Redwood Materials to invest $3.5Bn in new battery materials plant in South Carolina

Redwood Materials, a forward integrated battery recycling company aiming for a leading position in cathode materials and copper foil for batteries will invest $3.5Bn in a plant to be located outside of Charleston, South Carolina in the US. At the plant Redwood Materials is planning to recycle, refine and manufacture materials.

The campus is expected to require a staff or more than 1,500 and will have a capacity to produce 100 GWh of cathode materials by 2025, which is equivalent to around 110,000 tonnes. This can be compared with Umicore’s cathode plant in Nysa Poland which is expected to produce 20 GWh of cathode materials by the end of 2023 with ability to scale to up to 200 GWh. It is also equivalent in size to LG Chem’s planned cathode plant in Tenessee which will have a capacity of 120,000 tonnes in 2027.

Redwood Materials will break ground on the new campus in Q1 2023 with a recycling operation which is expected to be operational by the end of the year. This will be followed by downstream processes necessary for the different production steps. The operations will be powered by electricity with no gas used in any of the processes.

According to media Redwood Materials will benefit from $300M in tax breaks and other incentives. In return the company will later pay $9M to $30M to Berkely county, where the plant will be located, which directly can be channeled to services such as schools and medical care.

The region is the location for several current and future automotive companies and battery manufacturers such as BMW, Volvo, Polestar and EnvisionAESC.

Read more here