The Self-Hosted Pilot: Emerson Eating Its Own Cooking

The most compelling demonstration Emerson can make is deploying this technology at its own facility, using its own instruments, and powering its own operations.

Emerson’s global headquarters for Rosemount technologies, Shakopee, Minnesota — 500,000 square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. This is where the instruments are made. A self-hosted aqueous battery pilot here would demonstrate the full Emerson product stack, on Emerson’s own floor, powering Emerson’s own operations. Photo: McGough Construction

Shakopee production floor from the mezzanine. When the Chihuahua site absorbs half of the pressure and DP level lines by end of 2027, production bays like these become available floor space—ready to host a self-contained aqueous battery pilot without displacing a single active line. Photo: Emerson / Shakopee

Phase 2 vision: Source food-grade MgCl₂ from Nedmag (fully non-evaporative underground solution mining) or Intrepid Potash (underground solution mining, solar evaporation final step), prioritizing the lowest-impact pathway available. Prepare electrolyte using a DeltaV-controlled skid with Rosemount sensors. Acquire prototype cells from the City University of Hong Kong collaboration. Characterize them at grid-relevant C-rates using NI PXI battery cyclers, answering the single biggest open scientific question. Deploy a small-scale aqueous BESS at an Emerson facility. Monitor with Ovation Green and Zitara. Power a portion of the facility with it.

On supply. Nedmag’s Veendam deposit holds an estimated 1.5–2.0 billion tonnes MgCl₂-equivalent. At full Phase 3 scale (3–5% of global stationary storage), Emerson demand projects 50,000–150,000 tonnes/yr — supporting >100 years from a single supplier, before counting Track B (Intrepid Potash, US) or Track C (desalination brine, effectively infinite). Running out is not a Phase 1–4 concern.

The Market Opportunity

Three markets where safety and cycle life matter more than energy density.

AI and cloud computing are driving accelerating data center construction. These facilities require massive stationary backup. Three characteristics make aqueous batteries compelling: continuous daily cycling (the battery outlasts the facility), non-flammable chemistry (eliminates thermal runaway, simplifies building codes, reduces insurance), and standard waste disposal (no hazardous materials liability). Emerson’s Prevalon partnership and Liebert division serve hyperscale operators. The channel exists.

Rural Cooperatives & Agricultural Microgrids

Rural electric cooperatives serve 42 million Americans across 56% of the nation’s landmass. Long-life, low-maintenance stationary storage aligns with cooperative needs: decades of asset life, minimal hazardous waste, USDA rural energy grant eligibility. The cooperative channel is detailed in The Midwest Corridor section.

USDA Agricultural Research Service · Image K7577-4 · Public Domain. Riceland Foods Cooperative, Stuttgart, AR. A 10,000-member cooperative founded in 1921 in the Arkansas Delta — the heart of American rice country. Rural cooperatives like Riceland serve 42 million Americans across 56% of the nation’s landmass, from the Mississippi Delta to the Great Plains wind corridor. Stationary storage that lasts decades and never catches fire is built for this market.

The Electrolyte Supply Chain: Abundant, Domestic—and an Opportunity to Lead

Unlike lithium and cobalt, the materials for this battery are abundant, domestic, and cheap. But how they are sourced matters, and Emerson has an opportunity to set the gold standard.

The Problem with Traditional Extraction

The dominant method for producing MgCl₂ in the United States is solar evaporation: pumping brine from saline lakes into shallow ponds and letting the sun boil the water away. At the Great Salt Lake in Utah, mineral extraction companies operate over 110,000 acres of evaporation ponds that have consumed up to 270,000 acre-feet of water annually. The lake has shrunk to historic lows. Environmental groups are suing the state. The extraction method that produces much of America’s MgCl₂ is actively destroying the ecosystem it depends on.

Aerial view of Great Salt Lake mineral evaporation ponds, Utah. The vivid colors (pink, green, tan) reveal different mineral salt concentrations across the extraction grid. Current MgCl₂ sourcing depends on solar evaporation from this shrinking saline lake, an unsustainable extraction model that consumes up to 270,000 acre-feet of water annually. The Zechstein underground deposits and desalination waste brine offer a path forward. Photo: Mary Anne Karren / EcoFlight · Used with permission

Emerson does not need to accept this. MgCl₂ is one of the most abundant mineral salts on Earth, and non-destructive alternatives exist today:

