Why the West Needs to Secure Heavy Rare Earths for the Future of Advanced Manufacturing

Gridmatic, a leading AI-enabled power marketer, announced a 10-megawatt (MW) solar power purchase agreement (PPA) in Texas with Mars Solar, a project managed and co-owned by Sol Systems, a leading Independent Power Producer committed to building, owning, and managing clean energy infrastructure that benefits local communities.

The project, located in ERCOT, will directly support Gridmatic’s rapidly growing commercial and industrial (C&I) retail business by providing competitively priced, carbon-free electricity. Optimized through Gridmatic’s AI-based market forecasting, a portion of the solar output will serve EdgeConneX, a global data center operator and sustainability leader, that recently renewed its partnership with Gridmatic to continue receiving hourly matched clean energy.

“This PPA adds reliable, carbon-free capacity to help us meet the growing energy needs of our retail customers,” said Jackson Vo, President of Retail at Gridmatic. “Sol Systems has been an exceptional partner—equally committed to driving meaningful impact, which makes this collaboration especially rewarding.”

“We’re proud to partner with Gridmatic to advance new retail clean energy offerings—such as hourly matching—for data center customers like EdgeConneX,” said Andrew Grin, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions, at Sol Systems. “This collaboration reflects our commitment to partnerships that deliver impactful solutions for today’s forward-looking energy buyers.”

“Our continued partnership with Gridmatic reflects our commitment to leading-edge sustainability,” said Phillip Marangella, Chief Marketing and Product Officer at EdgeConneX. “Hourly matching of clean energy is a critical step toward truly accountable decarbonization, and Gridmatic enables us to achieve that with precision.”

Gridmatic’s AI-powered approach to forecasting, bidding, and load management allows it to offer retail electricity contracts that optimize both cost and carbon. The company continues to expand its presence in Texas, helping C&I customers access high-quality clean energy through innovative contract structures.

Gridmatic | https://www.gridmatic.com/

Sol Systems | https://www.solsystems.com/

EdgeConneX | https://www.edgeconnex.com/

ESS Tech, Inc. (“ESS” or the “Company”) (NYSE:GWH), a leading manufacturer of iron flow long-duration energy storage (LDES) systems for commercial- and utility-scale applications, achieved significant technical milestones in June far ahead of schedule. These milestones include dramatic improvements from a new material substitution within the core ESS stack technology. The results demonstrate 12.2 hour duration at rated power and 17.8 hour duration at reduced power. The results also demonstrate higher round trip efficiency (RTE), cycling durability, and iron plating robustness, representing an 18-month product roadmap acceleration. This improvement not only increases the value of the iron flow battery faster than expected, but also reduces material costs, accelerating the Company’s cost down objectives. For customers, the RTE increase translates to more energy and lower operating costs with a 6.7% charge time improvement and 6.3% additional input energy per day at standard conditions. Moreover, the increased energy capacity aligns with the market on maximizing clean energy captured and consumed, moving ESS closer to delivering green baseload power, everyday.

These advancements directly support the Company’s strategic pivot to execute on a rigorous and accelerated timeline utilizing agile build principles. “We are in a position where we have to do things better, faster, cheaper. I am pleased to report that our shift in strategy is yielding operational efficiencies with significantly reduced cash requirements and technical results that align with the voice of our customers. We continue to make progress on key customer contracts for our U.S. manufactured, scalable Energy BaseTM solution, which further supports ongoing discussions with potential capital providers and available financing options to execute on our business plan,” said Kelly Goodman, Interim CEO of ESS.

ESS Tech | www.essinc.com

Leap, a leading virtual power plant (VPP) platform, and National Grid, one of world’s largest energy utilities, announced the expansion of their grid services collaboration to selected National Grid facilities in Massachusetts. Building on a successful pilot project in New York, this initiative will enable the Massachusetts facilities to easily access virtual power plant (VPP) opportunities that help advance the state’s climate goals.

Through Leap’s software-only solution, select National Grid office buildings in Massachusetts will participate in the state’s Clean Peak Standard and ConnectedSolutions grid services programs. This will lower the buildings’ electricity usage during periods of grid strain.

“We’re proud to expand our collaboration with National Grid and bring the advantages of VPP solutions to these Massachusetts facilities,” said Thomas Folker, Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Leap. “National Grid’s program underscores the immense potential of using grid-interactive buildings as resources to strengthen and decarbonize the energy system.”

