Sacramento Just Won the Battery Factory Sweepstakes

Sacramento just landed one of the most significant manufacturing announcements in the city’s history, and it’s happening right next to the airport.

Peak Energy, a battery startup founded in 2023 and led by veterans from Tesla, Enovix, and Fluence, announced Tuesday that it’s building its first major factory here in Sacramento—beating out Texas in the process. The company specializes in sodium-ion battery systems designed for grid-scale energy storage, a technology that CEO Landon Mossburg argues is fundamentally cheaper, safer, and cleaner than the lithium-ion batteries that currently dominate the market.

Here’s why this matters beyond the headline: Peak Energy already has over $1 billion in customer orders waiting to be fulfilled. They need to scale fast—deploying roughly $100 million in product next year alone—and they chose Sacramento specifically because the city could deliver both speed and talent. That’s not just good news for the company’s bottom line. It’s good news for you.

The facility is expected to create over 230 jobs in its first phase, with positions paying between $60,000 and $70,000 a year. That’s the largest battery manufacturing jobs announcement in Sacramento’s history. Greater Sacramento Economic Council CEO Barry Broome emphasized the significance for underserved communities, noting that these aren’t just jobs—they’re careers in a growing climate tech sector. SMUD played a key role in landing the company by offering an innovative prototyping and technology partnership, while the Sacramento Employment Training Agency and City Councilmember Eric Guerra are already working to fill those positions.

The climate angle is worth underscoring. Guerra, who also sits on the California Air Resources Board, pointed out that Sacramento met federal air quality attainment for the first time last year. Sodium-ion technology allows the region to capture solar and wind energy when it’s abundant, then store and deploy it when needed—reducing reliance on fossil fuels that pump emissions across Sacramento and Yolo counties. In June, Peak Energy announced a partnership with General Motors to produce sodium-ion battery cells in Michigan starting in 2028, with production at the Sacramento facility beginning in the first quarter of 2027.

This is a rare moment where economic development, job creation, and environmental progress aren’t competing priorities—they’re aligned. Sacramento’s air is getting cleaner, its workforce is getting stronger, and a technology that could reshape how the grid stores energy is being built here. That’s the kind of story that reshapes a city’s future.