Samsung SDI's Indiana grid order, Solid Power's new line, Stem's review

Four storage and solar companies made news between October 21 and 26, 2026: a grid-storage order to be built at an Indiana plant announced for electric-vehicle batteries, a solid-electrolyte line in Colorado, a sale review at Stem, and a funding round for electronics that sit inside a solar panel.

Samsung SDI books a grid order for an EV battery plant

Samsung SDI America, the Korean battery maker's Michigan-based subsidiary, signed a 1 GWh agreement to supply energy storage systems to Alpha Omega Power, a Fengate-owned battery developer and independent power producer, the companies said on October 26, 2026. With an initial contract signed late in 2025, the two deals total 1.5 GWh. Alpha Omega plans to use the systems in projects in the WECC and ERCOT markets that are scheduled to begin construction in 2027.

The product is the Samsung Battery Box 1.7, nickel cobalt aluminum (NCA) cells in a 20-foot container that Samsung says has 17% higher energy density than its SBB 1.5 predecessor in the same footprint. All cells and modules will be made at the StarPlus Energy plant in Kokomo, Indiana, and delivered by the end of 2026. StarPlus is Samsung SDI's joint venture with Stellantis, and when the partners announced a second Kokomo gigafactory in October 2023, Samsung SDI chief executive Yoon-ho Choi said it would give the company its "largest production base for electric-vehicle batteries in North America." The order announced October 26 sends Kokomo cells into stationary containers designed for 25 years of continuous use. Samsung also says it is the only non-Chinese supplier of prismatic storage batteries in North America.

Solid Power starts commissioning a continuous electrolyte line

Solid Power has begun commissioning MOBIUS, a continuous manufacturing pilot line for sulfide-based solid electrolyte at its SP2 facility in Thornton, Colorado, the company said on October 26. The line is designed to add 45 metric tons of electrolyte capacity a year, bringing SP2 to about 75 metric tons, which Solid Power puts at a 150% increase. Site acceptance testing of primary powder processing is complete, full site acceptance testing is expected by the end of October 2026, and plant validation and operational startup are planned for the fourth quarter of 2026. MOBIUS was built as part of a project supported by a Department of Energy assistance agreement providing up to $50 million in federal funding.

The line is how Solid Power means to become a materials supplier: MOBIUS will support material qualification with automotive and cell manufacturing partners, the company says, as it works toward selling electrolyte to cell makers and licensing its cell designs. Solid Power believes the line uses the world's first continuous manufacturing process for sulfide-based solid electrolyte, and expects continuous production to give tighter process control and more consistent output than batch processing. The capacity comes in tons of electrolyte rather than gigawatt-hours, which is still more of a figure than Saft gave for its Bordeaux solid-state lines on October 19.

Stem opens a review that includes a sale

Stem's board has started a formal review of strategic alternatives, the company said on October 26, and will consider options including continuing its standalone plan, selling certain assets, selling the company, a merger, a refinancing or a recapitalization. Guggenheim Securities is the financial advisor. The board has set no timetable, says there can be no assurance the review produces a transaction, and does not plan to disclose further developments unless it approves a specific transaction or decides disclosure is required or appropriate.

"Our priorities are unchanged," chief executive Arun Narayanan said, adding that the team remains focused on customers and on "supporting the more than 38 gigawatts of solar and 1.8 gigawatt hours of storage that rely on PowerTrack, and executing our plan." PowerTrack is Stem's asset monitoring and optimization software, and Narayanan told customers, partners and employees to expect "the same level of service, support and innovation from Stem throughout this process."

Optivolt raises $32 million to put power electronics inside the panel

Optivolt, a San Francisco power electronics company, raised a $32 million Series A led by VXI Capital, bringing its total raised to $42 million, it said on October 21. Its Power Balancer, built into the panel, shifts energy among cell groups in real time to recover output lost to shade, weather, dirt and uneven degradation. It replaces the bypass diodes and builds in rapid shutdown and monitoring, so a system can be designed without separate optimizers, microinverters or rapid-shutdown devices, according to the company, which says more than 20,000 panels with the device have shipped.

The performance claims are Optivolt's: 99.4% conversion efficiency under typical conditions, and up to six times as much power as panels with bolted-on optimizers under defined shade scenarios in its internal testing. Among the investors is Paul Nahi, founding chief executive of Enphase, which in his words managed power "at the output of each panel." Optivolt's pitch is that the job belongs inside it.