Sustainable Sourcing Pathways

Mining museum at 505 meters depth inside the K+S AG Merkers salt mine, Thuringia, Germany. This is the Zechstein formation — salt beds laid down 257 million years ago when the Permian sea evaporated across what is now northern Europe. K+S AG extracts potash and magnesium salts from these deposits using room-and-pillar mining at 500–1,000m depth. Nedmag in the Netherlands operates similar Zechstein deposits via solution mining at 1,500m+. No evaporation ponds. No lake depletion. No surface disturbance. The commodity is older than the dinosaurs, and the supply is measured in centuries. Photo: A.Savin · Free Art License

Supplier Landscape: Transparent and Complete

USGS · Underground potash deposits, Intrepid Potash Carlsbad West Mine, New Mexico. Ancient brine deposits like these provide non-evaporative, sustainable sources of magnesium chloride — no surface water consumed. USGS Open-File Report 2016-1167

Fully non-evaporative supply exists today through Nedmag and K+S AG in Europe, with Intrepid Potash offering a lower-impact hybrid approach (underground solution mining with solar evaporation as the final step, no lake drainage, no surface water intake). Desalination brine recovery represents the most sustainable long-term pathway. The supply chain is diversified and abundant, and Emerson has the choice to source responsibly from day one.

Strait of Hormuz. Twenty-one miles wide. Thirty percent of the world’s seaborne oil passes through it every day. The Gulf states on either side operate the largest desalination plants on Earth. The same plants whose waste brine contains the electrolyte.

MODIS / NASA Terra satellite · Public Domain

The Desalination Opportunity: Waste to Feedstock

Every day, 16,000 desalination plants produce 142 million cubic meters of MgCl₂/CaCl₂-rich brine. Almost all of it is dumped into the ocean. The electrolyte is waste. The waste is free.

Every technology needs a geographic home. For aqueous stationary storage, that home is the American Midwest, where Emerson’s manufacturing base, wind energy, data center expansion, and cooperative infrastructure converge into a natural market entry corridor.

Wind farm and agricultural land, Minonk Township, Illinois. Wind energy, grain infrastructure, cooperative power. The Midwest Corridor thesis in one frame. Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The largest battery installation ever announced is being built ~60 miles from Shakopee. Google’s Pine Island data center campus will pair 1,400 MW of new wind and 200 MW of solar generation with 300 MW / 30 GWh of Form Energy iron-air battery storage — 100-hour discharge duration to firm intermittent renewables and bridge multi-day lulls toward 24/7 carbon-free energy.

Pine Island is not an outlier. It is the leading edge of a buildout that is remaking the Upper Midwest:

• Meta Rosemount — $800M data center campus near Emerson’s Shakopee headquarters
• Sherco Solar — 710 MW solar + storage project replacing a retiring coal plant, Becker, MN (Xcel Energy; 910 MW planned by 2029)
• 25+ proposed data center sites across Minnesota, with Xcel Energy and Great River Energy projecting 2,300 MW of new data center load within seven years
• Wisconsin — Microsoft $4B Mount Pleasant, Vantage $15B Port Washington (Stargate / OpenAI)

But the buildout is hitting a wall. Industry estimates indicate that 30–50% of U.S. data center capacity planned for 2026 has been delayed or cancelled. Not for lack of demand, but for lack of power infrastructure: transformers, switchgear, and batteries. The constraint is not whether data centers will be built. It is whether the grid can power them.

These facilities need grid-scale storage. All of them currently default to lithium-ion, the chemistry that burned Moss Landing and shut down a government data center in South Korea. The convergence is strategic. Four advantages meet here:

Financial Frame: Sizing the Opportunity

Order-of-magnitude estimates intended to provide leadership with a frame for evaluating scale against cost. Not financial projections.

Methodology: The global stationary energy storage market is projected at $120B+ annually by 2030 (BNEF), growing to $200B+ by 2035 as data center, grid, and microgrid demand accelerates. Revenue estimates above assume aqueous chemistries capture 3–5% of new stationary installations at scale, with Emerson’s instrumentation, software, and integration layer representing 8–15% of total system cost, consistent with historical automation-layer revenue shares in comparable energy infrastructure (oil & gas: ~12%, water treatment: ~10%). The actual figure depends on adoption speed, competitive dynamics, and Emerson’s market share. Phase 1 is designed to determine which end of that range is realistic. That is what $200K–$400K buys: the right to know.

Note: Some revenue streams share upstream components (e.g., electrolyte preparation skids and sustainable recovery systems both use DeltaV and Rosemount sensors). The combined range accounts for this overlap; the low end assumes significant cannibalization, the high end assumes distinct customer segments. These are order-of-magnitude frames, not financial projections.

Competitive Landscape

No American industrial automation company has publicly positioned itself in the aqueous battery space as of April 2026. Pre-announcement R&D at competitors is inherently opaque; this analysis is based on public information and should be read accordingly.

