Elevated Materials Lands DOE Backing for a 3.5 GW Lithium Film Plant
- FERC & Federal News Policy & Markets
Marin Holt
- 0
- 7 minutes read
- Federal award: $50 million
- Total facility cost: $100 million
- Planned annual capacity: 3.5 GW
- ELi shipped in past year: 250,000 meters
Elevated Materials will build a lithium film plant in California with $50 million in federal matching funds. The Santa Clara company confirmed the award on September 16, 2026. The award covers half of the $100 million the facility is expected to cost, and private investment covers the rest. The money comes from the Department of Energy’s Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing and Recycling programs. DOE split that round across seven companies on August 20. The plant would run at roughly 3.5 GW of annual capacity, turning out the company’s ELi ultra-thin lithium-metal films and pre-lithiated materials.
What the Plant Would Make
Elevated Materials was carved out of Applied Materials and sits in the TPG Rise Climate portfolio. It runs semiconductor-grade vacuum deposition to produce wide, continuous rolls of ultra-thin lithium. Lithium-metal anodes hold more energy than the graphite anodes in conventional lithium-ion cells, and they charge faster. Making them at width has been the hard part. Lithium is highly reactive, and holding an even thickness across a large format is difficult. The company says it shipped more than 250,000 meters of ELi over the past year. Those went to more than 30 customers across electric vehicles, consumer electronics, defense, aviation and grid-scale storage.
Where the Rest of the Round Went
DOE made three awards of $100 million and four of $50 million. Energy Tech reported that Lilac Solutions took the largest tier, for lithium extraction at the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Formation Holdings US and Nth Cycle took the other two. At the lower tier, Elevated Materials sits with Princeton NuEnergy, Arcanum Ventures and Coreshell Technologies. Princeton NuEnergy is building nickel recycling in Georgia. Coreshell works out of San Leandro. The round is funded under Executive Order 14154.
Why It Matters
For anyone buying grid-scale storage, the capacity figure is the one that matters, and it is the loosest number in the announcement. A materials plant has no power rating of its own. Neither the company nor the trade coverage says what that figure counts. It could describe the cell capacity the film is meant to enable, or something else. Treat it as a target, not a measurement.
A grant is also not a factory. Elevated Materials still has to raise and spend the other $50 million before any film comes off a production line. It has not named a site beyond California, given a construction start date, or said when the plant reaches full rate. DOE selected the project on August 20. The company confirmed it on September 16. That tells readers the money is committed and almost nothing about the schedule.
Critical Perspective
The award covers half of a $100 million plant, and the other half has not been raised or spent. Inside the same DOE round, Lilac Solutions took twice as much for a single lithium extraction site at the Great Salt Lake. pv magazine noted the selection lands alongside Antora Energy’s $550 million raise for US thermal storage manufacturing, roughly ten times the federal match here and all of it private. If private capital writes checks that size for storage manufacturing, what does $50 million in federal money actually change about this timeline?
