The Midwest is becoming a growing hub for electric vehicle and battery suppliers, now with the addition of a battery separator facility from Entek. The manufacturer will invest $1.5 billion in a lithium-ion battery separator plant in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The battery components site will produce eough separators to power 1.4 million to 1.6 million EVs annually by 2027. The campus will span four buildings across 1.4 million square feet, making it the Oregon-based company's largest investment to date.
Entek received a $200 million grant from the Department of Energy to help fund the project, made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The company is also set to receive up to more than $13 million in state tax incentives and grants, including for job training and smart manufacturing.
Entek is pushing to grow its production capacity across the country. Last year, the company announced plans to open a manufacturing facility in Henderson, Nevada.
Its Indiana site is the first phase of a company-wide expansion plan to build 1.4 billion-square-meters of annual production by 2027.
"Combined with our robust and proprietary IP and our vertically-integrated engineering and fabrication competencies, ENTEK has both the commitment and capability to supply the growing and critical US lithium-ion battery industry with US produced separators,” CEO Larry Keith said in a statement announcing the corporate expansion plan.
