Santa Clara, Calif.-based sodium-ion battery maker Natron Energy Inc. is preparing to build a $1.4 billion plant in North Carolina that would be the first U.S. “gigafactory” for the technology, company and state officials announced Aug. 15.
The 1.2 million-square-foot plant would be built on a 437-acre site in Edgecombe County that had been set aside for a now-defunct Chinese manufacturer’s tire factory. The North Carolina factory would have a capacity of 24 GW, which the company says would increase its production capacity by 40 times.
The company opened its first commercial-scale plant earlier this year in Holland, Michigan. That plant has a capacity of 600 MW, which Natron said would serve as a “blueprint” for its future larger facilities.
Natron expects to supply batteries from the plant for data centers, microgrids, electric vehicle charging systems and other uses. Its batteries don’t require the same expensive minerals like lithium, copper, nickel and cobalt as lithium-ion batteries, with the company claiming its product outperforms others in power density and recharge speed . Natron also said its batteries, which use aluminum, iron, manganese and sodium electrolytes, are non-flammable and offer an environmental alternative to lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries.
“This flagship manufacturing facility will dramatically accelerate our efforts to deliver sodium-ion batteries to customers hungry for safe, reliable and environmentally responsible energy storage solutions,” said Colin Wessells, co-CEO of Natron, in a statement.
“This is important when we think about supply chains and geopolitics [because] anywhere on earth you can make stainless steel, you can make a Natron battery,” he told S&P Global earlier this year.
The firm said its products “are based on a unique, patented Prussian blue electrode chemistry … that stores and transfers sodium ions faster and with lower internal resistance than any other commercial battery on the market today.” Wessells said other sodium-ion products coming to market “generally use carbon or ceramic-based terminals on the battery instead of Prussian blue for … the higher energy densities, which the makes it more attractive for certain segments of the electric vehicle market.” But “we have made a commitment,” he told S&P Global.
Wessells stressed that “in return,” Natron offers greater power capacity, life and safety, which are “important to many of our customers. There’s less total energy inside that battery, so you can’t provide this power for a long time but the maximum power you can offer [at once] it’s much higher.” He said the potential is “very attractive in industrial applications where you’re trying to manage power in an enterprise environment. It’s not really a matter of how much energy is in the box, but how quickly we can get it all out.”
A Natron representative said the company could not yet comment on the selection of contractors for the new plant.
Natron will receive a grant from the state’s Workforce Development Investment Program worth up to $21.7 million over 12 years. Officials also plan for the county to receive a $30 million Megasite Preparation Program grant from the state to help get it ready.
According to PitchBook, it has raised about $300 million from investors.