SIEMENS

ABB

SCHNEIDER

GE VERNOVA

HONEYWELL

Competitive coverage matrix. Emerson is the only company that spans all four stages of the aqueous battery value chain. Each competitor covers at most one stage. This full-stack integration — from electrolyte QA sensors to grid deployment software — is the moat.

Risk Factors and Mitigations

Opportunity carries risk. What matters is whether the risks are addressable and the cost of investigation is proportionate to the prize. The risks below are addressable; the cost of investigation is bounded.

The Champions: Who Carries This Forward

This proposal identifies specific Emerson leaders whose existing mandates, expertise, and relationships align with the opportunity.

Victoria Harbour at dusk — Joybot · CC BY-SA 2.0

The sequence matters. First contact starts in Hong Kong.

Jennie Li

Vice President & General Manager, Emerson China

The person who makes first contact. Joined Emerson in 2003 as principal representative for government relations in China; promoted to VP & GM in 2018. Oversees all Emerson strategy and operations in China, with direct relationships across Chinese academic institutions and government departments. Named one of Fortune China’s “25 Most Influential Businesswomen” (2016) and Forbes’ “100 Outstanding Women in Business in China” for four consecutive years. Bachelor’s from Beijing Foreign Studies University, EMBA from China Europe International Business School. She is Emerson’s operational link to City University of Hong Kong and the research group that holds the core IP.

Ram Krishnan

EVP & Chief Operating Officer

Metallurgical engineering degree from IIT. Previously president of Climate Technologies in Asia, based in Hong Kong, the same city as the lead research institution. Led the Afag acquisition (battery manufacturing automation). Oversees M&A. The executive sponsor with the technical background and Asia relationships for first contact.

Bob Yeager

President, Power & Water Solutions

Owns Ovation Green BESS, the Zitara partnership, and the Prevalon data center channel. Publicly stated that battery energy management “aligns perfectly with our vision.” Launched BESS software June 2025. Keynoting Clean Currents 2026 on next-gen power. The direct business owner for this opportunity.

Thurston Cromwell

Vice President, Development & Innovation

Already invested Emerson Ventures capital in Zitara (battery management) and EECOMOBILITY (AI battery testing). $100M committed fund for “environmentally sustainable technologies.” The investment mandate holder.

Lal Karsanbhai

President & CEO

Former president of Rosemount Measurement & Analytical. Understands the sensor/instrumentation angle at product level. Sits on the U.S.-China Business Council board. Has the institutional access and product comprehension to connect the dots at the highest level.

Michael Train

SVP & Chief Sustainability Officer

Train joined Emerson in 1991 and served as president of Rosemount (2008–2010), the Shakopee business unit that would host the pilot, before leading global sales for Process Management, then serving as president of Emerson (2018–2021). Electrical engineering degree from GMI, MBA from Cornell. He knows the Shakopee campus, the sensor portfolio, and the safety standards at a level no other champion matches. As Emerson’s first Chief Sustainability Officer, he owns the ESG narrative: a domestically-sourced, non-toxic, zero-hazardous-waste battery technology is the flagship demonstration his mandate was created for.

Rodolphe El Khoury

Vice President, North America Operations — Measurement Solutions

Mechanical engineer with a supply chain master’s from HEC Paris. Runs North America operations for Measurement Solutions at the Shakopee campus, ground zero for a pilot deployment. Previously led Emerson’s manufacturing operations across Romania (Cluj), Dubai, and Saudi Arabia, building direct relationships with the geographies that source both electrolyte feedstocks: Zechstein MgCl₂ from Nedmag in the Netherlands via Cluj, and desalination waste brine from the Gulf states. An engineer who has managed supply chains on three continents, now based at the building where the first aqueous battery skid would be assembled. The operations leader who bridges Shakopee manufacturing with the global electrolyte supply chain he knows.

The Intellectual Property Question — and Emerson’s Strategic Independence

The science is published. The process is ours. What follows is the IP analysis, the engagement plan with CityU, and the case for proceeding whether or not that engagement succeeds.

What the Publication Means

The Chen et al. paper was published in Nature Communications, an open-access journal. That matters legally. Publication is disclosure. The scientific findings — MgCl₂ electrolyte, CuFe-PBA cathode, COP anode, 120,000-cycle durability, 2.2V operating window — are now public knowledge, available to every researcher, company, and government on Earth. That is what publication means. That is what the scientists chose when they submitted to Nature Communications rather than filing a patent and developing the technology behind closed doors.

