Company planning to build battery plant in Alabama gets federal grant

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - The road to a better and more secure American supply chain runs through Alabama after the Biden administration gave $2 billion in grants to companies on Wednesday to increase American production of electric car batteries.

More than $100 million of that money will go to Anovion, which makes synthetic graphite for lithium ion car batteries.

Anovion says the grant will speed up construction of the plant they plan to build in Colbert County after they select a site later this month.

“Cell makers that are starting to produce batteries for electric vehicles coming online in 2024, 2025 won’t be entirely reliant upon foreign sources, which, there could be supply chain disruptions, which we’ve all certainly experienced over the past two or three years,” said Anovion CEO Eric Stopka. “But it could also be other markets are growing equally fast and it could become a capacity issue for the U.S. That’s why we need to develop a fully domestic supply chain for those materials.”

While announcing the grants, President Biden said 75% of car battery production currently takes place in China.

Stopka says while the company has plants in two other states, it is close to selecting a site in Colbert County for its new plant.

Stopka says state economic leaders and congressman Robert Aderholt helped make the state attractive to his company.

He says production of battery materials could begin in 2024.

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