Opinions Forging Ahead West Michigan becoming an epicenter of advanced battery manufacturing
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Forging Ahead
By Greg Main
President & CEO,
Michigan Economic Development Corp.
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March marked an exciting month for the future of West Michigan. First, the South Korean company LG Chem announced it had chosen Holland as the place to build its new $300 million lithium-ion battery plant. By 2013, the company plans to employ more than 400 people at the facility. Groundbreaking will take place this summer, with the factory scheduled to be fully operational by 2012. At full production, the plant will have enough capacity to produce cells for 50,000 to 200,000 battery packs.
LG Chem’s 650,000-square-foot facility will be financed in part by a $151.4 million grant the company received from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Recovery Act Award for Electric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative. Jae Ham, a senior official with LG Chem, said the company was impressed with Holland’s outstanding determination and sincere effort and commitment to be at the forefront of the new green energy economy, which will result in Michigan becoming the leader in the electric vehicle industry.
LG Chem’s confirmation of the Holland location comes more than a year after Lakeshore Advantage officials first learned of the opportunity and began developing a community effort to win the project, and there’s no doubt that Michigan wouldn’t have won the project without their hard work promoting Holland as a great place to do business. Thanks to Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s bold vision and aggressive strategy, Michigan is now the leader of the U.S. advanced-battery industry.
The LG Chem announcement came just a few months after Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions, one of the leading independent suppliers of lithium-ion batteries for hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, plans to invest $220 million in a new advanced-battery manufacturing facility in Holland to produce lithium-ion cells for automotive applications. The project is expected to create 498 new jobs.
A few weeks after LG Chem’s announcement, fortu PowerCell Inc. announced it would launch a major battery-manufacturing operation at a Muskegon County facility. It is Muskegon’s biggest economic development project in decades and moves Muskegon into a new generation of advanced battery manufacturing. The company is expected to invest $623 million into the project, which will create up to 726 jobs.
Granholm first met with fortu officials on an investment mission to Germany in 2009. As with LG Chem, fortu company officials pointed to the great work of one of our partner organizations — in this case, Muskegon Area First — in helping the company to choose Muskegon County over a different site in Germany, where fortu’s parent company is based.
fortu CEO Alan Greenshields told reporters that the company was “totally overwhelmed” by its positive reception in Michigan and have great plans for the future. “We are at the cusp of a revolution,” Greenshields said. fortu also plans to bring brand-new vehicle battery technology into the North American market.
Three years ago, Michigan launched an economic development strategy to identify and capitalize on key industry sectors where the state had unique competitive advantages. One of the sectors identified was advanced batteries and advanced energy storage, with an initial focus on transportation.
It was clear that Michigan — as home to more than 330 transportation R&D companies, more than 65,000 engineers, a solid manufacturing infrastructure and world-class engineering schools — was exceptionally positioned to address the critical national need of developing a domestic advanced battery manufacturing industry to help break our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
As we see with the announcements of the Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions, LG Chem and fortu projects, Michigan’s aggressive strategy to diversify its economy is paying off. Not only will these projects create direct jobs, but they’ll attract suppliers to the area and create spin-off jobs. We will continue to work tirelessly to make Michigan the global capital of vehicle electrification and advanced battery technology.