Domestic battery storage manufacturing will play a crucial role in ensuring future grid reliability and security. Until recently, battery storage options--necessary for capturing and deploying intermittent energy resources like wind and solar in the most advantageous way--have not been readily available due to both technology limitations as well as very high costs. But the world of battery storage has changed dramatically over the last decade, as technology and production have ramped up and prices have fallen. Batteries are now positioned to play a meaningful role in the transition to emissions free energy generation. There is a front-of-meter storage boom that is driving U.S. based investment and creating a new domestic market. The front-of-meter energy storage segment is expected to grow to more than 5 gigawatts and $4.3 billion annually by 2025.
However, the U.S. is overly reliant on imported battery cells and components from Asia and must take steps to ensure that a domestic supply chain is available as battery storage becomes essential to our domestic energy security.
Idaho based, KORE Power understands this need and is leading the charge to build out a domestic battery storage supply chain. KORE Power produces its battery cells in a highly automated and state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, and it prioritizes research and development so that it is constantly improving its technology and manufacturing process.
KORE Power’s recent announcement that it will build a one-million square foot lithium ion battery manufacturing facility in Maricopa County, Arizona--the “KOREplex” as it is being called--will be the first manufacturing facility of its kind in the United States. The facility will operate at net-zero carbon emissions through strategic partnerships and solar-plus- and storage co-generation, and will help KORE meet its goal of scaling up annual production from 2 GWh to 12 GWh in order to serve the rapidly growing battery market. The new facility will also create more than 3,000 new advanced manufacturing jobs in Arizona and strengthen U.S. energy security by creating a robust domestic battery cell supply.
A recent white paper from Wood MacKenzie, Building a Secure Domestic Supply Chain for Energy Storage, details the importance of a domestic battery storage manufacturing capability.
“Despite leading the world in grid-scale energy storage deployment, the U.S. has lagged in the race to become a global leader in energy storage manufacturing. While U.S. national laboratories maintain world-class R&D capabilities, the cells that form the core of these batteries are nearly all imported from manufacturers in China, South Korea and Japan. In some ways, it is a familiar story, similar to how the U.S. effectively ceded the job creation and economic benefits of solar manufacturing to the Asian countries that aggressively backed that industry more than a decade ago. As battery storage becomes more essential to modern electricity systems at every scale, dependence on imported cells constitute a real risk to U.S. energy security.”
Even the Department of Defense has recognized the vulnerability to the military due to an import reliant battery storage supply chain. A 2018 report on the U.S. industrial base noted:
“Most domestic lithium-ion cell packagers rely on foreign commercial lithium-ion cell suppliers from countries such as South Korea, China, and Taiwan. Cell availability for military battery packaging is a risk across the board for rechargeable batteries.”
KORE Power is playing an important role creating high-impact and functional solutions to modern-energy challenges, and it is demonstrating how accelerating domestic battery storage innovation and manufacturing supports the economy and is vital for our domestic energy security.