Dive brief:
- Entek just received a $1.2 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy for its lithium-ion battery separator manufacturing facility in Terre Haute, Ind., according to a company press release Tuesday.
- The facility will support the production of approximately 1.9 million midsize or 1.3 million full-size electric vehicles, several hundred thousand more than its March 2023 projections.
- The project is expected to create 763 construction jobs and 635 operational jobs. Not yet plans to partner with local community programs and nearby schools, such as Ivy Tech Community College, specifically for specialized training and learning programs.
Diving knowledge:
The capacity of the Entek facility is expected to produce 1.72 billion square meters of separator material annually for the US electric vehicle market, according to the DOE statement. Each gigawatt hour of cell manufacturing requires seven to 10 million square meters of battery separator, depending on the battery form factor.
Oregon-based Entek initially announced the location of the facility in March 2023 with the total investment cost of $1.7 billion, and production will begin in the second half of 2025, Entek Manufacturing President Kimberly Medford told Manufacturing Dive in an email. The project will consist of four buildings of approximately 1.4 million square feet.
In addition to the billion dollar grant, Entek received a $200 million DOE grant in October 2022 to help fund the project.
The Terre Haute facility is part of a larger effort to increase domestic separator capacity, according to the Department of Energy Press release. Its goal is to help electric vehicle battery manufacturers meet the domestic content rules of the Inflation Reduction Act under the 30D Clean Vehicle Credit, which provides up to $7,500 toward the purchase of new vehicles clean
The battery separator facility is also one step closer to achieving the Biden Administration’s goal that half of all new vehicles sold by 2030 will be zero-emissions.
For its workforce, Entek plans to hire people who have been displaced from manufacturing industries. For recruiting, the company also has partnerships with Indiana State University, various community organizations and Local building and office unions, according to the DOE release.
The facility will be able to customize battery separators to accommodate various electric vehicle battery designs, including all existing lithium-ion battery chemistries for electric vehicles, such as nickel-manganese-cobalt, ion of lithium phosphate and much more.
In addition, Entek will be able to sell its separators to lithium-ion battery manufacturers for energy storage applications such as its customer Kore Power.
The loan has yet to be finalized and will be offered through the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program, which supports American manufacturing of advanced technology vehicles, components and qualifying materials that improve the economy of fuel
