INTERVIEW: KORE Power CEO talks about the future of lithium-ion batteries

KORE Power is bringing battery manufacturing stateside, streamlining some of the supply chain issues being seen across the globe.

Co-founder and CEO of the Idaho-based company, Lindsay Gorrill, explained that renewable energy paired with battery storage is a growing market. For scope, he pointed to 2019 which saw roughly 3% of solar projects tied to batteries, while 2022 is anticipated to see 90% of projects paired with battery storage.

“The growth of solar and wind has been phenomenal, but now there’s been so much of it, people realized there’s this one missing link,” he said. “People realize renewables are the way of the future but can’t be 24-7 without somewhere to put the energy.”

As a lithium-ion battery manufacturer, KORE Power is involved with both the energy storage and electric vehicle (EV) sectors. Gorrill talked about the company’s efforts to keep up with increasing demand for both. He pointed to a few projects, starting with the largest one to date: KOREplex, the first U.S.-owned lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility. The 12 GW-hour, one million square feet cell modular plant is scheduled to break ground in 2022 and begin production in 2023, located in Buckeye, Arizona.

Gorrill told NPM at the Energy Storage Conference’s (ESA) annual conference this month that this plant will be co-generated solar plus storage with net zero emissions.

“We’re making these cells that can go into anything,” Gorrill said of the battery manufacturing slated for KOREplex. “It’s funny how people think of what a battery is. You take a cell and put it in a package and so we can make any package you want. The cells go into energy storage, go into electric boats, electric vehicles. For me, our vision for our company, is we want to be sustainability.”

The project is creating cells to make modules for energy storage, EV charging and EVs. As he explained it, once “you have the technology for the cell, you can make it as big as for an iPhone or a house.” The plant is part of KORE Power’s vision for developing a “sustainable valley,” or a reliable supply chain. To grow cell production, he said a supply chain is needed, one that is not experiencing the global issues seen today.

“We’re working hard on developing a sustainable valley, bringing in all the inputs to the cells,” he said, adding that the plant will allow companies to get batteries quicker rather than ordering it overseas and waiting six months to receive it. “It’s more convenient and cost-effective.”

KORE Power is also the battery supplier for an APS project in Arizona. Gorrill said that the 5 MW project requires a battery storage system to help one of the substations, though the name of the project was not disclosed.

Gorrill said that one of the company’s most exciting endeavors is in mobile energy storage, specifically a project called Nomad.

“In the past, lithium-ion batteries didn’t like to be moved around,” he said. But KORE Power spent two years working with Northern Reliability out of Vermont on a battery design that could be placed onto the back of a truck and taken anywhere. According to Gorrill, the idea came from Northern Reliability’s CEO who “couldn’t get another battery company to talk to him because you can’t just put any battery in and move it around.”

But when Gorrill heard the idea, he said it could be done.

“If the NFL is doing the Super Bowl or if there is a concert, there is a diesel generator,” he said. “Now a Nomad can be plugged in and run the game or music festival on green energy.”

KORE Power is also working with Zero Electric Vehicles, Inc. (ZEV) in Arizona to remove combustion engines from vehicles, replacing them with electric engines.

“They’re using our batteries,” Gorrill said. “They’re proof of concept has been proven, they have contracts with Amazon and the postal service.”

Gorrill said it is timely, especially considering that the U.S. Postal Service is considering replacing its combustion engine trucks with electric vehicles.

“Now you can change the engine,” he said. “You don’t have a huge stockpile of old trucks in a dump yard.”

When asked what is next for battery storage, Gorrill said that the technology is ever-changing. For lithium-ion batteries, what was produced two years ago is not what is produced today. Also, the cost for a lithium-ion battery five years ago was around 5x more than what it costs today, which is from a battery of a certain size now able to carry more energy than before.

“What happened is you change the chemical makeup of the chemistry, so what was built in a cubic foot five years ago had say 50 kW-hours,” he said. “The same cubic foot today is 200 kW-hours. Same package, but more energy. You’re seeing an evolution of technology change in the lithium-ion space and continues to change.”*

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.