Ford Motor Company he has been working quietly on the secret side. The automaker announced Monday the formal launch of Ford Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary that will manufacture and sell integrated battery energy storage systems in the US to utility, large industrial customers and — perhaps most importantly — data centers. Ford hopes to use at least 20GWh of storage capacity annually, with first customer deliveries scheduled for late 2027.
The pivot has been telegraphed since Ford and SK On killed off their $11.4 billion BlueOval SK joint venture last year, splitting factories and leaving Ford with the largest, most underutilized Kentucky battery plant and a decision to make. Retrofitting that Glendale plant to generate grid-scale energy storage is the kind of move that seems obvious in retrospect — although “obvious” and “done well” are different things. Ford still has to show that they know the latter.
The DC Block is a shipping container sized battery built with LFP prismatic cells.
Ford Energy DC Block
Ford Energy’s flagship product is the DC Block, a standard 20-meter system built around 512Ah lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, prismatic cells. Two configurations will eventually be offered — the FE-250 (two-hour duration) and the FE-450 (four-hour duration) — both delivering 5.45MWh of rated power in the 1,040- to 1,500-volt DC range. Ford says it will outfit the units with liquid-cooled thermal management and a proprietary battery management system. It targets a 20-year service life, with predictable performance and ease of service built into the design.
LFP battery chemistry is often considered the budget choice for EVs, due to its lower energy density (which means increased weight) compared to lithium-ion tech. However, for static applications where weight is not a concern, LFP’s improved thermal stability and long duty cycles make it a smart, economical choice. It is also free from the cobalt and nickel supply chain headaches that plague the EV battery economy.
Ford Energy’s operations will cover the full stack, from the production of electrode coils through module and container assembly, as well as sales and service. That’s the main goal of the subsidiary that came to fruition this week.
Ford leans heavily on the domestic manufacturing angle, and for good reason. Battery projects that qualify for the Investment Tax Credit and meet domestic content requirements are very attractive to utilities and data center builders navigating today’s uncertain policy environment. The Kentucky plant, well positioned to hit those ITC thresholds, could be the secret sauce Ford needs to succeed.
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Ford, struggling with lower-than-expected EV sales, is turning to battery storage and data center power demand to slow down its capacity to produce more batteries. Where have I heard that before?
The market is big, but the competition is huge
There is a strong wind behind the big electric projects that Ford will benefit from. The US is expected to add 24 gigawatts of new battery storage in use by 2026 — nearly double the record 15GW installed in 2025 — with industry forecasts pointing to more than 600GWh on the US grid by 2030. The construction of the AI data center is driving this electricity demand at a pace that matches the infrastructure. Battery storage, which can act as a buffer between demand spikes and the grid, is becoming increasingly critical for large power users.
Moving to backup data centers is a move that may not be the most popular among those of us who feel the pressure that data centers have placed on everything from. computer memory and energy values in available water. Ford makes money on demand, which is, frankly, eating the grid alive. However, from a business perspective, the conversion of the Kentucky gigafactory is a smart reuse of assets, especially given the decline in Ford’s EV sales.
Ford’s annual target of 20GWh will amount to more energy if the battery-cum-battery maker achieves its goals. At the same time, that’s less than half of what Tesla plans to produce from the Houston Megapack gigafactory alone. Tesla has rolled out 46.7GWh of storage capacity by 2025, and its Megapack 3 — which promises 5MWh per unit with volume production starting later this year — is a product the industry will benchmark against. Ford is entering a market where the competition has an operating average of years, a mature software stack and customer relationships that have taken time to build.
However, the market is large enough that a reliable secondary supplier with in-house manufacturing expertise is not an unreasonable proposition. Ford will need more than a nice spec sheet; service infrastructure, software and trade relationships take time to build, and the window doesn’t stay open forever. Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen Ford take on an impossible and surprising challenge.
