An Augusta polymers plant has been given a $178 million federal grant to create a companion facility to produce battery components for electric powered automobiles.
The proposed new plant could convey as a lot of as 500 construction careers and 100 producing jobs to the Augusta area, U.S. Sen Raphael Warnock’s office introduced in a statement Wednesday.
Solvay Specialty Polymers gained the grant through the Battery Supplies Processing and Battery Element Producing and Recycling software, a plan funded by way of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation enacted in 2021, the U.S. Department of Electrical power announced.
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With the greenback sum marking just the investment in a new facility, the serious financial effects quantities for the Augusta-Richmond County Metropolitan Statistical Place will probably “end up being higher than that,” said Cal Wray, government director of the Augusta Financial Growth Authority, which wrote a letter to the DOE earlier this year in support of Solvay’s grant software.
“Involving a pair-hundred million financial commitment, a pair-hundred employment that are well-compensated, I think it’s good for the spot,” he said. “Augusta’s got a concentration of about 23,000 men and women who get the job done in production in the MSA. This just provides to that. Solvay has some of the ideal compensated producing positions in the region, so I’d presume that would continue to be the scenario.”
The manufacturing unit is expected to manufacture electric powered battery-quality binders and separator coatings, which are vital parts for lithium-ion batteries that power EVs.
Belgium-headquartered Solvay obtained its current Augusta facility from BP Amoco in 2000, and since then has often invested in increasing its product or service strains and capacity. In 2015 it announced an $85 million community growth.
“As we have found lately there is been a large amount of EV looking in the Southeast, on the lookout in Augusta. You currently have Aurubis and Denkai in that very same industry here,” Wray reported. “Solvay’s had a facility in this article for many years. It is been continuously growing and they’re frequently investing in it. This is just an included profit to what they’ve presently been executing in this article.”
In June, German organization Aurubis AG broke ground in south Richmond County on a $340 million copper recycling and smelting plant, dubbed Aurubis Richmond, which will system about 90,000 tons of sophisticated recycling elements on a yearly basis to extract about 35,000 tons of blister copper. Copper is 1 of the most in-need finished products and solutions that goes into building EVs.
In July, Japanese manufacturer Denkai The united states announced the construction of a $430 million south Augusta production plant. Denkai provides copper foil employed in printed electronics these types of as circuit boards.
“Georgia is open up for small business, and today’s announcement is great information for both of those Georgia’s rising clean up electrical power financial system and Augusta staff,” Warnock stated in a assertion Wednesday.
“We are proud to get the federal government’s help for production systems that will give the U.S. with crucial raw components for constructing an impartial, sustainable EV price chain,” mentioned Mike Finelli, president of Solvay Advancement Platforms and chief North American officer. “This grant reaffirms Solvay’s management in producing a robust and resilient domestic battery offer chain that brings essential clean up power careers to the U.S.”
