Delegate Pat McGeehan questioned officials with Form Energy in a letter over the weekend about whether the company had financial ties to the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

CHARLESTON — After the collapse of a regional bank last week known for investing in clean-energy projects, Delegate Pat McGeehan is questioning Form Energy on whether the iron-air battery start-up has ties to the bank.
McGeehan, R-Hancock, wrote a letter Sunday to the board of directors of Massachusetts-based Form Energy about whether the company had any ties to Silicon Valley Bank, a California-based regional bank that catered to tech and clean energy start-ups.
“The people of West Virginia ought to know the strength of the specific financial systems that support companies which receive large sums of their taxpayer dollars, upon which certain promises for community development were made,” McGeehan wrote.
According to CNBC, SVB was closed by regulators last week in the largest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis after it announced it needed to raise $2.25 billion, creating a run on the bank by dispositors. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced Monday that all depositors have been made whole, including those with more than the $250,000 limit the FDIC insures.
“Silicon Valley Bank, which held hundreds of billions in assets, collapsed this past week, leaving certain questions unanswered,” McGeehan wrote. “Silicon Valley Bank was the primary venture debt lender in the tech market, making it likely that a start-up company like yours used Silicon Valley Bank to finance your operations.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, several clean energy start-ups are current and previous clients of SVB, including Sunrun, a residential solar company; Stem, a battery storage company; and Bloom Energy, which manufactures fuel-cells. SVB itself was also a major lender and investor in clean energy companies.
“It made about $1.2 billion of project finance loans to U.S. renewable-energy projects in 2022, according to data provider Infralogic,” wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Jinjoo Lee. “That made SVB the sixth-largest lender in the space. Earlier this year, SVB announced that it has committed to provide at least $5 billion by 2027 in financing to support sustainability investments, including renewable energy.”
In a statement Wednesday, Form Energy would not say whether the company had any financial ties with SVB, only saying that the effect on the financial markets from the collapse of SVB would not affect the company.
“Form Energy has always had a conservative and well balanced treasury policy and the company’s current cash, cash equivalents, and investments are held through some of our nation’s largest financial institutions and are in AAA-rated and/or government-backed securities,” said Form Energy CEO Mateo Jaramillo. “We remain extremely well capitalized, and have not had, and do not anticipate any impact on our financial condition or on our operations from the recent and unfortunate developments at Silicon Valley Bank.”
Form Energy plans to build its proprietary iron-air battery plant on a 55-acre site on the former Weirton Steel property. The batteries would be used for energy grid storage for solar and wind power. The project represents a $760 million investment in the Weirton area, with the goal of creating as many as 750 jobs in the Ohio Valley.
Form is putting $350 million up front to get the project started, while West Virginia officials committed $300 million. Of that $300 million, the state already provided $75 million in December. The state Economic Development Authority met Thursday and amended a resolution to allow that $75 million to be loaned to the Business Development Corporation of the Northern Panhandle.
The state will retain ownership of the land and buildings as a backstop to guarantee its investment while Form Energy meets certain project requirements. House Bill 2882 transfers $105 million for the Economic Development Project Fund towards the Form project. The state will provide another $110 million to Form Energy once the project is complete.
The Form project became a lightning rod during the legislative session, with opponents seeing it as a waste of taxpayer dollars, crony capitalism and providing funding to a project that could help clean energy projects at the expense of coal and natural gas-fired power production.
McGeehan has been a vocal skeptic of the Form Energy project. He wrote a letter to the company on Jan. 24 seeking more information on the company’s structure and foreign investors. The company has since announced no current ties to Chinese or Saudi Arabian investors. Form has several celebrity investors, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.

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