Meta Platforms has signed an agreement with ultra-long duration energy storage company Noon Energy to reserve up to 1 gigawatt and 100 gigawatt hours of storage capacity for its next generation artificial intelligence data centre infrastructure. The collaboration, announced on 21 April 2026, will begin with an initial 25 megawatt and 2.5 gigawatt hour project scheduled for completion by 2028, followed by a full scale supply contract. The deal is one of the largest corporate commitments to ultra-long duration energy storage disclosed to date and signals a shift in how hyperscale operators are planning to match renewable energy supply with round the clock AI compute demand.

 

The Structure of the Agreement

 

The two companies have set out a phased deployment model. The first phase is a 25 megawatt and 2.5 gigawatt hour project that will serve as both a demonstration of performance at commercial scale and a precursor to the larger contract. Following the successful completion of that initial project, Noon will begin delivering systems under a 1 gigawatt and 100 gigawatt hour supply agreement. This sequencing is commercially significant because it gives Meta the ability to verify performance before scaling, while giving Noon a clear pipeline of demand that supports manufacturing investment and supply chain development.

Energy storage contracts of this scale are typically structured to give the developer enough revenue certainty to finance the manufacturing capacity required to fulfil them. A 100 gigawatt hour reservation is large enough to support dedicated production lines and dedicated supplier relationships, which is one of the reasons the agreement is being described as transformative for the ultra-long duration energy storage category.

 

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How Ultra Long Duration Storage Differs From Conventional Batteries

 

The Noon Energy system is built on a modular, reversible solid oxide fuel cell architecture that provides 100 plus hours of continuous storage and discharge capacity. This is materially different from the lithium ion batteries that currently dominate grid scale energy storage deployments, which typically discharge over two to four hours before requiring recharge. Ultra-long duration storage is designed to cover the multi day periods during which wind and solar generation may be low, which is the central obstacle to running data centres on clean energy alone.

The technology uses abundant elements such as carbon and oxygen rather than relatively scarce metals such as lithium, nickel or cobalt. This material choice has both cost and supply chain implications. It reduces exposure to the price volatility and geopolitical concentration that affect battery metals, and it supports the possibility of large scale manufacturing expansion without bottlenecks in upstream mining. For a buyer such as Meta, the availability of a supply chain that is not dependent on lithium battery cell production provides diversification against a market that is already under demand pressure from electric vehicles and shorter duration grid storage.

 

Why Data Centres Are Emerging as the Natural Customer

 

Data centres are emerging as one of the strongest commercial use cases for ultra-long duration energy storage because of the specific operating requirements of the sector. AI training and inference workloads run continuously and cannot tolerate interruptions without significant commercial consequences. At the same time, hyperscale operators including Meta have public commitments to match their electricity consumption with clean energy sources, which creates tension with the intermittent nature of wind and solar generation.

Ultra-long duration storage resolves this tension by allowing operators to store clean energy generated during high output periods and discharge it during multi day lulls in renewable generation. Nat Sahlstrom, Vice President of Energy and Sustainability at Meta, framed the partnership as a way to bring data centres online faster by deploying reliable energy sources that deliver grid resilience and firm power. This language reflects a broader trend in which hyperscale operators are treating energy procurement as a critical path item in data centre build out timelines, rather than a downstream consideration.

 

The Strategic Significance for Noon Energy

 

Chris Graves, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Noon Energy, described the partnership as a monumental step toward realising the objectives behind the company's founding. The agreement represents more than a large commercial contract. It is validation from one of the world's largest data centre operators that 100 plus hour storage systems can play a role in powering AI infrastructure. This kind of endorsement is often a turning point for early stage climate technology companies because it unlocks the downstream capital required to scale manufacturing.

Noon Energy was founded in 2018 and has raised more than 45 million dollars in venture capital and government grants from investors including At One Ventures, Emerson Collective, Clean Energy Ventures, Aramco Ventures, Prime Impact Fund, Elemental Impact, Sabanci Climate Ventures, D3 Jubilee and the California Energy Commission. The diversity of the company's backers, including strategic energy investors and government agencies, reflects the wider policy and commercial interest in ultra-long duration storage as a missing piece of the clean energy transition.

 

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What the Partnership Signals for the Energy Storage Market

 

The Meta and Noon agreement is relevant for three reasons beyond the specifics of the two companies involved. First, it establishes a commercial benchmark for ultra-long duration energy storage contracts, which until now have been smaller and more pilot oriented. A 100 gigawatt hour reservation signals that hyperscale operators are prepared to commit at scale when the technology has been demonstrated at smaller volumes. Second, it indicates that the hyperscale data centre sector is moving from short term power purchase agreements for renewable energy into deeper infrastructure commitments that include storage and firm clean power. Third, it puts pressure on competing ultra-long duration storage companies, including flow battery, iron air and thermal storage developers, to secure comparable anchor customers.

For the broader net zero conversation, the agreement supports the emerging argument that AI infrastructure expansion can be reconciled with climate commitments, provided that the underlying energy infrastructure evolves quickly enough. The size of the Meta commitment provides a datapoint for regulators, investors and competing technology companies on how the intersection of AI demand and clean energy supply is being structured commercially.

 

Background and Next Steps

 

Noon Energy will begin development of the initial 25 megawatt and 2.5 gigawatt hour project in the near term, with completion targeted for 2028. Performance data from that first deployment will inform the subsequent scale up to the full 1 gigawatt and 100 gigawatt hour contract. The success of the partnership will depend on manufacturing ramp, installation timelines and the operational performance of the deployed systems under real world data centre conditions.

If the phased rollout proceeds as planned, the Noon and Meta partnership is likely to become a reference case for how ultra-long duration energy storage is integrated into AI infrastructure over the remainder of the decade, and it will add further commercial weight to the argument that 100 plus hour storage technologies are reaching the point of mainstream hyperscale deployment.