Aqueous Battery Brief
Crucial news for aqueous energy storage innovators
Brought to you by Octet Scientific
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Welcome to the Aqueous Battery Brief’s one year anniversary!
Not yet a subscriber? Join here.
July 2, 2026 • Estimated reading time: 3 – 5 minutes.
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Happy Birthday, Aqueous Battery Brief
It’s been over a year since the launch of our first Aqueous Battery Brief. What we thought would be a multi-week project has emerged as a central hub for the aqueous energy storage field – and an ongoing testament to an industry on the move creating billions of dollars of value. Read below for highlight stories we’ve shared.
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300MW LDES for Root Power
UK-based BESS developer Root-Power submitted plans for four energy storage projects amounting to 300MW of long-duration energy storage. Learn more at Solar Power Portal.
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Watch: Why Octet is Bullish on Aqueous
Hear Octet CEO Onas Bolton’s perspective on the aqueous energy storage future – and the value Octet brings its pioneers. Catch the whole video on our site.
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ESS Accelerating
Amidst a turnaround including 294% revenue growth in Q2, an 80% drop in monthly cash burn, and a $31 million funding package, iron-salt flow developer ESS secured its first order for its Energy Base platform.
The 8 MWh project order has been hailed as a significant “proof-of-concept win.” “With nearly 2.5 GWh transacted across its global fleet, ESS is building a footprint in a market projected to hit $50 billion by 2030,” explained Nathaniel Stone in AInvest.
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RFP: 1,500MW in Mid-Duration Storage
Massachusetts’s Electric Distribution Companies (EDCs) and the state’s Department of Energy Resources (DOER) jointly launched an RFP for approximately 1,500MW of mid-duration energy storage systems.
The initiative marked the first in a staggered procurement schedule kicked off by a comprehensive 2024 energy bill that increased the state’s energy storage systems commitment to 5,000 MW by 2030. Details in Energy Storage News.
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World’s Largest Aqueous Organic Flow Battery
Suqian Time Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd. commissioned the world’s largest aqueous organic flow battery energy storage system to date in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, per an announcement.
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With a 5 MW / 20 MWh capacity and over 20,000 charge/discharge cycles, the system ran a successful 72-hour continuous operation test.
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Suqian subsidiary Jena Flow Batteries, which collaborated closely with Suqian on development, provided details and footage on LinkedIn.
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Eos Signs to Deliver up to 750 MWh for MN8
Zinc-based energy storage systems manufacturer Eos Energy signed on to deploy up to 750 MWh of US-made LDES across multiple renewable projects for renewable energy and services leader MN8 Energy. Read the press release.
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Enzinc to Bring Nickel-Zinc to a Leading Lead-Acid Co
Zinc-air battery manufacturer Enzinc announced a Joint Development Agreement with a leading lead-acid battery manufacturer.
Enzinc’s “Enzinc Inside” approach lets battery makers use existing manufacturing equipment to produce nickel-zinc batteries with greater energy and power density, enhanced safety, and easier recycling than their current chemistry allows.
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Eos Hits Top Quarterly Revenue To Date
Zinc-powered energy storage manufacturer Eos Energy Enterprises announced its Q2 2025 as the company’s highest quarterly revenue so far.
With nearly 1,000 MWh in recent secured deals across renewables and data infrastructure, Eos reached $30.5M this Q2—nearly double its full earnings from 2024. Details in the announcement.
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Enerflow’s and JENMI’s New Australian VFB
China-based flow battery developer Enerflow and Australia’s JENMI Investment signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly pursue a 350 MW/1,200 MWh vanadium flow battery project, one of Australia’s largest LDES deployments. PV Magazine / Energy Storage has details.
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Rongke Power Delivers First Gigawatt-Hour Scale VFB
Hong Kong-based vanadium flow battery firm Rongke Power announced delivery of the world’s first vanadium flow battery deployment to reach the gigawatt-hour scale.
Now in operation, the Jimusaer Vanadium Flow Battery Energy Storage Project is integrated with a 1 GW photovoltaic power plant and provides a total installed capacity of 200 MW / 1,000 MWh – enabling up to five hours of continuous discharge.
Details in the news release.
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Gold Peak Launches New NiZn Battery Manufacturing Facility
Battery giant Gold Peak Technology Group opened its first Nickel-Zinc battery manufacturing facility in Dongguan, China. The firm says its NiZn technology “is designed to transform the stationary immediate power applications with its high power density, recyclability and non-flammable characteristics” and will be geared toward data center UPS systems and other critical infrastructure. Details on LinkedIn.
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$9.9M Defense Industry Contract for ESS
Iron-flow LDES firm ESS announced a $9.9 million contract with Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) and the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for a large capacity energy storage (LCES) system at the U.S. Clear Space Force Station in Alaska. Read the announcement.
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Form’s $1B Google Deal
Iron-air leader Form Energy signed a $1 billion deal to support a cleantech-powered Google data center in Pine Island, Minnesota.
