Vertically integrated US energy storage company Kore Power has received a conditional commitment from the US Department of Energy (DOE) for a $850 million loan for its Arizona gigafactory.
The DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) is set to provide the loan for Kore Power’s lithium-ion gigafactory, the KOREPlex, which will produce both NMC and LFP battery cells with customer deliveries starting late 2024/early 2025.
Civil works on the site began late last year, and the facility will have an annual production capacity of 6GWh with the potential to increase that to 12GWh.
It will serve both the EV and stationary battery energy storage system (BESS) sectors, the latter of which Kore itself recently entered through the acquisition of a system integrator. It has recently been winning mediums-sized BESS project deals, including one in Arkansas and another in Illinois which involves replacing an entire battery fleet (Premium access).
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“This support from the LPO will help KORE expand its U.S. leadership in the rapidly growing energy storage and e-mobility sectors while growing our business, allowing us to power the energy transition with American products,” said KORE’s Chief Financial Officer Alexander Nickolatos.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly added: “This is big news for Arizona and the country, supporting KORE Power’s gigafactory in Arizona will bring manufacturing back to America for a critical supply chain, while creating good-paying jobs.”
“The administration is taking advantage of the resources we provided through the Inflation Reduction Act to not just boost jobs in Arizona, but also to strengthen our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign sources of battery components for everything from electric vehicles to energy storage.”
It was also recently revealed that one of the investors in a US$75 million fundraising round that Kore completed last year is Energy Vault, the company known for its gravity energy storage solution. Energy-Storage.news published an interview with Energy Vault CEO Robert Piconi last week (Premium access).
The loan announcement by the LPO comes after Energy-Storage.news revealed that the US now has more planned lithium-ion production capacity than Europe (Premium access), with generous tax credit incentives for both battery production and BESS deployment provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.
It is part of the US’ now taking a more “aggressive stance” on climate change, LPO head Jigar Shah told Energy-Storage.news in an interview at the start of the year.
