July 12, 2024: The US Department of Energy this week issued a conditional loan of up to $1.2 billion to battery separator firm, ENTEK, to finance a plant for making lithium-ion battery separators.
If finalized, the loan would be offered through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program that has $40 billion in direct lending authority and would substantially pay for a new facility in Terre Haute, Indiana to manufacture lithium-ion battery separators.
The separators will be used primarily in EVs —strengthening the US lithium-ion battery industry and enabling the creation of batteries used in advanced technology vehicles.
Graeme Fraser-Bell, ENTEK’s lithium sales and market development VP, told Batteries International that the loan would shore up and create an instant supply chain for EV batteries.
“At the moment, China dominates and both Europe and the US are significantly exposed,” he said. “To have US-sourced components in these batteries will bridge the gap that currently exists.”
There were, he added, a series of technical and environmental ratios ENTEK had to meet to enable the financing but that the company had factored those in. “We’re ready,” he said. “And the DOE is leaning into the risk. If we were to look outside the government for funding, it would be very hard for early stage investors to do the same. That’s why these government initiatives are so important.”
The project should create more than 760 construction jobs and 635 operational jobs. Based on current factors chosen by battery cell manufacturers, it will support roughly 1.9 million mid-size EVs or 1.3 million electric sports utility vehicles, ENTEK said.
The DOE estimates that by 2030, the North American lithium-ion EV battery industry will require annual separator production of 7 billion to 10 billion square meters. Once complete, the ENTEK facility should have the capacity to manufacture 1.72 billion square meters of separator material annually for the North American EV market.
“There has never been a more exciting time to be a manufacturer in the battery industry,” ENTEK CEO Larry Keith said.
Separators produced at the plant will accommodate all existing lithium-ion EV battery chemistries, confirmed the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), adding that the company’s new factory — a sprawling 1.4 million-square-foot complex expected to cost $1.5 billion to build — will help meet a significant slice of the domestic EV industry’s separator needs.
Car makers face increasingly tough requirements to qualify for $7,500 EV tax credits. New rules which came into effect at the beginning of the year, restrict Chinese content in batteries eligible for EV tax credits of up to $7,500, sharply reducing the number of eligible vehicles. Car firms have since made changes to supply chains and won restored eligibility for many vehicles.
It is unclear when the loan will be finalized.
