Det er kun få mnd igjen av 2024 og da lenge før det må de ha en kontrakt med REC for råvarer.

Based in Woodinville, Group14 is building a silicon battery material factory in Moses Lake, which is expected to begin delivering material to customers by the end of 2024. The company has already hired over 170 employees in Moses Lake – over half of whom are local to the area – to support the factory’s daily operations. Luebbe says the availability of clean power is one of the primary reasons that led him and his co-founders to establish their fast-growing company in Washington.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sponsored/hydropower-fuels-cutting-edge-clean-energy-jobs-in-wa/

Dette blir gjort noe med snart tenker jeg. Og REC kommer til å posisjonere seg enda sterkere etter dette.

For the last 20 years, China has been working hard to secure a monopoly over this critical technology. While China has mostly succeeded, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) created a set of incentives to get us back in the game. But, one critical piece may undermine our progress – we are letting China-headquartered companies locate final manufacturing in the United States, taking advantage of those same incentives while preserving their supply chain monopoly over the fundamental components.

Fortunately, with the introduction of the American Tax Dollars for American Solar Manufacturing Act earlier this month, senators are trying to close this work-around and put American manufacturing back on a level playing field.

Solar energy was invented in the United States, but right now nearly all of it, and about 99% of the fundamental component (the wafer), is being manufactured elsewhere, specifically, by Chinese-controlled companies. As our government works to invest in clean energy, we’re incentivizing companies to build back their operations in the U.S. so Americans can benefit from good-paying jobs, foster innovation from our world-leading R&D abilities, and establish energy independence in the critical technologies for our future.

Congress created a remarkably far-sighted system to reshore solar, batteries and wind technology. Policymakers not only created supply-side incentives in the advanced manufacturing production incentive that encourage manufacturers to build big factories quickly, but they paired them with demand-side incentives to give developers who use the products a bonus if they buy the products of those factories as they build solar and wind farms.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/solar-energy-manufacturers-for-america-sema-coalition_we-must-onshore-the-supply-chain-activity-7231749704693288960-jVlk?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

The U.S. Department of Commerce, in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, has announced a Supply Chain Summit to be held in Washington, D.C., on September 10, 2024.

The event will bring together leaders from industry, government, academia, and civil society to discuss proactive strategies for enhancing supply chain resilience and safeguarding national security. https://lnkd.in/gjdNrc4G
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/u-s-department-of-commerce_us-department-of-commerce-to-host-supply-activity-7231664292087873536-zR7I?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

I’m excited to announce that our new review paper, “A Comprehensive Review of Silicon Anodes for High-Energy Lithium-Ion Batteries: Challenges, Latest Developments, and Perspectives,” has been published in Elsevier’s Next Energy journal.

The review explores innovative approaches to overcome the challenges of using silicon as an anode materials. We also propose a shift towards using up to 100% silicon for anode development to streamline practical and commercial implementation in future lithium-ion batteries.

I want to extend my sincere thanks to all my co-authors: Anil Kumar Madikere Raghunatha Reddy, Xia Li, Sixu Deng, Jagjit Nanda for their invaluable contributions. Moreover, special thanks to my supervisor Professor Karim Zaghib for his exceptional mentorship at Concordia University. This work is a collaboration between Concordia University and Stanford University, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US Department of Energy).

I am also grateful for the financial support from Sarah Sajedi and Gary Vegh at ERA Environmental Management Solutions, and the support from InnovÉÉ (Quebec Government) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Silicon, the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust after oxygen, provides a notable advantage as an anode material, with a capacity of 4200 mAh/g—ten times higher than graphite. However, its 300% volume expansion continues to be a significant challenge.

In the future, the anode market is expected to be segmented among artificial graphite, natural graphite, and silicon, resulting in a rise in the use of graphite-silicon hybrid anodes in lithium-ion batteries for both portable devices and electric vehicles.

You can read the full paper here:
https://lnkd.in/e4fjdq5E

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ebrahim-feyzi-838b618b_im-excited-to-announce-that-our-new-review-activity-7231816621063901184-1hAE?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

Vi må få se dette snart fra Group 14 og Sila.

ENOVIX
We are open! Our Malaysian Fab2 is now officially open and producing 100% Silicon Anode cells! Thanks to the whole team for all your efforts over the past year to make this a reality. If you want to take a peek into the clean rooms, check out the video linked below.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jddigiacomandrea_on-august-8-we-held-the-grand-opening-of-activity-7231656513872752641-TSD1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

REC kommer til å ha en sentral rolle i USA etterhvert.

