Idaho in running for battery plant

KORE Power facility to create thousands of jobs in community chosen for manufacturing plant

A Coeur d'Alene-based energy storage developer is eying the Gem State as a potential location for a manufacturing facility that could be a catalyst for job growth in the area.

KORE Power began the site selection process last year, looking at more than 400 sites in 18 states to build its million-square-foot facility to produce lithium-ion batteries.

"Over the past year, our team visited nine states and 50 sites, narrowing down the originally proposed locations," said CEO Lindsay Gorrill, adding that KORE Power has recently narrowed the process to a handful of sites, with the final site selection expected to be announced in the third quarter of this year.

Although the company could not give specifics on which towns are being considered, "Idaho is still in the running for our site location," Gorrill said.

This plant would be an engine for job creation, Gorrill said.

"In addition to the jobs created in the construction phase of the project, our manufacturing facility will provide 1,000 to 1,250 jobs day one of operation, growing to an estimated 3,000 direct jobs at full production capacity," he said, "in addition to an estimated 15,000 indirect jobs, bringing the total to approximately 18,000 direct and indirect jobs when at full production capacity."

The site is expected to be chosen by the end of September, with a groundbreaking ceremony potentially as early as November.

Construction should take 18 to 24 months to complete, depending on preparation and permitting. Initial hiring of engineering and procurement resources to configure the factory and order capital equipment and infrastructure will begin in the fourth quarter of 2020. The majority of the production workforce would start to be hired and trained three to six months prior to the opening of the facility, Gorrill said.

As a responsible citizen in whichever community it chooses, the production process of KORE Power releases few emissions other than steam from cooling towers, Gorrill explained.

"The water consumed is relatively low and the wastewater is primarily from having 1,000 to 3,000 employees on site," he said. "Our factory will maintain KORE's goal of being a carbon-neutral corporation.”

He said the U.S. manufacturing facility will utilize its own Mark 1 energy storage system featured in a solar-plus-storage co-generation plant, fully integrated into the site. It will have the capability to provide triple redundancy of the power supply with the cooperation of local utility companies, while also working with the utility companies to provide the surrounding communities with grid resiliency, and overproduced power.

“We also have partnered with a battery recycler, Renewance, to recycle customers spent battery solutions to provide inputs back into our production process,” Gorrill said.

KORE Power has 10 employees in the U.S. Seven of those live in Idaho, four are in Canada and 18 are in China, where KORE Power already has a production site owned by manufacturing partner Do Fluoride Chemicals.

North Idaho and the Inland Northwest appeal to KORE Power "because this is where we live," Gorrill said.

"The area offers an attractive quality of life, a stable workforce with a good work ethic, and an attractive cost of living," he said.