WOODINVILLE, Wash., Oct. 19, 2022 — Group14 Technologies announced today that it has been selected as a recipient of the first set of projects funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand domestic battery manufacturing for electric vehicles and the electrical grid. As an awardee of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC), Group14 will receive $100 million for Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing to support surging electric vehicle and energy storage demand.
In accordance with the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the DOE is deploying its first phase of more than $7 billion of total investments to boost the production of the advanced battery technologies critical to strengthening clean energy industries. MESC’s portfolio of projects will leverage support from the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office and will focus on the domestic processing of materials and components currently imported overseas to increase U.S. economic competitiveness, energy dependence and national security. As part of the investment, the DOE solicited qualified proposals from battery materials manufacturers pursuing the creation of new, retrofitted and expanded domestic factories to produce battery materials, and selected Group14 for its established modular manufacturing approach to delivering commercial-scale quantities of lithium-silicon battery materials.
Group14 launched its first commercial-scale Battery Active Materials factory (BAM-1) in Woodinville, Washington in April 2021. Engineered to produce 120 tons per year of Group14’s flagship silicon-carbon battery technology, SCC55™, BAM-1 currently delivers to more than 60 customers representing 90% of worldwide battery production. In order to satisfy the rapidly growing market, Group14 raised $400 million led by Porsche AG to fund its second U.S. BAM factory (BAM-2) to be located in Moses Lake, Washington. BAM-2 is engineered for modular manufacturing, and each module will have an annual production capacity of 2,000 tons per year, equivalent to powering at least 100,000 electric vehicles.
”With this most recent award from the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, Group14 is continuing our proud history of partnering with the DOE to strengthen the U.S. battery supply chain,” said Group14 CTO and co-founder Dr. Rick Costantino.
Group14 will leverage the funding from the DOE to build two 2,000-ton-per-year commercial manufacturing modules in BAM-2. With rapid implementation timelines, Group14 expects to hire 500 employees for the construction, commissioning and operation of BAM-2, hiring from the skilled talent pool interested in clean energy jobs in Moses Lake, Washington.
“Achieving President Biden’s ambitious decarbonization goals all comes down to resilient battery supply chains anchored on U.S. soil to ensure our energy independence,” said Rick Luebbe, CEO and co-founder of Group14. “With our growing footprint in the Pacific Northwest, we’re answering the call for ‘all-American’ batteries and remain steadfastly committed to building out a fully end-to-end domestic battery supply chain to help the U.S. stay ahead in the electrification race.”
