Area tech companies receive fed grants
Sila Nanotechnologies co-founder and CEO Gene Berdichevsky in photos taken inside the 600,000-square-foot building the company recently bought on Road N NE and intends to turn into its Moses Lake production facility. With federal grant funding, the company intends to work on developing advanced battery technologies.
FILE PHOTO
The old Xyleco building at 3741 Road N NE in Moses Lake. Alameda, California-based Sila Nanotechnologies bought the building in April and has received a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help convert it into a production facility for silicon-based anodes for rechargeable batteries.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Energy announced last week that Sila Nanotechnologies and Group14 Technologies will each receive $100 million grants to build silicon battery manufacturing facilities in Moses Lake under a program established as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2021.
According to a press release from Sen. Maria Cantwell, both Woodinville-based Group14 and Alameda, California-based Sila Nanotechnologies will receive the grants under the Energy Department’s new Battery Materials Processing and Battery Component Manufacturing and Recycling Program. Both companies have developed proprietary technologies to use silicon in the anodes of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries to improve their capacity and the speed at which they can be charged.
“The historic investment Congress made over the past two years are helping solve the next-generation battery storage technology challenge right here in Washington,” Cantwell said in the press release. “These two cutting edge companies will not only use domestically sourced materials to make electric vehicles more affordable, they will be creating hundreds of high-paying jobs that will help transform Moses Lake into an epicenter of clean manufacturing.”
In April, Sila Nanotechnologies purchased the 600,000-square-foot Xyleco building at 3741 Road N NE for $35.7 million, according to data from the Grant County Assessor’s Office, and announced in May it plans to use the facility to produce advanced silicon-anode lithium batteries for cell phones and automobiles. According to the press release from Cantwell’s office, Sila plans to invest an additional $300 million in its Moses Lake facility.
Group14 has yet to announce where it plans to build its facility in Moses Lake but is planning on investing an additional $233 million in its Moses Lake facility, the press release from Cantwell’s office said.
“Achieving President Biden’s ambitious decarbonization goals all comes down to resilient battery supply chains anchored on U.S. soil to ensure our energy independence,” said Rick Luebbe, CEO and co-founder of Group14, in a company press release. “With our growing footprint in the Pacific Northwest, we’re answering the call for ‘all-American’ batteries and remain steadfastly committed to building out a fully end-to-end domestic battery supply chain to help the U.S. stay ahead in the electrification race.”
The grants are among $2.8 billion awarded to 21 projects across the United States as part of the $7 billion program, according to the press release from Cantwell’s office. The requirements and provisions of this particular grant are 141 pages, according to the document available at the Energy Department’s website.
“The Department of Energy typically has rigorous milestones that the work out with each grantee that need to be met out before a tranche of funding of any one grant is allocated,” wrote Cantwell spokesperson Calley Hair in an email to the Columbia Basin Herald. “There are also usually clawback provisions if companies aren’t complying with the terms of the grant.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
