"The $1.4 billion investment onshores production of a popular battery chemistry that had been almost exclusively made in China, amid tariff and tax policy uncertainty."
"The U.S. battery supply chain just got a little stronger.
LG Energy Solution, a division of the major Korean battery manufacturer, is now producing battery cells for grid-scale energy storage at a site in Holland, Michigan. The company spent $1.4 billion to expand the factory, which previously made electric vehicle batteries. At full capacity, the new lines will produce 16.5 gigawatt-hours of lithium iron phosphate cells per year.
“That’s a sizable portion of annual domestic demand for energy storage battery cells,” said Noah Roberts, vice president for energy storage at the American Clean Power Association trade group, who toured the LG factory Tuesday. “It’s a testament and demonstration of the industry’s commitment to onshoring manufacturing and ramping it up in short order.”
The lithium iron phosphate chemistry, often abbreviated as LFP, has grown increasingly popular for stationary storage and EVs; it offers fire-safety benefits, durability, and lower costs compared to the typical electric vehicle chemistries, at the expense of some energy density. Until now, American battery customers had to turn to China for any LFP supplies. LG’s facility appears to be the largest giga-scale LFP production in the U.S. Japan’s AESC recently launched LFP production at its factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, and Tesla is working to onshore LFP production as well."
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