Picture by Adriana Pop
Seoul-based LG Vitality Answer will make investments about $5.5 billion to develop a battery manufacturing complicated in Queen Creek, Ariz.
The venture will include two separate manufacturing amenities: one for cylindrical batteries for electrical automobiles (EVs) and one other for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) pouch-type batteries for vitality storage methods (ESS). The 2 amenities are valued at $3.2 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively, and can have capacities of 27 GWh and 16 GWh, additionally respectively.
Each will break floor later this 12 months.
The venture represents the largest-ever single funding for a stand-alone battery manufacturing facility in North America, in line with LGES, which reportedly ranks among the many world’s high 5 – 6 battery makers.
READ ALSO: Regardless of Lack of Consensus, CRE Is Decarbonizing
The plans for this huge facility have been within the works for some time—and have grown alongside the best way.
Nearly precisely a 12 months in the past, an organization broadly recognized as a surrogate for LG Vitality Answer obtained approval from native officers to develop what was then envisioned as a $2.8 billion, 1 million-square-foot plant to fabricate solely cylindrical EV batteries on the Queen Creek location.
Till its IPO in 2021, LGES had been part of LG Chem Ltd., a unit of the LG Corp. conglomerate.
Greater wattage
As giant as it’s, this venture is just one a part of a surge of exercise within the industrial battery sector.
In late February, LG Vitality Answer and Honda introduced the upcoming groundbreaking on a $3.5 billion, greater than 2 million-square-foot EV battery plant roughly 20 miles southwest of Columbus, Ohio, alongside I-71.
And holding tempo with battery gigafactories has been the expansion of huge amenities to recycle the lithium and different metals from retired batteries. One will quickly be underneath method in South Carolina, and one other can be getting began in metro Phoenix.