The material classes used in the battery — Prussian blue analog cathodes, conducting organic polymer anodes, aqueous chloride electrolytes — are all established in the electrochemical literature, with prior art stretching back decades. CuFe-PBA is one variant among many studied since the early 2000s. No entity can patent broad classes of materials or fundamental electrochemical principles. What can be patented, and likely has been, are specific implementations: exact electrode compositions, specific synthesis routes, particular electrolyte formulations, and the precise combination of these elements in a specific cell architecture.

Emerson’s Moat Is the Process, Not the Formula

Here is the point: Emerson is not attempting to manufacture the exact battery described in the paper. Emerson is building the industrial process that transforms published chemistry into manufacturable, monitorable, maintainable grid-scale energy storage. The value is in the instrumentation, the control systems, the purification protocols, and the quality monitoring infrastructure — none of which comes from CityU.

The Engagement Strategy: Partnership, Not Competition

The recommended first move is diplomatic, harmonious, and strategically sound. Emerson approaches CityU not as a competitor attempting to replicate their work, but as an industrial partner offering something the research group cannot build alone: a global instrumentation platform capable of taking published chemistry from lab bench to grid deployment.

If the Overture Is Unsuccessful

This section must be stated plainly, because the stakes demand it.

If CityU declines to engage, or if the regulatory environment makes a partnership impractical, Emerson forges ahead with its own scientists and experimental capabilities. The published science provides the roadmap. Emerson’s electrochemists replicate and refine the chemistry independently. The FTO memo identifies any patent claims to design around. The process — purification, monitoring, control, remediation, manufacturing — is entirely Emerson’s own creation regardless.

The Strategic Imperative

The potential of this technology extends beyond Emerson’s commercial interests. Permanent grid-scale energy storage made from abundant, non-toxic, domestically sourced materials is a matter of national infrastructure and, increasingly, national security.

Emerson’s preferred path is partnership and collaboration with the scientists who made this discovery. That is the right thing to do, and it is the smart thing to do — CityU’s ongoing research may yield refinements that accelerate the timeline, and the relationship opens a channel into the Chinese market that Emerson already values across its existing business segments.

But the potential of this technology — for Emerson, for the grid, for the climate, for the strategic independence of American energy infrastructure — demands that the work proceed with or without that partnership. The chemistry is published. The instruments are in the pantry. Someone will industrialize permanent salt-water energy storage. The only variable is whether Emerson is at the table or watching from the sideline.

The Ask

What Phase 1 Looks Like

Stage 1 builds a 2,500 SF working battery laboratory in the northeast corner of the Shakopee Shell Space — three zones organized for workflow, every measurement instrumented with Emerson’s own catalog. The plan exists. The space exists. What is being asked for is permission to occupy it.

Where It Goes

Stage 0 (Months 1–3) buys intelligence: can this work? Stage 1 (Months 4–12) buys the working laboratory: does this work in our hands, at grid-relevant rates, with our instruments? Stage 0 must produce a written go-decision before any Stage 1 capital is released.

Stage 0 rates reflect 2026 market pricing for specialized battery electrochemistry consulting, international IP law, and contract laboratory services. UK Innovate’s 2025 Battery Innovation Programme benchmarks feasibility studies in the £70K–£500K range for comparable scope.

Stage 1 capex assumes new equipment purchase; if NI / Rosemount / DeltaV units are transferred from existing Shakopee inventory at internal-transfer pricing, the lower bound drops materially. Personnel rates blend Emerson internal labor (loaded) with contract specialists; 9-month duration reflects the post-go-decision build window. Total envelope $1.0M–$1.8M matches the slides commitment and includes the explicit zero-discharge infrastructure (~$24–48K) plus 9 months of metered Energy & Utilities (~$10–21K) inside the same ceiling. Annual run-rate post-build for electricity alone is ~$15–28K/year, partially offset by load-bank discharge feeding Shell Space LEDs and (at Phase 2 scale) building electrical sub-panels.

R&D laboratory at the Shakopee campus. Instrumentation test benches, environmental chambers, and prototype validation equipment—the infrastructure for a battery pilot already exists on-site. Photo: Emerson / Shakopee

90-Day Assessment Framework

Maps to the Phase 1 budget above. Stages overlap: validation, integration scoping, and first contact run in parallel, not sequence.

Phase 1 answers a question. But the answer, if positive, opens a landscape that extends far beyond a single product line.

