Warehouse Robots Don’t Sleep Anymore — And That’s a Power Revolution

In the race toward hyper-automation, downtime has become the new enemy of efficiency. Nowhere is this more visible than in warehouses, where robotics fleets traditionally stall at charging docks, creating micro-delays that accumulate into costly bottlenecks. But one Israeli startup says it’s solved the problem — by cutting the cord entirely.

“Warehouse robotics isn’t the only area where uptime is currency,” says Maxim Khabur, Marketing Director at Bluewater, a company pioneering sustainable battery lifecycle management for energy storage and EV markets. “An increasing number of retired batteries ready for recycling create a need for collecting, packaging and shipping retired batteries from multiple dealer and user locations,” he told The Supply Chainer. “Managers are overwhelmed by the idle lithium batteries accumulating across sites — they want a one-window partner to handle reverse logistics, safely and transparently.”

Bluewater’s logistics-first approach to battery reuse echoes the warehouse sector’s move toward uninterrupted workflows. The company provides unified contracting, regulatory compliance, and transparent audit trails across large fleets of industrial lithium batteries. “We offer streamlined services for collecting, labeling, and shipping batteries — eliminating extra workload and safety concerns for our customers,” Khabur said.

The friction between recycling, regulation, and reuse also mirrors the robotics world’s battery bottleneck. “The disconnect between battery owners and second-life battery buyers, combined with liability concerns, means reuse is often avoided even when it saves money,” he added. In that light, logistics innovations — whether for electrons or entire pallets — are becoming the invisible rails of hyper-automation.

In a written reply to The Supply Chainer, Rebecca Barel, Director of Marketing at CaPow, explained how the company’s Genesis system is turning heads in the logistics world by delivering “on-the-go” wireless power to robots — effectively eliminating charging breaks.

“The Genesis system delivers power during transit, so robots don’t need to stop,” Barel wrote. “Our clients are seeing up to a 35% increase in operational efficiency. Robots work 24/7 uninterrupted, leading to smoother workflows and reduced operational costs.”

That pitch is striking a chord in an industry obsessed with every second saved. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on heavy lithium-ion batteries and charging docks, CaPow’s technology transmits power wirelessly while robots are in motion. The result: a logistics network that behaves more like a living organism than a stop-and-go machine.

The company’s timing couldn’t be better. According to a recent McKinsey report, warehouse automation is expected to account for over 25% of total supply chain investment by 2030, driven by rising labor shortages and growing consumer demands for speed. But the report adds a note of caution: “Automation without power resilience creates fragility — every charging cycle is a vulnerability.”

Warehouse Robots Don’t Sleep Anymore

That’s where CaPow’s sustainability credentials also come in. Barel said the company’s system avoids traditional battery-heavy setups, using supercapacitors in some cases and often retrofitting existing fleets. “By removing the need for charging stations and optimizing energy delivery, we reduce energy waste and extend battery lifespan by up to 3x,” she noted.

Environmental impact aside, this approach aligns with the urgent calls from industry regulators. In February 2025, the International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA) issued a policy statement urging members to “shift toward energy-efficient automation architectures, especially in regions with stressed power grids and high emissions footprints.”

“Wireless power with high-efficiency transfer could become the standard in next-gen logistics hubs,” said Martin Ruelle, Chief Engineer at Fraunhofer IML, speaking at the Smart Logistics Summit in Berlin last month. “It’s not just about performance anymore — it’s about power flexibility and sustainable scalability.”

CaPow recently closed a $15 million Series A round, signaling strong investor belief in this vision. The capital will help the company scale deployment and refine its technology, especially as more logistics operators seek alternatives to bulky infrastructure and inflexible robotics workflows.

While competitors in the wireless energy space, such as WiTricity and Ossia, have largely focused on consumer electronics and EVs, CaPow appears uniquely positioned in the B2B logistics segment, where ROI is measured not in novelty but in uptime, cost savings, and carbon reduction.

As Barel put it, “Robots shouldn’t rest — and neither should innovation.”