At National Grid’s most recent NextGrid Alliance Summit in Boston, Folker joined senior officials from the U.S. Department of Energy for a breakout session on how VPPs can help reduce customer costs and balance grid demand. Folker shared insights from Leap’s initiative facilitating VPP participation for National Grid’s New York facilities. The annual Summit brings together utilities, regulators and startups to focus on innovative solutions for grid transformation.

“By operating our office buildings as a virtual power plant, National Grid will enhance local grid resilience and lower carbon emissions, benefiting Massachusetts residents and advancing the state’s climate goals,” said Amanda Downey, VP of New England Operations Support at National Grid. “It's important to walk the walk and continue demonstrating the critical role distributed energy solutions can play in the energy transition.”

Leap’s technology enables distributed energy resources (DERs) such as smart thermostats, EV chargers, and HVAC systems to easily participate in energy markets. By aggregating loads from DERs into virtual power plants, Leap enables operators to balance the grid with less reliance on fossil-fueled “peaker” plants.

Massachusetts’ Clean Peak Energy Standard program offers incentives to clean technologies that boost energy supply or reduce demand during seasonal periods of peak demand. ConnectedSolutions provides incentives to residential and commercial electric customers that allow their excess energy to be used as virtual power plants during times of peak demand.

National Grid Partners, the utility’s venture investment and innovation arm, is an investor in Leap. The organization invests in startups whose technology has potential to help National Grid's business units accelerate the energy transition.​

Leap | https://www.leap.energy/

National Grid Partners | ngpartners.com

It all started on June 20, 1945, when Günter Fronius officially advertised that he would be offering maintenance services for radio and electrical appliances out of a hotel. Not long after, the trained electrical engineer had a revolutionary idea: He built a device for recharging car batteries, allowing them to be used for longer. This first Fronius product was a big hit, and was followed by innovative chargers for industrial applications such as forklift batteries. The company’s success story had begun.

“If you look at the conditions at the time, our beginnings came down to innovative strength, boldness, and team spirit. Resources were in short supply, but that sparked my grandfather’s inventive spirit and drove him to make the best possible use of what he had to work with, to make it repairable and affordable for a broad sector of the population,” says Elisabeth Engelbrechtsmüller-Strauß, Fronius CEO and granddaughter of the company founder.

Success thanks to perseverance

Just five years in, Günter Fronius expanded the company’s range to include welding transformers. This move laid the groundwork for Fronius to grow into a substantial, medium-sized industrial company. In 1980 Günter Fronius handed over the reins to the next generation, Brigitte Strauß and Klaus Fronius. They launched a program of growth and international expansion that delivered innovative welding solutions and led to the founding of numerous subsidiaries all over the world—of which there are now 37. Starting in 1992 Fronius also turned its attention to solar energy, which was considered alternative at the time but is now indispensable in the energy industry.

“Renewable energy is a driving force for us, so we are continually working on solutions that link up the electricity, heating, cooling, and mobility sectors to achieve our vision of 24 hours of sun,” says Engelbrechtsmüller-Strauß, who took over the management of the company from her mother and uncle in 2012.

Success thanks to progress

Through its products and solutions, the technology company has helped to drive economic progress worldwide, thus contributing significantly to the growth of other companies, for example in the automotive industry. The 20th anniversary of Cold Metal Transfer (CMT) represents a key milestone in this context. By introducing this innovative welding process, Fronius ushered in a paradigm shift in welding technology. For the first time ever, CMT made it possible to thermally join galvanized steel and aluminum sheets, as well as joining wafer-thin aluminum sheets from a thickness of 0.3 millimeters. 

Fronius currently operates in two strategic business areas. Fronius Welding continues to revolutionize welding technology, while Solar & Energy is moving ever closer to its goal of making the best possible use of solar energy as well as optimizing battery charging systems for intralogistics—based on the idea of the company’s founder and the very first Fronius product. While these two lines of business may appear very different at first glance, the company’s team of 7,000 specialists worldwide continues to pursue the same clear mission, just as it has for the past 80 years: Researching and controlling electricity as the fuel of the future. “And we want to make this a future worth living—for us and future generations,” says Engelbrechtsmüller-Strauß.

Success thanks to foresight and vision

As well as looking back, the company’s anniversary is an occasion to think about the future. Fronius will continue to research ways of converting electrical current as well as developing, producing, and pushing forward with targeted solutions in this field. While the company is continually breaking new ground in this regard, the managing director notes that certain things are set in stone: “No one really knows what the future will bring. But we will remain financially independent and continue boosting Austria’s standing as a business location—and thus value creation for our products in Europe. Our drive to research will be part of everything we do, always focusing on quality and user-friendliness.”