Overcoming The Great Wall: Building A 50GW Per Year Solar Supply Chain

As the global push for sustainable energy solutions intensifies, the U.S. is strategically positioning itself to reduce reliance on foreign solar components and build its domestic manufacturing capabilities. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 was a pivotal move to accelerate the deployment and development of solar component manufacturing in the U.S.

The IRA incentives spurred significant installation growth in the U.S. In 2023, photovoltaic (PV) installations grew by 51%, reaching 32 gigawatts (GW). This represents 53% of all new electrical energy generation additions in 2023. Installations are forecast to grow to over 50 GW per year in this decade, creating a major opportunity for domestic manufacturers.

The IRA offers attractive incentives for manufacturing polysilicon, wafers, solar cells and modules domestically, but to date, the demand has largely been served by imports. Solar module imports from Southeast Asia, predominantly from satellite operations of Chinese companies, reached a record 15 GW in Q4 2023. Solar panel imports were double the volume of panels installed in Q4 2023, resulting in inventory levels steadily growing to an estimated 30 to 40 GW in the U.S. The oversupply is a global phenomenon that has resulted in a global solar module price drop of approximately 50%.


1. Developing The Infrastructure Required For Advanced PV Manufacturing

Manufacturing polysilicon, solar wafers and cells requires significant power loads and water usage at a cost base that is globally competitive, in addition to a highly skilled workforce.

• Infrastructure investments: Lead times for new electrical substations can be as long as three years, which is prohibitive in an industry where the IRA incentives have a finite life. Manufacturers are requiring utilities to provide fast interconnection to the required power, a low-carbon footprint power source and competitive pricing. Polysilicon, cell and wafer manufacturing sites have significant water and water treatment requirements.

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2024/08/19/overcoming-the-great-wall-building-a-50gw-per-year-solar-supply-chain/

U.S. Department of Commerce

Today, the United States announced its list of critical sectors and key goods for potential cooperation under the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement to strengthen supply chain resiliency. https://lnkd.in/eKQ9S7cG


Today, the United States announced its list of critical sectors and key goods for potential cooperation under the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement to strengthen supply chain resiliency. This is a key milestone in implementing the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement to establish a framework for deeper collaboration to prevent, mitigate, and prepare for supply chain disruptions.

The IPEF Supply Chain Council, one of the three bodies established under the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement, lays the foundation for collaboration on supply chain opportunities and challenges across the Indo-Pacific. Through the work of the Council, Parties may collaborate to enhance the resilience, sustainability, and diversification of IPEF supply chains and explore opportunities to identify best practices and advance policies, measures, or actions positively impacting trade among the Parties in critical sectors or key goods.

Under the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement, each Party committed to developing a list of “critical sectors” and “key goods” for cooperation under the Agreement, to be shared through the Council. These lists are intended to be iterative and change as needed over time.

The International Trade Administration’s Industry & Analysis unit conducted in-house analyses of supply chains for sectors and goods for potential near-term U.S. opportunities in the Indo-Pacific region, supplemented by public input obtained via a Federal Register Notice (FRN) in June 2024 and interagency consultations.

Ultimately, sectors and goods notified by multiple Parties may be selected as the subject of Action Plans to identify shared vulnerabilities and opportunities to build resilience per Article 10 of the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement. The U.S. list below is specifically for use in the context of the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement and is not a definitive list of U.S. priorities for the purposes of any other U.S. government supply chain efforts, nor a definitive list of what the IPEF Supply Chain Council will prioritize for discussion and action. The United States does not anticipate that all of the sectors and goods on this list will be selected for Action Plans, which will be decided by the Council. This list can be updated in the future as needed. The United States continues to seek input on sectors and goods for consideration under the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement, and the U.S. list of critical sectors and key goods can be updated in the future accordingly.

