LG Energy Solution (LGES) has opened a new expanded facility in Holland, Michigan to produce lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries designed specifically for large-scale energy storage – the first of its kind in the United States.
The facility is the largest giga-scale LFP production in the country and is well suited to meet the increased demand for stationary storage with LFP chemistry. According to Battery Technology, the 1.7-million-square-foot facility began production in May and is a significant milestone in domestic battery manufacturing.
The $1.4 billion manufacturing plant is adjacent to an existing facility LGES opened in 2012. It has an annual capacity of 16.5 gigawatt-hours dedicated to energy storage systems, combined with 5 GWh of existing nickel, manganese, cobalt (NMC) battery production, for a total capacity of 21.5 GWh.
The new factory represents the company’s resilience in the face of slumped EV battery growth, which prompted LGES to pivot to the development and production of LFP batteries for energy storage systems applications.
“ESS was the ugly duckling for some time for LG,” said Jaehong Park, president of LG Energy Solution Vertech, which specializes in ESS system integration. “The financial performance of ESS in the past was difficult.”
Now, LGES has seen more growth for energy storage systems (ESS) and already has four times more ESS manufacturing capacity than last year.
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