Dive Brief:
- Entek just received a $1.2 billion Department of Energy conditional loan for its lithium-ion battery separator manufacturing facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to a company press release Tuesday.
- The facility will support the production of roughly 1.9 million mid-size or 1.3 million full-size electric vehicles, several hundred thousand more than its projections in March 2023.
- The project is expected to create 763 construction jobs and 635 operational jobs. Entek plans to partner with local community programs and nearby schools such as Ivy Tech Community College, specifically for specialized training and apprenticeship programs.
Dive Insight:
Entek’s facility capacity is expected to produce 1.72 billion square meters of separator material annually for the North American EV market, according to the DOE release. 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 facility’s location in March 2023 with a total planned investment of $1.7 billion and production expected to start by the second half of 2025, President of Entek Manufacturing Kimberly Medford told Manufacturing Dive in an email.
On top of the $1.2 billion conditional grant announced Tuesday, 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 Energy Department press release. It aims to help EV battery manufacturers satisfy the Inflation Reduction Act’s domestic content rules under the 30D Clean Vehicle Credit, which offers up to $7,500 for the purchase of new clean vehicles.
The battery separator facility is also one step closer to achieving the Biden Administration’s goal that half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 are 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, several community-based organizations and local building and trades unions, the DOE release stated.
The facility will be able to customize battery separators to accommodate several EV battery designs, such as all existing lithium-ion EV battery chemistries, including nickel-manganese-cobalt, lithium-ion-phosphate and more.
Additionally, Entek will be able to sell its separators to manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries for energy storage applications like its customer Kore Power.
The loan still has to be finalized and will be offered through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which supports U.S. manufacturing of advanced technology vehicles, qualifying components and materials that improve fuel economy.