U.S. List of Critical Sectors and Key Goods for Potential Cooperation under the IPEF Supply Chain Agreement

Agriculture

Chemicals

Consumer Goods

Critical Minerals and Mining

Energy/Environmental Industries, including:

Advanced batteries, including components and materials
Carbon management/capture technologies 
Electric grid equipment and technologies
Forgings and die castings
Hydropower, including components and materials
Hydrogen, including components and materials, as well as molecular derivatives
Permanent magnets
Nuclear energy, including components and materials
Solar energy systems, including panels, components, and materials
Water and wastewater treatment equipment and chemicals 
Wind turbines, including components and materials
Health Industries, including:

Medical devices
Personal protective equipment
Pharmaceuticals (particularly Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), generic drugs, and biological products) 
Vitamins and amino acids
Information and Communication Technology Products, including:

Audiovisual technology (particularly displays) 
Semiconductors (focused on assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP)) 
Telecommunication network equipment (particularly switches and routers) 
Electronics manufacturing services
Transportation and Logistics, including:

Aerospace and aerospace components, including aircraft equipment
Automotive parts (particularly electronic components, sensors, engines, transmissions, and electric motors used in vehicles)
Cargo handling equipment (particularly cranes) and the movement of shipping containers
Heavy/medium duty trucks, including parts and materials
Mass transit equipment, including transit buses, motor coaches, and rail passenger cars
Rail equipment 
Shipbuilding and repair (particularly shipbuilding materials, marine engines, propulsion systems, ship components, and repair equipment)
Transportation, logistics, and distribution services (particularly cold chain services and IT interoperability standards)

Og noen snakker om mer utsettelse av ML. Hvor skal kunden få råvarer i fra da om ikke REC kommer til å levere de? Derfor om kunden åpner i midten av SEP. Så blir ingen mer utsettelse.
Qcells North America
Ny:

Time flies when you're making history! ⚡☀️Nearly two years ago, we made a groundbreaking pledge to invest over $2.5 billion in building a complete solar supply chain right here in the USA—the largest investment in U.S. #solar history.

Today, we’re not only marking an anniversary; we’re celebrating the incredible progress we've made toward turning this vision into reality.

Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (#IRA) and our amazing partners, our dream of a fully-integrated, silicon-based solar supply chain—from raw materials to finished panels—is transforming the U.S. clean energy market.

We believe in the power of local #manufacturing to drive a sustainable future, and this is just the beginning. 🇺🇸

We’re here for the long haul, committed to leading the charge in clean energy.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/qcells-northamerica_solar-ira-manufacturing-activity-7232827757036982272-o2uO?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

Tror neppe Q-Sells som har ansatt flere tusen nye ansatter og alle venter i uviten om REC klarer å levere eller ei.
Personlig tror jeg det blir ingen mer utsettelse .

Cartersville-Bartow County Department of Economic Development:

Our existing industries are superheroes!

Congratulations to Toyo Tires and Qcells North America for being recognized at the Goodwill of North Georgia’s Power of Work Awards for their outstanding partnership with Cartersville’s Goodwill Career Center by helping thousands of job seekers find good- paying, local jobs and careers!

We are proud of these two Bartow- based employers for continuing to implement out-the-box solutions and creative best practices to support job and career growth and workforce development.

#EconomicDevelopment #WorkforceDevelopment #BartowCounty

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cartersville-bartow-county-department-of-economic-development_economicdevelopment-workforcedevelopment-ugcPost-7232481405027393536-flbK?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gray_sustainability-ev-solar-activity-7189625069600481281-LE8B?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

Here's a Robert Llewellyn short animation that sums up all this, EV vs ICEV perfectly.
https://youtu.be/1oVrIHcdxjA?si=tPVH4ggsUb6_EK11

« REC Silicon, our key silane supplier, has inspected and approved our bulk Silane off-loading station, which is critical for safe operation.«

MOSES LAKE, Wash., Aug. 26, 2024

MOSES LAKE, Wash., Aug. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- OneD Battery Sciences ("OneD"), a leading developer of silicon anode materials, today announced the successful completion and commissioning of its SINANODE pilot production line in Moses Lake, Washington. This milestone marks an important step forward in scaling up the production of OneD's SINANODE materials for the global battery market.

OneD Battery Sciences Logo (PRNewsfoto/OneD Battery Sciences)

Over the past 12 months, the SINANODE Pilot construction project progressed through initial hires and start of construction design, to breaking ground in October '23, equipment installation in April '24, and startup and commissioning in July '24. This was achieved through intense collaboration between the OneD team, general contractor, Dahlgren Industrial, and various partners, including Advanced Material Solutions, Meier Architecture • Engineering, Royal HaskoningDHV, Grant County PUD, and CVD Equipment Corporation. Additionally, REC Silicon, our key silane supplier, has inspected and approved our bulk Silane off-loading station, which is critical for safe operation.

