Ore Energy, Budget Thuis announce 1 GWh iron-air storage deal

Ore Energy, a Netherlands-based iron-air storage developer, has agreed to supply Dutch energy supplier Budget Thuis with 1 GWh of LDES, marking the first such offtake between an iron-air provider and a European energy supplier, with a committed 400 MWh first phase scheduled for delivery in 2028.

Iron-air batteries store energy by reversing the rusting process. Surplus renewable electricity converts iron oxide back into metallic iron during charging, and the iron rusts in a controlled reaction during discharge, releasing electricity, according to Ore Energy. The company said its systems use only iron, water, and air – no lithium or cobalt – and are designed to store energy for 24 to 100 hours.

The agreement begins with a committed 400 MWh first phase, scheduled for delivery in 2028, according to the companies. Budget Thuis, part of the Nuts Groep and one of the largest energy suppliers in the Netherlands with more than 1 million customers, said the deployment is intended to provide customers with more stable and affordable electricity as the Dutch grid becomes more dependent on wind power.

Aytaç Yilmaz, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Ore Energy, said European grids are already curtailing clean power at scale while remaining dependent on fossil fuels to cover gaps that short-duration batteries cannot bridge, since those systems shift solar output by only a few hours rather than covering the multi-day periods wind-heavy grids require.

“We believe iron-air will become as important for wind as lithium-ion has been for solar,” said Yilmaz.

Annemarie Buitelaar, CEO of Budget Thuis, said the agreement is meant to reduce the company’s exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices while giving customers access to cleaner, more predictable electricity over time. Buitelaar said Budget Thuis is committing to 1 GWh of iron-air storage across its portfolio because the technology is designed for long-duration use cases that conventional batteries are not built to cover.

The agreement follows two grid-connected deployments of Ore Energy’s technology in Europe. An EDF pilot, conducted from August to November 2025, demonstrated that the system could store and discharge energy for up to four days under utility conditions, according to Ore Energy. The company had previously deployed a grid-connected installation in Delft, Netherlands, to validate integration with European distribution infrastructure.

Without sufficient grid investment, as much as 310 TWh of renewable electricity could be curtailed annually by 2040 because of grid congestion – equivalent to half the European Union’s 2022 wind and solar output – with congestion-management costs reaching as much as €103 billion ($117.04 billion) a year, according to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Europe curtailed approximately 72 TWh of mostly renewable electricity in 2024 because of grid bottlenecks, at a cost of roughly €8.9 billion, according to Aurora Energy Research.

A scenario analysis conducted by TU Berlin using the PyPSA-Eur modeling framework found that a zero-carbon German power system optimized with iron-air storage at scale could require approximately 32% less wind and solar capacity and curtail approximately 44% less renewable output than a scenario without long-duration storage, while lowering annual system costs. The findings are scenario-based, and outcomes will vary by grid configuration and deployment assumptions, according to the analysis.