Dive Brief:
- Sodium-ion battery maker Natron Energy plans to spend nearly $1.4 billion to build a factory in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, its first in the U.S., the company announced last week.
- The facility will span nearly 1.2 million square feet and create more than 1,000 jobs, with salaries averaging just over $64,000, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s Aug. 15 news release.
- The plant is expected to produce 14 gigawatts of sodium-ion batteries at full capacity, increasing Natron’s production by more than 40 times its current capacity. The company has yet to announce a timeline for construction and production.
Dive Insight:
The factory is part of Natron’s strategy to leverage the growing demand for sodium-ion battery storage, co-CEO Wendell Brooks said in a statement.
Natron’s batteries will be delivered to a wide range of customers in the industrial power space, such as data centers, mobility, electric vehicle fast charging, microgrids and telecommunications, according to the battery maker.
Natron’s Prussian blue electrodes store and transform sodium ions faster due to their lower internal resistance, the company said. The battery chemistry does not strain amid charging and discharging, has a 10-times faster cycling than lithium-ion batteries and a more than 50,000 cycle life, Natron said.
Sodium-ion batteries do not require lithium, cobalt or nickel. Instead they’re made from materials such as aluminum, iron, manganese and sodium electrolyte, making them an alternative to lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries, according to the company.
Natron’s upcoming facility will be located on the state’s Kingsboro business park, a CSX-platinum designated location, according to the releases. Rail carrier CSX’s select site helps businesses locate the best rail-served sites for development or expansion, according to its website.
The Kingsboro site is located near two interstate highways, Raleigh-Durham International Airport and in foreign trade and opportunity zones, according to the CSX website.
“This flagship manufacturing facility will dramatically accelerate our efforts to deliver sodium-ion batteries to customers who are hungry for safe, reliable, and environmentally responsible energy storage solutions,” Natron founder and co-CEO Colin Wessells said in a statement.
Natron has progressively expanded its battery production capacity over the past few months. In April, it began commercial-scale operations at its sodium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Holland, Michigan.
