Rising battery demand charges industrial plant construction

Several U.S. factories are being built in partnership with automakers.

ICL, a global specialty minerals company with offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, and St. Louis, broke ground earlier this month on a $400 million battery materials manufacturing plant that, when it opens in 2025, will help meet demand from energy storage, electric vehicle, and clean-energy industries for products made in the U.S. ICL’s investment in this plant was augmented by a $197 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, whose Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, was among the dignitaries attending the August 8 groundbreaking, who included Missouri Governor Mike Parson, and Jarod Boyd, Chief of Staff to St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones. McCarthy Building Companies is the general contractor for the 140,000-sf facility, said to be the first commercial-scale plant of its kind in the U.S. Hargrove Engineers & Consultants is providing architecture, design and all engineering services outside of CE, which Castle is covering. The facility is expected to produce 30,000 metric tons of lithium iron phosphate (LFP). (E Source, a research, consulting, and data sciences firm, projects global demand for iron phosphate-based cathode active materials to reach 3 million tons by 2031, with a market value of $40 billion.) The plant will be situated on ICL’s existing Carondelet campus in St. Louis, and construction is expected to create between 800 and 900 union contractor jobs. ICL is also working with Aleees, a Taiwan-based LFP materials producer, to establish a localized, integrated, and sustainable LFP supply chain for U.S.-based customers.

The electrification movement, spurred by passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, is emerging as a building boom. Other plants under construction include LG Energy Solutions’ $1.7 billion, 1-million-sf electric vehicle battery manufacturing facility in Holland, Mich., which should be completed by next April. LG Energy Solutions benefits from a $189 million incentives package from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Last May, LG Energy Solutions and Hyundai Motor Group announced plans to build a $4.3 billion EV battery plant in Bryan County in Georgia that is expected to bring 3,000 new jobs by the end of 2025, when it will start producing 300,000 batteries per year. The plant will be near Hyundai’s Metaplant America factory, also under construction, that will produce Hyundai-, Genesis-, and Kia-branded electric vehicles. BMW Group’s 1-million-sf, $700 million high-voltage battery assembly plant, in Woodruff, S.C., broke ground last June. The new plant, on 315 acres, will support BMW’s car factory in Spartanburg, S.C. It is designed to be solar-ready, and will use collected rainwater to reduce its water consumption. The Woodruff plant is part of BMW’s latest $1.7 billion investment in South Carolina, and its construction includes a technology building, a cafeteria, a fire department, and energy center. The Woodruff plant will get its battery cells from Tennessee-based Envision AESC US, which is building a $810 million, 1.5-million-sf cell plant in Florence, S.C. Last April, General Motors and South Korea-based Samsung SDI revealed plans to invest more than $3 billion in an EV battery cell plant in the U.S. The plant, to be located in Carlisle, Ind., is expected to begin operations in 2026 and create 1,700 jobs, according to both companies. GM and LG recently completed a battery-cell plant near Warren, Ohio, and reportedly have battery cell plants in the works in Tennessee and Michigan.

Stantec, HDR, Page, HOK, and Arcadis North America top the rankings of the nation's largest architecture engineering (AE) firms for nonresidential building and multifamily housing work, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2023 Giants 400 Report.

A record 552 AEC firms submitted data for BD+C's 2023 Giants 400 Report. The final report includes 137 rankings across 25 building sectors and specialty categories.

Gensler, HKS, Perkins&Will, Corgan, and Perkins Eastman top the rankings of the nation's largest architecture firms for nonresidential building and multifamily housing work, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2023 Giants 400 Report.

One of the most significant changes seen in today’s battery plant is the full manufacturing process—from raw materials to the fully operational battery.

National nonresidential construction spending increased 0.1% in June, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Spending is up 18% over the past 12 months. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $1.07 trillion in June.

Aligning the BIM model with the owner’s asset management system is the crucial first step in creating a Digital Twin. By following these guidelines, organizations can harness the power of Digital Twins to optimize facility management, maintenance planning, and decision-making throughout the building’s lifecycle.

Following a 19.7% surge in spending for commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings in 2023, leading construction industry economists expect spending growth to come back to earth in 2024, according to the July 2023 AIA Consensus Construction Forecast Panel.

The recently released Wi-Fi standard, IEEE 802.11az enables more refined and accurate indoor location capabilities. As technology manufacturers incorporate the new standard in various devices, it will enable buildings, including malls, arenas, and stadiums, to provide new wayfinding and tracking features.

The embodied carbon (EC) intensity in core and shell industrial buildings in the U.S. averages 23.0 kilograms per sf, according to a recent analysis of 26 whole building life-cycle assessments. That means a 300,000-sf warehouse would emit 6,890 megatons of carbon over its lifespan, or the equivalent of the carbon emitted by 1,530 gas-powered cars driven for one year. Those sobering estimates come from a new benchmark study, “Embodied Carbon U.S. Industrial Real Estate.”

The design firm Ware Malcomb has partnered with FlexHQ, a Los Angeles-based firm offering cowarehouse leasing solutions, to create a scalable workspace that emphasizes leasing flexibility and higher-quality and environmentally friendlier amenities than aren’t commonly found in this building type, say representatives from both companies.

Stantec, HDR, Page, HOK, and Arcadis North America top the rankings of the nation's largest architecture engineering (AE) firms for nonresidential building and multifamily housing work, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2023 Giants 400 Report.

A record 552 AEC firms submitted data for BD+C's 2023 Giants 400 Report. The final report includes 137 rankings across 25 building sectors and specialty categories.

Gensler, HKS, Perkins&Will, Corgan, and Perkins Eastman top the rankings of the nation's largest architecture firms for nonresidential building and multifamily housing work, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2023 Giants 400 Report.

One of the most significant changes seen in today’s battery plant is the full manufacturing process—from raw materials to the fully operational battery.