Foreign media report (Energy-Storage.news): On August 21 (local time), Energy-Storage.news published an in-depth interview with Drew Buckley, the new CEO of ESS Inc (ESS Tech Inc, NYSE: ESS). Buckley, who took office in January 2026 with an investment-banking background, candidly acknowledged in the interview that the company “wasn't ready” in commercializing its iron flow battery business since going public via a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) listing on the NYSE in 2021, with pipelines, partnerships and MOUs failing to translate into sustainable revenue. The company's latest SEC filing disclosed “substantial doubt as to the company's ability to continue as a going concern for 12 months”; its share price is around US$0.39 with a market cap of about US$12 million.
ESS Inc is a U.S. Long-duration energy storage company that previously focused on the iron flow battery route and announced a pivot to sodium-ion energy storage from 2025. In this interview, Buckley said the company is evaluating a potential merger with an “adjacent technology company in the energy space” and trying to convince the market to take its sodium-ion pivot seriously. Meanwhile, another U.S. Sodium-ion startup, Peak Energy, has selected Sacramento, California for a 4GWh-per-year sodium-ion storage system factory, and General Motors' cooperation with Peak Energy is also advancing — the U.S. Sodium-ion manufacturing landscape is still in its early formation stage.
The share price, market cap and “going concern” doubts come from SEC filings and Energy-Storage.news reporting; the “potential merger” is currently only an exploratory statement in the CEO interview, with the counterparty, terms and timing undisclosed, and does not constitute an accomplished fact.