EnerVenue has secured its first commercial order at multi-megawatt-hour scale for its lithium-free aqueous metal battery technology.
A major Chinese oil and gas producer has ordered 26 containerised Energy Prism units with a combined storage capacity of 11MWh for an operating oilfield in northern China.
The system will store electricity generated by an onsite solar array and supply it to the oilfield when required. The first three units are scheduled to ship in December 2026, with the remaining 23 due in March 2027.
EnerVenue said the operator selected its aqueous (water-based) battery chemistry after evaluating it against the site’s fire and process-safety requirements. The company has not disclosed the customer’s identity or the precise location of the project.
EnerVenue chief executive Henning Rath said: “An oil and gas producer does not put new technology on a working site unless it is completely satisfied that the safety case is sound, and this customer examined everything before choosing us.
“A battery designed to run for 30 years is a piece of infrastructure, and infrastructure gets judged on how it performs across its whole life rather than on the day it is delivered.”
The Energy Prism systems will use EnerVenue’s fourth-generation Aqueous Metal Cells (AMCs) and will be delivered as complete containerised units for connection to the site’s power-conversion equipment.
EnerVenue claims its nickel-hydrogen-based chemistry does not present the same thermal-runaway and fire-propagation risks as lithium-ion batteries. The water-based electrolyte is non-flammable, and the cells contain neither lithium nor rare-earth materials.
The AMC has completed UL 9540A testing without cell-level fire propagation, according to the company.
EnerVenue chief technology officer Dr Majid Keshavarz said: “While thermal runaway is generally defined as a self-accelerating sequence of exothermic reactions, the AMC chemistry does not produce the same progression of events that leads to ignition, fire, explosion or propagation to adjacent cells.”
The company rates the cell for 30,000 cycles—equivalent to as many as three cycles per day for 30 years—and says installations require no scheduled capacity augmentation or active cooling. It also claims fire-suppression equipment may be unnecessary where local codes permit.
EnerVenue’s first AMC installation, a 150kWh system combining onsite renewable generation with electric-bus charging, has operated in Jintan, Changzhou, since November 2025. The northern China oilfield project represents its first commercial contract in the multi-MWh range.
Cells for the order will be manufactured at EnerVenue’s new high-volume production line in Changzhou, Jiangsu, which is scheduled to open tomorrow, Thursday 24 September.
The plant will initially have annual capacity of 250MWh, equivalent to around 300 cells per day at full automation. EnerVenue plans to increase capacity to 1GWh in 2027 and reach multi-GWh scale by 2028.
The company is also introducing three other products alongside Energy Prism: the 30kWh Energy Core for distributed and remote installations; the 108kWh Energy Cube for buildings and data centres; and the 150kWh Energy Rack for commercial, industrial and grid-connected applications.
Aqueous metal technology derived from orbital nickel-hydrogen batteries
EnerVenue’s technology is derived from nickel-hydrogen batteries used in spacecraft including the Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station. The company said it has adapted the chemistry using lower-cost materials for terrestrial stationary-storage applications.
The Changzhou manufacturing expansion is backed by a $300 million Series B extension announced in March 2026 and led by Full Vision Capital. EnerVenue said it has raised more than $700 million and has customer projects in China, Australia, the US, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
Photo: a concept image of EnerVenue’s containerised aqueous metal batteries (note: this image is not intended to represent the northern China installation)
Credit: EnerVenue