Fronius | https://www.fronius.com/en/

Opoura has been chosen by GOLDBECK SOLAR to deliver the hybrid master power plant controller for the Zurndorf project — one of the largest hybrid renewable setups in Austria to date. The project combines 75 MW of new solar PV with 71 MW of existing wind power, spread across nine parks and three medium-voltage grid connection points.

“This is a technically complex project — with three separate MV grid connection points and nine sub-parks across wind and solar. To succeed and bring it all together, we rely on the good collaboration gained through several projects completed with Opoura and on the scalability of their hybrid power plant controller,” says Christian Klemt, Project Engineer at GOLDBECK SOLAR.

Located in Burgenland near the Hungarian border, the project makes smart use of existing infrastructure by adding new solar generation to grid-connected wind assets. In this way, the hurdle of securing new grid capacity is avoided. However, the hybrid setup adds its own complexity — and that’s where Opoura’s OneView® Hybrid Control Unit comes in. Built for hybrid environments, the platform delivers real-time, unified control across all assets, no matter the mix.

“Hybrid projects like this one represent the essence of our control capabilities and what we see as the future of renewable energy. But projects like these also come with a high degree of complexity. It takes close coordination, deep technical understanding, and strong collaboration to bring everything together. We are proud to support GOLDBECK SOLAR with a scalable control platform tailored to the realities of hybrid setups, and we value the trust built through our ongoing partnership,” says Frank Riemer, Sales Director DACH at Opoura.

With more than 15 projects completed in Austria and over 200 hybrid systems deployed globally, Opoura was chosen for its ability to blend technical depth with unique hands-on experience.

Implementation of the Zurndorf project is scheduled for the second half of 2025.

GOLDBECK SOLAR | https://goldbecksolar.com/en/

Ascent Solar Technologies (Nasdaq: ASTI) (“Ascent” or the “Company”), the leading U.S. innovator in the design and manufacture of featherweight, flexible, and durable CIGS thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solutions, announced that the company is commencing work on a Collaborative Agreement Notice (CAN) with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and support from NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) to efficiently advance capabilities for receiving beamed power using CIGS PV modules.

The CAN program targets rapid iterative development to mature commercial products for enabling mission architectures to include beamed power. The public-private partnership includes Ascent contributing design and prototyping services with NASA providing technical subject matter expertise and test services through combined MSFC & GRC efforts. This 12-month technology maturation will result in commercial products being made available for distributed space power infrastructure, drastically lowering the cost, complexity and risk of NASA missions.

Launched in 2023, NASA’s Psyche Mission has demonstrated deep space laser communications across 19 million miles of space, validating the efficacy of tight-beaming technologies over vast distances. Bench-testing conducted by NASA MSFC in 2024 demonstrated receiving beamed power using Ascent’s commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products as a preceding validation of the technology prior to the CAN award.

The CAN is evaluating the ability of Ascent’s CIGS PV modules to generate power while illuminated by energy-dense beams of light, with goals to convert more usable power from the equivalent of tens of Earth’s Sun. The ability to remotely receive 10x more power on-demand while using the same PV cells tasked with collecting sunlight can significantly reduce solar array mass and volume required to meet mission power needs. In practice, this suggests that beamed-power architectures can lead to reductions of both spacecraft mass and volume budgets. These size efficiencies will result in agency payloads proportionally increasing relative to the spacecraft as a whole, thus allowing the prioritization of more technology, science and exploration within limited mission budgets.

Planetary missions require advanced surface mobility logistics and depend on power generation subsystems that comprise a substantial proportion of the landed downmass. It is here where Ascent technology poses a potential solution for reducing spacecraft power system mass and volume needs, creating a significant impact on the overall mission.

The CAN’s goals include increasing the array power output while lengthening the operational duty cycles to verify that improvements to this emerging technology can help enable NASA to effectively and efficiently achieve the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions, Artemis campaign to the Moon, and planetary science objectives. This includes enabling surviving the lunar night as well as powering remote access to areas of scientific interest such as cold traps and permanently shadowed regions on the Moon (PSRs) where water, the potential key to lunar in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), is believed to be located in high concentrations. Ultimately, this could lead to an order of magnitude reduction in the downmass required to access expensive space exploration and science mission destinations. The going rate for robotic landers on the Moon is between 6 & 7-figures per kilogram delivered to the lunar surface, equating to upwards of tens of millions of potential savings per lander mission.

