Microtex batteries, like all industrial lead-acid battery companies, have been hit by rising material and energy costs. By using sound metallurgical principles and understanding battery chemistry from pasting to formation, Microtex has created sufficient cost savings to overcome the additional antimony costs and has become even more competitive in today’s markets. The high antimony prices since last year have more than doubled the average positive tubular plate cost. Removing or reducing antimony in industrial positive grids presents problems of material strength with implications for processability, corrosion and cycle life. In order to find alternative alloys, it was necessary to thoroughly examine the metallurgy of the mechanisms of creep strength, tensile strength and yield strength to enhance the resulting properties of alternative, lower-cost lead-based alloys. Detailed processing and performance trials were performed using these principles to enable new, lower-cost alloys to be substituted by changing processing methods. These include changing grid casting conditions, post casting treatment, and the effects of flash drying and curing on mechanical properties. Capacity testing and positive grid corrosion were also studied, and the resulting mechanical properties of new alloys were enhanced to match or exceed existing Sb alloys. As an added benefit, around 5% of the energy savings were recorded for the VRLA formation process. A detailed review of the metallurgical and electrochemical principles that affect the processing, in-service characteristics, and subsequent results is also included. Additional work on reducing energy formation costs by up to 15%, particularly by applying new, more efficient formation principles to VRLA batteries, is discussed. Results include: Formation energy with new algorithms, mechanical properties of grid alloys, capacity and corrosion tests. Further work is focused on more effective refinement of alloy secondary elements and further investigation of VRLA electrolyte resistance mechanisms to reduce propagation of parasitic reactions.