Battery storage facility planned for Lincoln pledges more stability for New England energy grid
Posted on August 20, 2026 | News
BY Susan Cover Maine
PUBLISHED 8:53 AM ET Aug. 20, 2026
LINCOLN — Officials planning to build a new battery storage facility at an old mill site said Wednesday that when the project is complete, it will show the world what’s possible with a new energy technology.
“We think it’s going to show the way to do this for a lot of the country and ultimately the world,” Mateo Jaramillo, co-founder and CEO of Form Energy said.
Jaramillo and other company officials welcomed U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright to the former Lincoln Paper & Tissue Mill to explain the project that’s designed to store enough energy to power about 65,000 homes.
Jaramillo said plans call for the redevelopment of 50 acres at the mill site to house 85 megawatts of battery power. The batteries will be built in West Virginia and will be able to store power for four days.
“It’s a battery that rusts and then unrusts to charge back up,” he said.
The project, which is set to start in 2028, received nearly $150 million in federal funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 during the Biden administration.
The idea is to build a more reliable electric grid that can add power when needed and lower costs for states across New England, Jaramillo said.
Plans call for a new battery system at the old Lincoln Paper & Tissue Mill. (Spectrum News/Susan Cover)
He said the project will create about 100 construction jobs and add to the local property tax base.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins said she was one of 10 senators who helped negotiate the infrastructure law that created the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program that provided the funds to the Lincoln energy project.
“Form Energy will save costs by enhancing energy reliability during times when the grid is under stress, such as during winter storms and whenever we have an outage,” she said.
The project is just one several new businesses in the works for the former mill, a hulking collection of dilapidated buildings that cover 387 acres in the Penobscot County town of 4,800 people.
Steve Levesque, an economic development adviser to the town, said they are looking to bring a mix of new uses, including a biofuel plant and workforce housing.
The idea is to bring back about 1,000 jobs to the mill site.
“We also want to build an incubator here that focuses on technologies much like Brunswick did with Tech Place,” he said.
Eastern Maine Development Corporation President and CEO Lee Umphrey said the Form Energy project is a great opportunity for the region.
“There needs to be a lot of thought put behind the region and regeneration of resources and having this battery project here is a very innovative approach and I think it is going to lead to more jobs and cheaper costs for people, which is key,” he said.