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Through the arrangement, electric utility Xcel Energy will install a 300 megawatt / 30 GWh Form battery array to dispatch energy for up to 100 hours straight, 24/7/365.
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The selection followed a rigorous process in which Form demonstrated its capabilities with internal installations that Xcel could examine.
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The data center will run core Google services including Workspace, Search, YouTube and Maps.
More details in Canary Media, TechCrunch, and The Information.
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Massive Vanadium Flow / Lithium-Ion Hybrid Facility Goes Online
Called the world’s largest single-site grid-forming hybrid energy storage power station, a landmark vanadium flow / lithium-ion hybrid energy storage facility came online in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. The 300 MW/1,200 MWh BESS will serve industrial and residential users in Ordos and western Inner Mongolia. It will also be connected to broader northern China.
The facility was developed by Hunan Corun New Energy Co., Ltd. (CORUN) and a consortium including Zhejiang Xingchen New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (SNE).
Details in ESS News and Vanitec.
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East Penn’s Massive Site Expansion
Lead-acid manufacturer East Penn has announced a $110M, 175,000 square foot (53,340 square meter) addition to its 393,000 square foot facility in Temple, Texas. The facility is also adding 48 new jobs. Details in Fox44 News.
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Clarios Lands $48.5M Lead-Acid U.S. Military Contract
Lead-acid (and other technology) manufacturer Clarios has been awarded a $48.5M million, 3-year contract to manufacture its 6-volt and 12-volt storage batteries to the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps. The contract follows a similar, separate $46.8M contract signed with the U.S. military in January. Story in BizTimes.
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CMBlu Closes Series C at Over $1B Valuation
Organic redox flow + solid-state pioneer CMBlu Energy closed a €50M (US$58.76M) Series C with participation from Samsung Ventures. With the funding, the company highlighted its recent conditional 5GW supply contract with German power firm Uniper, its compatibility with US supply-chain regulations, and its data center promise. Read more in Energy Storage News.
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Eos and Cerberus at the Frontier
Zinc battery innovator Eos Energy and alternative investment giant Cerberus Capital Management announced a new entity, Frontier Power USA. The new firm will lean on each company’s respective expertise to accelerate gigawatt-scale deployment of American-made energy storage for AI data centers, commercial and industrial, and utility-scale energy storage projects.
In the arrangement, Eos will supply 2 GWh of dedicated storage capacity while Cerberus brings $100 million in capital and operational expertise to accelerate project deployments — with Eos contributing an additional ~$150 million to be raised from existing shareholders. For more details, read the announcement and visit Eos’s official Frontier Power page.
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SoftBank Enters Zinc Energy Storage
Japanese telecom giant SoftBank Corp. launching a new line of zinc-halogen batteries – a move the firm expects to yield over ¥100 billion ($637 million) in annual revenue by fiscal 2030.
Partnering with South Korean startups Cosmos Lab and DeltaX for production, SoftBank is looking to deploy the technology first at its own AI data centers, and then to enter further AI, grid-scale, industrial and residential markets in Japan and abroad.
The company says it specifically chose zinc-halogen to avoid lithium’s ignition risks and to sidestep supply-chain dependency on Chinese lithium and cobalt.
Read coverage in outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia, Energy Storage News, and ESS News.
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Invinity Tapped for World’s Largest VFB
Flexbase, the Swiss project developer created with the purpose of building out an AI data center with energy storage from the world’s largest VFB, signed its VFB partner. The firm has tapped UK-based Invinity to provide a 2.1GWh system. Details in Energy Storage News.
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ZincFive Announces Plans to Go Public at ~$752M Valuation
The nickel-zinc battery maker announced plans to go public via SPAC in a deal that is expected to close in the second half of 2026. The company caters to data center and AI infrastructure markets and comes with significant market traction:
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Nearly 2 GW of systems deployed and contracted globally
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Revenue doubling from 2024 to approximately $66.9 million in 2025
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An $81 million backlog as of December 31, 2025.
Read more in the company press release, Bloomberg News, and Data Center Dynamics.
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In the first half of 2026:
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Octet’s additive library hit 450 molecules.
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Over 65% of Octet’s clients are new.
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Clients now turn to us for day one guidance on developing the most effective electrolyte from the start.
Read about Octet’s achievements and the industry’s growth in a banner 1H.
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Volta Foundation’s Women in Batteries Conference. July 28 – 30, Silicon Valley. Details & Registration.
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Clean Energy Group’s webinar will spotlight iron-air giant Form Energy. Hear from Sarah Jackson, Form’s Director of Government Affairs. Time: August 6th 2026 @ 1PM ET. Details & Registration
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Seeking a new role — or know someone who is? Start with the quick links to aqueous firms’ open roles pages below.
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Be in the know. Subscribe to Aqueous Battery Brief.
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