A $750,000 grant from a state-owned rail corridor is helping to establish a rail-served, first-of-its-kind battery gigafactory in North Carolina.
The North Carolina Railroad Co. joined several key economic development organizations on Natron Energy’s first sodium ion battery production facility project in the United States. California-based Natron will spend an estimated $1.4 billion on the facility at the Kingsboro megasite in Rocky Mount while creating more than 1,000 jobs with an average annual wage of $64,000.
Privately held by the state, NCRR manages 317 miles of state-owned rail corridor.
In a release, NCRR said Natron is the first manufacturer to successfully commercialize to UL 1973 safety standards a sodium ion battery product. Unlike lithium ion batteries, sodium ion batteries use the more abundant and environmentally benign sodium, and offer a sustainable alternative that significantly reduces the ecological footprint of battery production. UL 1973 is a safety standard for energy storage systems such as vehicle auxiliary power, stationary batteries, and Light Electric Rail (LER) batteries. It details the requirements manufacturers must comply with to earn safety certifications for their ESS.
The Rocky Mount facility will produce batteries for applications such as data centers, airline ground vehicle fleets and renewable energy storage.
Through its strategic economic development program, NCRR Invests, the North Carolina Railroad Co. investment will offset costs for the design and construction of a new rail spur to accommodate an estimated 600 railcars annually. The plant will be served by CSX Transportation, also an investor.
Since its launch in 2016, the NCRR Invests program has committed more than $18 million of NCRR’s private revenue, resulting in new or expanded locations of 18 manufacturing facilities and the creation of more than 11,800 jobs in North Carolina. Natron marks the third major investment this year for NCRR, following Siemens Energy’s expansion in Charlotte and growth of Innovative Construction Group, a subsidiary of homebuilder PulteGroup, in Siler City. The corridor said more investment announcements are planned.
Additional project partners include North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper; the North Carolina General Assembly; the North Carolina Department of Commerce; the North Carolina Department of Transportation; the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s Division of Workforce Solutions; the North Carolina Community College System; the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina; Dominion Energy; Piedmont Natural Gas; Edgecombe Community College; Edgecombe County; and the Carolinas Gateway Partnership.
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