South 8 Technologies says it plans to provide cold-weather batteries to the Army’s 11th Airborne Division and other Alaska customers for winter field testing, an early operational step with no public test protocol or results yet disclosed.1
By PAI
Aug. 31, 2026
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — South 8 Technologies plans to provide cold-weather batteries to the Army’s 11th Airborne Division and other Alaska customers for field testing this winter, according to a LinkedIn post by Rusty Heffner, the company’s vice president of strategy.1
Heffner posted from the Alaska Defense Forum, held Aug. 24-26 in Fairbanks, where military, industry, government and community participants discussed readiness and Alaska’s defense role.2 3 His post did not identify the battery model, testing organization, operating locations, performance measures, evaluation schedule or funding source. It also did not report a purchase, a completed Army evaluation or a fielding decision.1
That distinction is consequential. Cold-weather battery performance is a persistent constraint on portable electronics and other systems in high-latitude environments. A field test can establish how a product functions in the hands of users and in the local environment, but it does not by itself establish that the Army has accepted a technology for procurement or broad deployment.9 10
A test announcement, not a fielding decision
Heffner wrote that South 8 was “proud to provide cold weather ARCTIC batteries” to the division and other Alaska customers for winter tests. The public post offers the clearest available account of the specific Alaska activity. It identifies neither the number of batteries nor the equipment they may power.1
South 8 has separately said it received a $1.6 million contract from the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s C5ISR Center in January 2025 to lead a team demonstrating standardized lithium-ion battery packs for defense applications. In its announcement, the San Diego company said its planned BB-2590 prototype would contain 24 of its Arctic-branded LiGas 18650 cells.7
A BB-2590 is a standardized rechargeable military battery-pack format used in multiple portable systems. South 8 said the prototype could serve applications including radios, communications systems and night-vision goggles, but that announcement did not identify the Alaska winter test described by Heffner or establish that the test will use the BB-2590 pack.7
South 8 calls LiGas a liquefied-gas electrolyte, referring to the material that carries lithium ions between a battery’s electrodes. The company says its technology can operate from minus 60 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius at full charge. That is a manufacturer claim; the company’s announcement did not provide an independent test report, a published test protocol or comparative data sufficient to validate the claim for the Alaska field exercise.7
The Army has described its own related work as a staged process. The C5ISR Center said in May 2025 that it was conducting laboratory testing of rechargeable cells for Soldier-worn and handheld equipment, followed by prototype-pack testing and multiple rounds of Soldier field testing in extreme temperatures. The center said standard formats could let a successful upgraded cell serve more than one system without redesigning and requalifying a bespoke battery.9
The distinction between a cell and a pack also matters. A battery cell is the electrochemical unit that stores energy; a battery pack combines cells with wiring, protection electronics, housing and other components. Reliability in the field depends on the complete system, not on a cell claim alone.9 10
Why subzero power is a military concern
The 11th Airborne Division is a natural prospective user for tests intended to answer those questions. The division’s stated mission includes expeditionary and multidomain operations in the Indo-Pacific and Arctic and defeating an adversary in extreme cold, mountainous and high-latitude environments.4
The Army reactivated the division in 2022, bringing about 12,000 Soldiers in Alaska under one headquarters. Its two maneuver brigades are based at Fort Wainwright and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, while its mission emphasizes cold-weather and high-altitude operations.5
The division’s public website now lists power generation and storage in extreme cold among the priorities of its innovation and experimentation team. It says the team is prioritizing projects for end-user field testing at the Army’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center exercise, but it does not identify South 8 or the announced winter testing as one of those projects.4
The operational need is broader than a single device. Portable radios, sensors, thermal imagers, night-vision equipment and robotic systems all depend on stored power. Defense Innovation Unit officials said in 2023 that tactical electronic loads can require Soldiers to carry as much as 20 pounds of batteries, one reason the department is pursuing lighter, safer and longer-lived standardized power sources.8
A peer-reviewed 2022 review of lithium-ion batteries describes why colder temperatures complicate that task. Below 0 degrees Celsius, reduced lithium-ion movement in the electrolyte and electrodes can contribute to capacity loss and lower power. The review also cites increased polarization, shorter cycle life and charging-related risks such as lithium plating and dendrite formation — metal growth that can affect battery life and safety.10
Those limitations do not mean all lithium-ion cells fail at the same temperature or in the same way. Cell chemistry, materials, pack design, thermal management, load, charging method and the duration of exposure all affect results. The review concludes that low-freezing-point, low-viscosity electrolytes and other changes to battery materials can improve low-temperature performance, while also noting that unresolved challenges remain.10
For a winter user evaluation, the practical evidence will be the performance of the system under specified conditions: temperature, duty cycle, charging regime, duration, state of charge, load and the equipment attached to the battery. None of those details was included in Heffner’s post.1 10
Arctic readiness and an emerging battery supply effort
The testing announcement came as the Pentagon treats readiness in the Arctic as an operational issue, not simply a matter of equipment survivability. The 2024 Defense Department Arctic Strategy directs the department to improve Arctic capabilities, work with allies and partners, and exercise forces for high-latitude operations.6
The strategy says changing weather can affect personnel and equipment performance and can make it harder to sustain distributed forces and remote operating locations. It also identifies the Arctic as a setting of strategic competition shaped by Russia, growing China-Russia cooperation, NATO’s enlargement and climate-driven physical change.6
The Alaska Defense Forum reflected this broader framing. Organized by the University of Alaska Fairbanks in collaboration with the Fairbanks Economic Development Corp. and the Association of Defense Communities, the 2026 event carried the theme “Readiness in Action.” Its program described discussions among military leaders, industry and communities about security challenges, infrastructure and long-term investment.2 3
For the Pentagon, cold-capable batteries are also part of a supply-chain and standardization agenda. The Defense Innovation Unit’s Family of Advanced Standard Batteries, or FAStBat, seeks to accelerate adoption of domestically made or friend-shored commercial lithium technologies for soldier-portable systems, ground vehicles and aviation. The agency said the effort had issued 10 awards as of its December 2023 announcement.8
The same announcement said Thales Defense and Security was qualifying M38 NanoGraf cells that use South 8’s LiGas electrolyte for the Army Leader Radio. That shows South 8’s electrolyte has appeared in a separate Army-related qualification effort, but it does not establish the status or outcome of the proposed Alaska field tests.8
South 8’s January 2025 contract announcement likewise described prototype development, not an approved production battery. The company said it was working with an unnamed cell manufacturer and battery-pack vendor to deliver prototypes to the Army. The available public materials do not disclose whether those prototypes completed qualification or how, if at all, they relate to the winter tests cited in Heffner’s post.7
What the Alaska evaluation could clarify
A well-documented field evaluation could narrow several open questions. It could show whether the battery maintains usable capacity and power over representative missions; whether it can be charged safely in the cold; how it works with particular Army equipment; and whether its benefits justify changes in cost, logistics, training or maintenance. These are questions of system-level qualification and use, rather than a simple temperature rating.9 10
It could also distinguish performance at a moderate subzero temperature from performance after prolonged exposure to severe cold, repeated charge-and-discharge cycles or use with different loads. The scientific literature cautions that low-temperature performance is shaped by electrochemical transport and interfaces inside the cell, so a single outcome would not automatically generalize across battery types or applications.10
For now, the public record supports a narrower conclusion: a South 8 executive says the company will provide its cold-weather batteries for winter testing with the 11th Airborne Division and other Alaska customers. It does not yet support conclusions about the battery’s test results, procurement status, unit-wide adoption or operational impact.1 7 9