SpaceX veterans turn to solar and batteries to outpace gas plants

Ambrosia Energy, co-founded by Sara Spangelo and Ben Longmier, claims its system delivers power at $100 per megawatt-hour. By trickle-charging lithium-ion batteries throughout the day and discharging slowly at night, the company avoids the heavy strain placed on typical grid-scale systems. These engineering refinements allow the startup to undercut the $107 per megawatt-hour cost of combined-cycle gas turbines while bypassing the five-to-seven-year wait times currently plaguing the gas industry.

After working together on Starlink, the founders applied their aerospace experience to the power sector. In January, the company began constructing a facility in West Texas, which reached partial operational capacity within months. The startup recently secured funding from DFJ Growth to expand its footprint and plans to open a factory in Austin. By scaling from current 20-megawatt pilot projects to potential 30-gigawatt installations on massive land plots, Spangelo and Longmier intend to deliver gigawatt-scale power by the end of the decade.