This Dutch Startup Just Raised $43M to Store Solar Power for 100 Hours

Jan de Vries · 2026-08-04

Ore Energy, an Amsterdam-based startup, just closed a $43 million Series A round to scale its iron-air battery technology. These aren't your typical lithium-ion cells—they're grid-scale batteries designed to store renewable power for up to 100 hours. That's a game-changer for anyone who's ever worried about what happens when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. The round was led by Plural and HV, with Positron Ventures also chipping in. All told, the company has now raised $61 million since its founding in 2023. Not bad for a team that's been around for just a couple of years. ### Why Iron-Air Batteries Matter Here's the core problem: wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of new electricity, but they're inherently unpredictable. On a windy day, you might generate more power than the grid can handle. On a calm winter evening, you're left scrambling. That mismatch costs Europe real money every single day. Ore Energy's solution is elegantly simple. The batteries work by rusting and unrusting iron electrodes—a process that stores and releases energy. The materials are about as basic as it gets: iron, water, and air. No lithium, no cobalt, no expensive imported rare earths. The entire supply chain can stay within Europe, which is a huge deal for energy security. ### The Numbers Behind the Hype - Global electricity demand from data centers is projected to more than double to around 945 TWh by 2030. - AI-optimized data centers are expected to more than quadruple in the same period. - AI training and inference create massive, rapid swings in power demand, making storage absolutely critical. Aytac Yilmaz, co-founder and CEO, put it bluntly: "Expensive energy is the biggest barrier to growth, something European businesses and politicians know only too well. Affordable, renewable baseload power is the foundation for the next generation of manufacturing, AI infrastructure and industrial growth globally." ### What the Funding Will Do With this capital, Ore Energy plans to build its first manufacturing facility. The goal is to hit gigawatt-hour scale production by 2028. That facility will validate the manufacturing process at scale, supported by a hiring push across manufacturing, commercial, and operational roles. The company isn't starting from zero. They've already signed a 1GWh deal with Budget Thuis, a Dutch challenger utility. Pilot projects with French utility EDF have also shown promising results. ### The Bigger Picture Ian Hogarth, partner at Plural, sees this as transformative. "Long-duration energy storage is one of the biggest unsolved challenges in the energy transition," he said. "By getting so much more out of every unit of wind we already have, Ore Energy has the potential to become one of the world's most important energy companies." Co-located with wind farms, these batteries reduce curtailment—when renewable energy goes to waste because the grid can't absorb it. They make better use of existing infrastructure and provide the firm, round-the-clock output needed to replace gas plants. The bottom line? This isn't just about one startup raising money. It's about proving that long-duration storage can work commercially, at scale, using materials we already have in abundance. If Ore Energy pulls this off, it could reshape how we think about renewable power—not just in Europe, but globally.