF grid-connected pilots preceded the commercial offtake, the kind of proof a startup needs to win a 1 GWh commitment from a utility.

The round funds a factory, not another pilot: with clean power already curtailed at scale and GWh-scale manufacturing targeted for 2028, Series A moved Ore from chemistry validation toward volume.

The bet only pays when the problem is structural: multi-day renewable gaps are guaranteed to grow, and iron-air's cost floor sits on iron, water and air, not scarce materials.

As of 2026-09-02 Ore Energy is live and scaling: total funding above $61M after the August 2026 Series A led by Plural and HV; a 1 GWh commercial agreement with Dutch supplier Budget Thuis (400 MWh first phase planned for 2028); and its first manufacturing facility underway with GWh-scale production targeted for 2028. The open risk is economic rather than technical: multi-day batteries cycle rarely, so the cost per cycle must beat the gas plants they replace, and competing long-duration technologies are racing for the same market.