WOODINVILLE, Wash., Sept. 20, 2024 — Group14 Technologies has been selected for an award negotiation of up to $200M by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains as part of the second set of projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand domestic battery manufacturing for electric vehicles and the electrical grid.
“The largest global source of silane today is China, so the supply of silane gas in the U.S. must be increased to secure the U.S. silicon battery industry,” said Group14 CEO and Co-Founder, Rick Luebbe. “A new silane factory in Washington state will allow Group14 and other silicon battery companies in the U.S. to source this critical raw material domestically, to support EV-scale battery production and reduce foreign battery supply chain dependence.”
Manufacturing large commercial volumes of silicon-based battery materials in the U.S. requires equivalently large-scale commercial access to silane gas. This project is intended to install, commission, and operate a U.S.-based silane manufacturing plant with an annual capacity of 7,200 metric tons.
The DOE award would allow Group14 to build a silane factory using its proprietary intellectual property which produces silane at a significantly reduced capital and energy requirement from the conventional process. Siting the plant in Moses Lake, Washington, will allow the facility to directly feed silane to the locally based silicon battery plants, alleviating a critical bottleneck for the industry.
The project is expected to create more than 300 jobs to construct the silane factory and retain 150 employees to commission, ramp up, and sustain production.
Group14 is rapidly scaling its global manufacturing capabilities worldwide. The company’s advanced Battery Active Materials (BAM-1) factory has been manufacturing at the ton-scale since 2021. It has delivered shipments of SCC55™ to more than 100 customers representing 95% of worldwide lithium-ion battery production.
Group14’s BAM-2 factory in Moses Lake, Washington, is expected to be the world’s largest for advanced silicon battery materials with an initial annual capacity of 4,000 tons of SCC55™ or 20 GWh of silicon battery material. The first 2,000 tons (10,000 GWh) of capacity from BAM-2 is expected to start production in Q4 2024. With over 30 GWh of production capacity when combined with the company’s JV in South Korea, Group14 is firmly placed to be the leading EV-scale mass producer of advanced silicon materials.
