GE Partners with New York State to Manufacture Sodium-based Batteries

May 14, 2009 – Vol.14 No.8

GE Partners with New York State to Manufacture Sodium-based Batteries.

GE will open a new, state-of-the-art battery manufacturing plant in Upstate New York that will serve as the main manufacturing facility for GE’s newly formed battery business. The initial investment in the factory will be $100 million. It will be located in the Capital Region and will create 350 new manufacturing jobs at GE and thousands more in the supply chain. The announcement coincides with GE’s submission this week for federal stimulus dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy.

GE has invested more than $150 million to develop advanced battery technologies, including a high energy density, sodium-based chemistry battery that will provide energy storage for several future product applications. The first application will be GE’s hybrid locomotive, which will be commercialized in 2010. In addition, GE has launch customers in several industries, including mining, telecommunications and utility, with key applications for heavy service vehicles, backup storage and load leveling for the smart grid.

GE selected New York for the manufacturing plant because of strong support from New York state officials, specifically Governor David Paterson and Dennis Mullen, President of the Upstate Empire State Development Corporation. Also playing an important role in the planning of the new facility was U.S. Representative Paul Tonko, who helped to assemble the New York delegation in supporting the GE project.

GE’s planned facility will employ a high wage “green collar” workforce that will produce approximately 10 million cells each year when the facility is at full capacity. That translates to 900 megawatt hours of energy storage, or enough energy storage to power 1,000 U.S. homes for a month or enough energy to support 1,000 GE hybrid locomotives.

GE hopes to secure additional federal funding for the new facility later this summer. Applications for Department of Energy funding are due next week. The goal is to have the new manufacturing operation producing batteries by mid-2011. (5/12/09)

Links:

GE
http://www.ge.com

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Disclaimer, Forward-Looking or Safe Harbor Statement on original press release: No