Appendix: Sources & Citations

Chen, H. et al. (2026). “An aqueous battery using an electrolyte with a pH of 7 and suitable for direct environmental discard.” Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-69384-2
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2026). “Fertilizer isn’t getting through the Strait of Hormuz.” April 3, 2026.
World Economic Forum (2026). “Beyond oil: 9 commodities impacted by the Strait of Hormuz crisis.” April 1, 2026.
farmdoc daily (2026). “Strait of Hormuz Closure and Fertilizer Supply Risks for U.S. Agriculture.” University of Illinois.
Emerson (2025). “Emerson’s New Battery Energy and Asset Management Software.” June 24, 2025.
Emerson / Zitara (2025). “Emerson and Zitara Partner to Enhance Battery Management Solutions.” February 20, 2025.
Emerson (2023). “Emerson to Acquire Afag and Accelerate Factory Automation Capabilities.” August 17, 2023.
Emerson (2024). “Measurement Solutions for Lithium-Ion Battery Component Manufacturing.” ACHEMA 2024.
Emerson (2024). “Ensure Li-Ion Battery Electrolyte Quality With Improved Conductivity Measurement.” Rosemount 228 application note.
NI / Emerson (2025). “Battery Cell Quality Testing in EV Production.”
NI / Emerson (2024). “Emerson Ventures Invests in EECOMOBILITY.” November 19, 2024.
Emerson (2018). “Emerson Appoints Corporate Leaders for Asia Pacific and China Operations.”
Emerson (2021). “Ram Krishnan named COO; Mark Bulanda to lead Automation Solutions.”
Emerson (2021). “$100 Million Commitment to Venture Capital Initiative.” November 4, 2021.
Emerson Investor Relations. Lal Karsanbhai biography—U.S.-China Business Council board member.
Nasoya / Pulmuone (2026). “Nasoya Expands East Coast Facility.” $55M expansion, 400,000 lbs/day capacity.
Future Market Insights (2025). Global Magnesium Chloride Market—$737.9M (2025), 5.1% CAGR.
ChemAnalyst (2025). Global MgCl₂ production ~1,700 thousand tonnes (2022).
Grand View Research (2023). Magnesium Chloride Market Size report.
Sightline Climate / TechRadar (2026). “Nearly half of US data centers planned for 2026 canceled or delayed.” April 2026. Primary constraint: electrical equipment shortages (transformers, switchgear, batteries).
Automation World (2026). “Emerson Ovation Green Battery Energy Storage System.” January 9, 2026.
FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake. “Mineral Extraction.” 110,000 acres of evaporation ponds; up to 270,000 acre-feet annual water consumption.
FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake. “US Magnesium.” 43,800 acre-feet average annual water depletion 2017–2021.
Fontana, D. et al. (2022). “Magnesium recovery from seawater desalination brines: a technical review.” Environment, Development and Sustainability. Springer Nature.
American Chemical Society. “Magnesium Extraction from Seawater.” History of the Dow process.
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (2016). “Magnesium Chloride Handling/Processing.” Technical review of sourcing methods and classifications.

Image Credits

Cover (full-bleed background): Dead Sea mineral salts — Petar Milošević, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
Exec Summary: Lithium battery hazmat staging area, Emerson Shakopee — Connor Scanlan
The Science (chapter hero): Lithium-ion coin cells under red safety lighting — Chingo K, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
The Science: Aqueous vs lithium-ion comparison — original infographic
Product Stack: NI NHR-9300 battery test system — NI / Emerson, used with permission
Product Stack: Grid-scale BESS installation — Reid Gardner, Moapa, NV, Wikimedia Commons CC0
New Products (full-bleed hero): Reverse osmosis desalination plant — James Grellier, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
Self-Hosted Pilot: Shakopee headquarters — McGough Construction, used with permission
Market Opportunity (full-bleed hero): Google data center, Council Bluffs, Iowa — Google / Connie Zhou (press photo)
Market Opportunity: Riceland Foods Cooperative — USDA Agricultural Research Service (K7577-4), Public Domain
Supply Chain: Great Salt Lake mineral evaporation ponds — Mary Anne Karren / EcoFlight, used with permission
Supply Chain: Merkers salt mine, Thuringia — A.Savin, Free Art License
Supply Chain: Intrepid Potash Carlsbad West Mine — USGS Open-File Report 2016-1167, Public Domain
Midwest Corridor (full-bleed hero): Meta Rosemount data center campus, Dakota County MN — Meta Platforms, Inc.
Midwest Corridor: Soybean field and wind farm, Minonk Township IL — Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
Perpetual Horizon (full-bleed hero): Pacific Ocean sunset, Rancho Palos Verdes — Marwan Abdalah, Unsplash License
Coda (full-bleed closing): Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia — Erciq, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
The Champions: Victoria Harbour at dusk — Joybot, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0
Diagrams (competitive coverage grid) are original graphics. Cell architecture and value chain are rendered as native HTML.

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