A year after opening a sodium-ion battery production site at 70 W. 48th St. in Holland, Natron Energy has announced plans to cease all operations, effective Sept. 3.
In a letter submitted to the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, the company wrote it’s permanently closing in both Holland and California. The closure in Holland will impact 37 employees.
According to the letter, the company was actively seeking both capital and commercial business that would’ve made it possible to avoid or postpone the closure. The fundraising efforts and risks, it said, were communicated with employees.
The closure announcement didn’t meet a required 60-day notice because, the company wrote, it would have “precluded Natron from securing these sources of funding.”
Natron Energy was founded in a garage in Palo Alto, California, by Colin Wessells — a doctoral student at Stanford University — who wanted to create ultra-safe, high-power batteries.
The company expanded, creating a state-of-the-art pilot production line in Santa Clara. In 2024, the company opened in Holland, creating 100 jobs and investing $40 million to convert lithium-ion battery manufacturing lines into sodium-ion battery lines.
At the time, the site was billed as the country’s first-ever commercial-scale production site for sodium-ion batteries.
— Contact reporter Austin Metz at ametz@hollandsentinel.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Natron Energy to cease operations in Holland, resulting in 37 layoffs
Reporting by Austin Metz, Holland Sentinel / The Holland Sentinel
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