Ascend granted federal $480M to build Kentucky battery recycling plant
Ascend Elements
An artist's rendering of Ascend Elements' new Apex 1 facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
Westborough electric vehicle battery recycling firm Ascend Elements has received $480 million in matching funds grant money to support the construction of the company’s new $1-billion facility in Kentucky.
The grants are part of the U.S. Department of Energy Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Initiative, which is giving out $2.8 billion through the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. According to the Department of Energy’s website, money was awarded to 21 projects, including Ascend Elements’ new Apex facility in Kentucky, to support U.S. facilities for battery materials, processing, and recycling.
Ascend Elements is calling its new facility its Apex facility. Construction started in October at the 140-acre site in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which will serve as the place where the company can use its technology to make cathode active material in lithium batteries from recycled lithium batteries. According to Ascend, once construction is completed, Apex will make enough material from old batteries to power 250,000 electric vehicles.
“These awards are transformational for the U.S. lithium-ion battery industry,” Ascend CEO Mike O’Kronley said in a Wednesday press release. “The Apex facility, with the Department of Energy’s support, will be the first and largest battery material production facility of its kind in the U.S., improving security of supply of critical materials for the domestic electric vehicle industry as well as the United States’ competitiveness in the lithium-ion battery industry on a global scale. The importance of closed-loop lithium-ion battery supply chain cannot be understated. This grant accelerates achievement of that closed-loop supply chain.”
One issue the electric vehicle industry faces is with lithium battery production. The materials used for the batteries have to be imported from around the world. Ascend Elements and other battery recycling companies are trying to create a closed-loop and more sustainable system in the United States where fewer new materials need to be imported and instead materials are used again from old batteries after recycling.
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