Sodium-ion battery manufacturer Natron Energy has shuttered operations, including at its manufacturing plant in Holland, Michigan, following the current US administration’s reduced support for the energy storage industry.
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In a memo reporting on the plant’s closure, the company stated that it was unable to raise sufficient capital to maintain its operations.
The Holland factory was opened only last year and was expected to produce 600MW of batteries annually at full capacity.
All 37 employees at the Holland plant received a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice dated August 28, which stated that the company would cease operations on September 3. In addition to the Holland site employees, a further 58 employees at the company’s Santa Clara headquarters also lost their jobs.
“On August 27, 2025, Natron’s board of directors determined that Natron’s efforts to raise sufficient new funding were unsuccessful, having failed to result in sufficient funding proceeds to cover the required additional working capital and operational expenses of the business required to support execution of any purchase orders received by Natron,” the WARN filing read. “This, therefore, necessitates the closure of the Natron Facilities.”
The company had announced plans to spend $1.4 billion on a giant factory in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, the previous year, which would have produced 24GW of batteries annually at full capacity and created 1,000 jobs.
Natron said that it would retain a small number of employees to shut down the plant in an “environmentally responsible manner.”
The company was hoping to commercialize a sodium-ion battery, which it claimed would offer significant advantages over traditional lithium-ion batteries, including much quicker recharge times, enhanced safety, and higher power density.
The company stated that it could play a crucial role in the data center sector, offering a more dispatchable and secure option for companies seeking to decarbonize their operations.
Data centers have increasingly looked to integrate battery storage systems into their operations.
Several have backed more experimental long-duration storage options, including Google, which in July signed a long-term partnership with Energy Dome to support multiple commercial deployments worldwide to help scale the company’s CO2 battery technology.
Read the orginal article: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/us-sodium-ion-battery-developer-natron-energy-shutters-operations/
