Al Root

A renewable-energy company and nuclear- power start-up are joining forces to decarbonize power-hungry artificial-intelligence data centers.

Wednesday, Energy Vault announced a partnership with NuCube Energy to accelerate the development of NuSun. There is a lot to unpack in that statement.

Energy Vault is a renewable-power company that stores energy, like a battery, but in an unusual way. It uses kinetic energy, hoisting heavy blocks into the air. Those blocks can be lowered slowly and used to turn motors to generate electricity when needed.

NuCube is a nuclear-power technology company designing a small, modular microreactor called NuSun that is suitable for industrial and data-center applications.

Data centers use a lot electricity and data-center operators, including Microsoft and Amazon.com, have shown an interest in securing their own power supplies, separate from local utility grids.

Marrying energy storage technology to a nuclear reactor lets some of the reactor output be stored for later when electricity demand is lower at certain points in the day. The entire system doesn't generate any carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global climate change, as coal or natural gas-fired power plant do.

The partnership is another example of a carbon-free solution to the growing demand for electricity driven by things such as AI data centers and electric vehicles.

NuCube is privately held. Energy Vault shares are publicly traded. Its stock was up 12% in premarket trading at $1.96 a share, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively.

Coming into Wednesday trading, Energy Vault stock was down about 4% over the past 12 months. The company isn't profitable yet and isn't expected to be for the coming few years.

Four analysts cover the stock. Three rate shares Buy. The average analyst price target for Energy Vault stock is about $2.10 a share, according to FactSet.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 15, 2025 08:26 ET (13:26 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.