$1B Battery Recycling Plant Eyed in South Carolina

Rendering of Cirba Solutions’ facility. Image courtesy of Cirba Solutions

Cirba Solutions, which recycles end-of-life electric vehicle (EV) batteries and gigafactory scrap, has begun a Phase I investment of more than $300 million in a lithium-ion EV and hybrid battery recycling facility in South Carolina.

The approximately 400,000-square-foot plant will be developed in Pineview Industrial Park, near Columbia. The facility will extract and recycle enough critical materials, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, to power more than 500,000 electric vehicle batteries annually.

Groundbreaking for the more than 200-acre campus is scheduled for later this year, with operations expected to begin in late 2024.

Cirba plans to invest more than $1 billion in the next 5 years to expand the facility, based on the growing demand for critical materials needed for EV batteries.

In the “Battery Belt”

Cirba noted that its longstanding battery-processing facilities in Lancaster, Ohio, and Trail, British Columbia, facilities have recently undergone expansions. Further, the Richland County, S.C., location will be Cirba’s eighth operational facility in North America and its fourth in the U.S. “Battery Belt.”

The new gigafactories cluster. Image courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

The Battery Belt stretches from Michigan to Georgia and has seen more than 15 new lithium-ion battery gigafactories or expansions announced since 2021, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report.

In October, Our Next Energy Inc. leased a 659,589-square-foot industrial building in Van Buren Township, Mich., to equip it as a $1.6 billion EV battery cell manufacturing plant.

And in January, Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and LG Energy Solution announced plans to break ground early this year on a new $3.5 billion EV battery plant in Fayette County, Ohio. The facility will total 2.5 million to 3 million square feet and manufacture advanced lithium-ion battery cells exclusively for Honda EVs sold in North America.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas research tallied the stunning growth of the lithium-ion battery industry, both globally and in the U.S. The national production capacity is expected to grow by a factor of five from 2021 to 2026, although production in China—both current and projected by 2031—dwarfs that of the rest of the world.