"Today's milestone showcases the result of excellent teamwork between our Operations team and our general contractor and its many subcontractors, and the training and support provided by the OneD R&D team from our Palo Alto headquarters," said Jan-Marc Luchies, Chief Operating Officer at OneD.

Initial production runs of SINANODE have demonstrated matching performance with the anode materials produced at OneD's R&D facility in Palo Alto, California.

"We have spent many years perfecting the SINANODE process steps to ensure that these steps can be transferred and scaled-up efficiently at other locations. Our customers are demanding that the process parameters that are optimized in Palo Alto can be used to produce larger quantities with documented consistent quality to support the stringent qualification program required by EV cell makers," said Yimin Zhu, Co-Founder, and Chief Technology Officer.

"Customers also want to verify the exceptionally attractive cost structure of our SINANODE process in a manufacturing environment, when applied to several types of EV-grade graphite anode materials from several suppliers. We are now scheduling visits to our Moses Lake plant with customers and partners and collecting data to showcase the key metrics," added Vincent Pluvinage, Co-Founder, and Chief Executive Officer.

More details of OneD Battery Sciences and SINANODE Pilot Program can be found here.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr-newswire/20240826sf90002/oned-battery-sciences-announces-successful-completion-and-commissioning-of-sinanode-pilot-manufacturing-plant

The commissioning of the SINANODE Pilot Production is an important step in proving the scalability of the manufacturing processes. Let’s explain why.

Many large companies in the EV battery supply chains have experienced difficulties with technologies developed by start-ups, including delays, un-even performance between production batches, excessive production costs, and incompatibilities with high-speed and high yield processes uses in EV cell factories.

OneD is following a step-by-step methodical approach to avoid these issues.

First, OneD secured the ability to produce at EV-scale the silane gas precursor at an attractive cost. The costs are now well documented, and the silane plants can be co-located next to the SINANODE plants in Europe and in North America.

Second, the OneD R&D team worked with partners to build EV cell prototypes in cylindrical 46XX format and in prismatic format and tested these cells in Palo Alto to obtain data on energy density and fast charging performance. The cells are also being provided to customers to validate the results in their own laboratories.

Third, EV-grade graphite from several suppliers have been processed using the SINANODE steps, to add nano-silicon to anode materials that are already produced in large quantities at low cost and that have been qualified with EV cell factories.

Fourth, the new SINANODE Pilot Manufacturing Plant is now enabling customers to come and verify the quality and cost metrics and to plan and support their qualification program with tens of tons of silicon-graphite anode materials in 2025 and 2026.

Finally, OneD has worked with established engineering firms to design large-scale productions plants for supporting tens of thousand tons of annual commercial production. Thanks to its foundational IP portfolio of more than 200 granted patents, OneD can license the IP rights and production technologies to industrial partners.

The negotiations are on-going with partners in Europe and North America and the locations will be announced later this year upon conclusion of the licensing agreements.

OneD is NOT an anode material supplier: OneD is the developer and the licensor of the SINANODE technologies, to help a few licensed companies that are in the EV battery supply chains optimize new products that are high performance and lower cost to manufacture at EV-scale. Simply put: better, faster, cheaper and lower risks…

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vincentpluvinage_oned-battery-sciences-announces-successful-activity-7233836815688855553-hwRZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

First, OneD secured the ability to produce at EV-scale the silane gas precursor at an attractive cost. The costs are now well documented, and the silane plants can be co-located next to the SINANODE plants in Europe and in North America..

Fourth, the new SINANODE Pilot Manufacturing Plant is now enabling customers to come and verify the quality and cost metrics and to plan and support their qualification program with tens of tons of silicon-graphite anode materials in 2025 and 2026.

Har dessverre ikke tilgang til artikkelen. Noen som har?
China is swimming in battery-making capacity; Amprius Technologies, Inc. is strapped for cash to build a silicon battery-making gigafactory. In the resulting win-win deal, Amprius gets its batteries and saves $90m in capex; and China sops up some excess production capacity. The Electric. https://lnkd.in/e_r92-QW

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/steve-levine-1901926_the-electric-a-us-silicon-battery-startup-activity-7234889136938139648-INkv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

But those customers have been loath to sign long-term purchase agreements with U.S. suppliers given the possibility that mineral prices will keep falling, and the fact that American-made minerals are more expensive than Chinese ones to begin with, companies say. One estimate last year put the price of North American graphite at more than double that of imported material, for example.

