The Washington Post: Electric battery maker to locate factory in northern WVa

The following article was published by The Washington Post on August 30, 2022.

The original article was written by John Raby with the AP.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. —

The energy startup SPARKZ said Tuesday it will locate an electric battery factory in northern West Virginia.

The batteries will be built at a 482,000-square-foot (4.5-hectare) plant in Taylor County off U.S. Route 50 near Bridgeport, the company said in a statement. The plant, which eventually will employ 350 workers, originally was a glass factory that ceased operations in 2009.

The plant will produce cobalt-free batteries, an effort to bring down the cost of U.S. lithium-ion battery production. The Democratic Republic of Congo has historically been the top producer of cobalt worldwide, with most mines controlled by Chinese companies.

In March the Livermore, California-based company announced intentions to build the plant. An agreement with the United Mine Workers union was announced in May to recruit and train dislocated miners to be the factory’s first production workers. West Virginia has lost thousands of jobs in mining and other resource extraction industries in recent years.

The company, which was founded in 2019, has said its first markets will likely be in material-handling vehicles such as forklifts, agricultural equipment and energy storage. It added that batteries for the automotive market, which require a process of certification, will be in the near future of the plant.

A recruitment drive has started for the first group of employees, who then will prepare for additional worker training and manufacturing as production begins, the statement said.

“SPARKZ is excited to bring its patriotic power company to West Virginia and begin hiring coalfield families starting today. This is the perfect location to begin re-engineering the battery supply chain to end China’s dominance in energy storage,” founder and CEO Sanjiv Malhotra said in the statement.

Earlier this year, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced $3.1 billion in funding to U.S. companies that make and recycle lithium-ion batteries.

“Engaging our strong and capable workforce here in West Virginia to manufacture batteries domestically is a critical to our energy independence and stability,” U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said. “The Sparkz facility will create 350 good-paying, long-term jobs, and I look forward to seeing this initiative grow. We will continue to work closely together to bring battery manufacturing here to the United States so we don’t have to rely on foreign supply chains for our energy needs.”

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Founder & CEO

Dr. Sanjiv Malhotra

Dr. Sanjiv Malhotra is the founder and CEO of Sparkz—the battery start-up reinventing the energy supply chain.

 

Malhotra has been a leader in the energy sector for nearly three decades as a founder, investor and executive. Most recently, he served as the inaugural director for the Energy Investor Center at the U.S Department of Energy (DOE), serving under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

 

At DOE, Malhotra led the Obama Administration’s initiative to boost public-private partnerships to accelerate the commercialization of technologies developed in national research centers like Oak Ridge National Labs.

 

Malhotra was recruited to the Department of Energy after a successful exit of Oorja Protonics—the world leader in methanol fuel cells—which he founded and led as CEO for 10 years. Oorja raised $50 Million in equity financing from leading VCs such as Sequoia, DAG Ventures, Artis Capital and others during his tenure. He boosted Oorja’s revenue and profitability growth, while expanding operations globally in Japan, China, South Africa, Mexico, and India.

 

Oorja was acquired in 2014 by the Private Equity firm MinXing Growth Fund.

 

As an investor and consultant, Malhotra has worked at leading venture capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers as an advisor on clean energy and advanced materials.

 

Earlier in his career, Malhotra led the engineering and product development team at H Power, a pioneer in hydrogen fuel cells. As part of the management team, he managed the successful IPO, which raised more than $100 million in August 2000.

 

He began his career as a post-doctoral fellow at the renowned Lawrence Berkeley National Labs on electrochemical storage systems. Dr. Malhotra has authored seven patents and more than 40 publications in various fields of energy storage technology and materials. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering and an M.B.A from University of Iowa.