A 15GWh lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant is to be fast-tracked to development in New York State.
Over the past six months a consortium comprising New York-based Charge CCCV, C&D Assembly and Primet Precision Materials, and Australian firms Magnis Resources and Boston Energy and Innovation (BEI) have been inspecting potential facilities in the state for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries. The consortium says it will announce specific details on a chosen site “shortly”.
But it also plans to make use of members’ existing facilities and infrastructure to supply lithium-ion batteries for EVs and storage.
The local government backs the project. Empire State Development president, CEO and commissioner Howard Zemsky explained: “In recent years, we have strongly supported the development of energy storage technologies and a new lithium-ion battery plant that would utilise the talents of multiple New York-based businesses is an exciting prospect for Upstate New York. We have the sites, resources, partners and skilled workforce to ensure such a project could succeed in New York State.”
Recently, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo (pictured) announced the establishment of the Clean Energy Standard that mandates 50% of New York’s power to be provided by renewables by the year 2030.
Chairman of Magnis, Frank Poullas, commented: “To have the New York State Government, BEI and the technical expertise of C4V, C&D and Primet involved, highlights a growing recognition of how lithium-ion battery products built using superior-quality non-toxic graphite from our Nachu project are set to revolutionise the world’s transport and energy sectors.”
Magnis will be responsible for supplying the anode materials and technologies, while the cathode materials and technologies, manufacturing processes to produce electrodes and the battery cells will be handled by C4V and Primet.
C&D Assembly’s manufacturing facility in Groton, New York, will provide the battery management systems and power harnessing. Jeff Cronk, CEO of C&D, said: “C&D’s current manufacturing floor is capable of handling battery management system production for up to 20GWh annually assuming each battery is 80kWH in size.”
BEI will assist with project structuring, capital raising and global expansion. BEI chairman Bill Moss AO said the plant will be “the first of a series of proposed lithium-ion battery manufacturing hubs globally”.
The plant aims to compete on price with batteries from Asia. President of Primet Robert Dobbs explained: “Our demonstrated ability to reduce the capital investment as well as operational expenses would allow this consortium to build batteries that are not only high performing but also very economical versus batteries from Asia.”
• BEI, Magnis and C&D are also looking at building a 15GWh battery manufacturing plant in Townsville, Australia. This time with Eastman Kodak as part of the consortium.
Once in full production this facility would be capable of producing either 250,000 car batteries per annum (up to 400kms range) or one million home battery units or support 300 microgrids to power small towns.
BEI boss Moss said: “This is a strategic step for Australia to be a world leader on the battery frontier and to ensure energy security of our nation.”