“You can’t have the facility built or the money to buy the equipment without having commitments from customers because you can’t get the financing without it,” said Chip Dunn, chair of Anovion Technologies, which is developing a $1 billion synthetic graphite plant in Georgia. “This is where the government needs to play a role.”

U.S. producers and government officials have accused China of subsidizing its producers to flood the global market with cheap minerals produced with lower social and environmental standards. A top State Department official, Jose Fernandez, told POLITICO this month that China is engaged in “predatory pricing” to frustrate U.S. efforts to develop its own high-standard sources of minerals.

American projects also face significantly longer timelines to get to market due to permitting delays. And some U.S. minerals suppliers argue that the Biden administration’s rules implementing Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for electric vehicles and clean energy manufacturing have left too much leeway for upstream customers to continue purchasing minerals from China.

The Biden administration has already spent billions trying to kick-start a domestic critical minerals industry, particularly in the processing sector that is overwhelmingly dominated by Beijing.

In late 2022, when minerals prices were near their peak, DOE selected 21 processing and recycling projects to receive a collective $2.8 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law. But in 2023, as the projects were negotiating terms of the grants, the price of lithium fell by 75 percent, and the price of cobalt, nickel and graphite each dropped by between 30 and 45 percent, according to the International Energy Agency.

A third of the projects, which were set to receive a collective $1 billion, failed to make it through the negotiations to receive the awards, according to the Energy Department’s website.

The projects faced a “perfect storm” of pricing pressures, said Ben Steinberg, who represents several of the grant recipients as executive vice president at Venn Strategies and spokesperson for the Battery Materials and Technology Coalition.

“High interest rates, inflationary pressures and oversupply of minerals from China put a lot of additional burden on these companies, who have the monumental task of raising or finding private capital for three quarters of these investments,” Steinberg said.

Several of the companies in the grant round have instead sought loans from DOE’s Loan Programs Office, which has more than $200 billion in estimated loan authority and can provide a greater share of a project’s financing. That office announced in May that critical minerals mining and extraction projects are now eligible for loans, and it also indicated to companies in a memo and webinar that month that it may allow projects to receive both a grant and a loan on a “project specific” basis.

But some companies say the Energy Department needs to go beyond supporting capital construction by implementing a backstop mechanism, which would guarantee that specific producers can receive a minimum price for their minerals even if market prices slip.

Offtake backstops help derisk project development and enable developers to access project financing,” the think tank Federation of American Scientists, which researches science-based policy solutions, wrote in a recent report calling on DOE to create such a mechanism.

The idea may be able to find some traction on both sides of the aisle in Congress and in Europe, which is also seeking to wean itself off Chinese minerals.

In its bipartisan policy report last year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said the U.S. is “dangerously dependent” on Chinese minerals and recommended creating a national mineral strategic reserve. That would go a step further than a backstop by physically purchasing and selling the minerals to stabilize prices, as the U.S. does with oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The committee has convened several workshops with companies to discuss the issue this summer.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency also announced plans in February for a critical minerals security program, similar to a program it operates for oil that requires member countries to stockpile at least 90 days’ supply to stabilize prices in the event of a market disruption.

Still, some industry watchers remain skeptical about whether a government backstop is the right strategy to support the industry..

Abigail Hunter, executive director of the Center for Critical Minerals Strategy at the think tank SAFE, said she has reservations about the government “getting their hands into commodity market pricing, which is very cyclical and complex.”

Policies need to be carefully calibrated to the specific commodity price dynamics, potentially peter off after projects reach economies of scale in production, and [be] coupled with other government support, all so taxpayers don’t end up supporting projects — especially unviable ones — indefinitely,” Hunter said in an email.

Alex Fitzsimmons, head of government affairs at Sila Nanotechnologies — which is building a plant in Washington state to produce silicon anode material for EV batteries — said a government backstop should be “on the table as part of a suite of market signals,” but that companies also need to improve their products to stay competitive.

“Especially in this funding environment, companies have to find ways to separate themselves from a technology standpoint and a performance standpoint if they’re expecting to have customers pay a premium,” Fitzsimmons said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/29/biden-minerals-price-support-china-00176777