COLLETON COUNTY, S.C. — Kontrolmatik Technologies, a construction and engineering firm based in Istanbul, has unveiled plans for a $279 million plant in coastal South Carolina’s Colleton County that will manufacture lithium ion batteries.
Pomega Energy Storage Technologies, a subsidiary of Kontrolmatik, will operate the facility, which is scheduled for completion in 2024. At that time, Kontrolmatik, whose U.S. headquarters are based in Northern Virginia, expects to employ about 575 people at the facility.
The exact site was not disclosed, but the southern portion of the county touches the Atlantic Ocean and offers proximity to the Port of Charleston. This aspect of the location, along with access to a qualified workforce, should help address domestic reliance on foreign supply chains for these critical devices, according to the site selection team.
Keith Stauber and Meredith O’Connor of JLL led the site selection efforts for Kontrolmatik, a process that involved touring more than 200 locations. The factory will have a three-gigawatt hour capacity, meaning its annual energy consumption is enough to power about 2.3 million American homes.
“South Carolina and Colleton County were aggressive in their pursuit of this exciting project and put forth compelling economic, supply chain and workforce reasons why Colleton County was the best location for Kontrolmatik to bring this emerging and critical technology into U.S. production,” says O’Connor.
Lithium ion batteries are perhaps best known as central components of electric vehicles. Korean automaker Hyundai is the process of opening a $5.5 billion electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Bryan County, Ga., which is located less than 100 miles from Colleton County. However, Kontrolmatik’s batteries are primarily used for utility, grid and industrial-scale energy storage applications.
— Taylor Williams