Auto giant Ford has formally entered the battery storage market with the launch of operations that are set to see at least 20GWh of capacity deployed annually.
Ford Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company, said on May 11 it expects to start BESS deliveries from late next year.
Lisa Drake was appointed president of Ford Energy in January this year, after most recently working as VP of technology platform programmes and EV systems.
She said the new unit will provide US-assembled BESS systems for utilities, data centers and large industrial and commercial customers in the US, having previously announced plans to invest roughly $2 billion to stand up the business.
Operations will span full battery cell manufacturing, including production of electrode coils and the assembly of modules and containers.
“For the better part of a year, we have operated quietly to build a foundation for this business,” Drake said.
“We haven’t just been planning; we have been executing — securing supply chains, readying our manufacturing sites and aligning our technology with the massive demand for domestic energy storage.”
Ford Energy’s flagship product, the Ford Energy DC block, is a standardised 20ft containerised BESS designed around 512Ah LFP prismatic cells. The company will offer two configurations — the FE-250 (two-hour system) and the FE-450 (a four-hour system).
Both integrate advanced LFP prismatic battery technology, liquid-cooled thermal management and battery management systems.
Drake said the DC block had been designed for the metrics that matter most to customers — predictable lifetime performance, ease of service and thermal stability — designed for 20-year performance.
Ford’s existing US battery manufacturing capacity in Glendale, Kentucky, will be repurposed for the new business.
Drake said the manufacturing and supply chain strategy supports a changing regulatory environment for battery energy storage and aligns with US investment tax credit requirements. It also meets material assistance and domestic content standards relevant to grid-scale storage.
“US demand for dispatchable, bankable energy storage is accelerating. The convergence of data center growth, renewable energy integration, and grid resilience requirements has created a gap in the market… that is the gap Ford Energy is built to fill.”
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