“This collaboration with NASA further bolsters our longstanding belief that the unique capabilities of thin-film solar technology will play an integral role in overcoming the challenges of reliably converting solar energy and also receive beamed power in a breadth of harsh space environments,” said Paul Warley, CEO of Ascent Solar Technologies. “Through our work together, we plan to bring an even more capable product line to market that will reduce mission costs and complexities while improving PV efficiency, making our technology a crucial piece of future space missions.”

This cross-NASA-center teaming is demonstrative of rallying together with commercial partners to achieve the agency’s broader Lunar program goals. Beamed power stands to allow NASA program dollars to accomplish more at a fraction of the cost. With 55 countries having signed the Artemis Accords since 2020, the establishment of critical Lunar infrastructure with less resources required facilitates achieving more together with international partners.

Ascent Solar Technologies | https://www.ascentsolar.com

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | https://www.nasa.gov/marshall/

NASA Glenn Research Center | https://www.nasa.gov/glenn/

Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: PLTR), the world's leading provider of enterprise operating systems, announced a strategic product partnership with The Nuclear Company, which is leading gigawatt-scale deployment of nuclear power across America and pioneering the modernization of nuclear construction. Together, the companies will co-develop and deploy NOS, the first AI-driven, real-time software system built exclusively for nuclear construction. NOS will transform the construction of nuclear reactors into a data-driven, predictable process, enabling The Nuclear Company to build plants faster and safer for less.

Despite the need for nuclear’s firm, clean baseload power, the biggest challenges facing the industry, which creates high-paying head-of-household jobs, are that nuclear projects are almost always over budget and behind schedule. To be built on Palantir’s Foundry platform, NOS will simplify the construction process for The Nuclear Company. NOS will provide:

• Schedule Certainty: With NOS, construction teams will receive instantaneous, context-aware guidance — from the availability of certain parts and materials to the weather — that adapts to real-time constraints, so teams can work rather than wait.
• Cost Savings: A supply chain will track and verify all parts, as well as prevent shipment errors, material shortages and lost documentation. And when delays appear imminent, NOS will initiate backup options or prioritize other work in its place.
• Problem Prevention: Sensors placed across construction sites can feed data in real-time to a digital twin model of the site, allowing leaders to track progress with precision and compare what’s actually happening to the original plans. By using predictive analytics, teams can spot potential problems early, catching issues before they become expensive mistakes.
• Regulatory Confidence: AI will turn a traditionally labor- and time-intensive task to a process that becomes nearly instantaneous. Large language models can rapidly review tens of thousands of documents, while AI agents trained on regulatory requirements will help validate the data recorded automatically at construction sites.

“The future of energy security and sovereignty will be shaped by our ability to deploy advanced technologies at scale,” said Mike Gallagher, Head of Defense at Palantir Technologies. “This partnership marks the first time Palantir’s software will be used to help power the next generation of nuclear energy infrastructure. By integrating our operating system with The Nuclear Company’s ambitious vision, we are laying the foundation for a new era of resilient, intelligent and secure energy systems in the United States and beyond.”

The latest project in Palantir’s Warp Speed initiative, NOS will be delivered by a dedicated engineering team embedded with The Nuclear Company’s construction and engineering staff, all working to unify previously siloed nuclear data across construction, supply chain, workforce, engineering, and safety systems. The partnership comes as China continues to outpace the United States in new nuclear, announcing 10 GW of reactors annually while America has built just 2 GW in the last three decades. In late May, President Donald J. Trump issued a series of executive orders calling for 400 GW of nuclear reactors by 2050 to ensure America has the baseload power required to lead the world in AI. The orders also call for 10 large-scale reactors to be under construction by 2030.

“Our mission is to build nuclear power the way America once built its greatest infrastructure projects — fast, safe and at scale,” said The Nuclear Company Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb. “With Palantir, we have a technology partner who shares our sense of urgency and understands that nuclear isn’t just an energy issue — it’s a national security imperative. NOS is how we finally break the cycle of delays, deliver a new energy future, and protect America’s nuclear leadership from China, so we don’t lose it like we did manufacturing decades ago.”

Palantir | https://www.palantir.com

The Nuclear Company | www.thenuclearcompany.com