Old EV Batteries Are Becoming the Grid's Best Friend

Moment Energy raises $40M to build North America's largest second-life EV battery gigafactory in Texas

15 May 2026

Moment Energy, a Canadian battery storage company, has raised $40m in a Series B funding round, bringing total capital raised to more than $100m. Proceeds will be used to scale a manufacturing facility in Texas designed to convert retired electric vehicle batteries into commercial energy storage systems.

Evok Innovations led the round, with participation from Liberty Mutual Investments, W23 Global Fund, and Acario, the venture arm of Tokyo Gas. Existing backers Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund and In-Q-Tel also contributed.

At the core of Moment's model is the sourcing of EV battery packs that retain between 70 and 80 per cent of their original capacity. These are assessed, certified, and reassembled into storage systems for data centres, hospitals, factories, and power grids across the United States and Canada. Mercedes-Benz supplies retired packs under an existing partnership.

Scaled toward roughly 1 gigawatt-hour of annual output, the Texas facility is expected to create around 250 jobs. A parallel operation continues in British Columbia. Moment says its systems store up to 164 megawatt-hours per acre, with a cycling cost of three cents per kilowatt-hour, a figure it positions as competitive with conventional grid infrastructure.

Safety certifications under UL 1974 and UL 9540A have been obtained, allowing deployment in standard commercial settings without special regulatory approvals.

Rapid expansion of AI-powered data centres is placing new strain on electricity grids, and second-life battery storage is increasingly seen as a lower-cost bridge. Repurposed EV packs are projected to grow from around 30 gigawatt-hours globally in 2025 to more than 340 gigawatt-hours by 2030, according to industry estimates.

Operational challenges persist. Retired battery packs contain cells that degrade at different rates, requiring careful testing and balancing before reuse. Certification standards for second-life systems also vary by US state, which could slow deployment even for approved suppliers. Whether manufacturing capacity can keep pace with accelerating demand from utilities and hyperscalers remains an open question.