Energy Startup SPARKZ to Build West Virginia Battery Factory
The company will partner with the United Mine Workers of America to recruit and train dislocated miners to be the factory's first production workers.
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Edited by Margo Ellis
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The energy startup SPARKZ plans to build an electric battery factory in West Virginia in 2022 that will employ at least 350 people, according to Manufacturing.net’s reporting.
“We need good, union jobs in the coalfields no matter what industry they are in,” said UMWA International Secretary-Treasurer Brian Sanson. “This is a start toward putting the tens of thousands of already-dislocated coal miners to work in decent jobs in the communities where they live.”
SPARKZ founder and CEO Sanjiv Malhotra said the batteries produced at the factory will be 100% cobalt-free batteries, an effort to bring down the cost of U.S. lithium-ion battery production. The Democratic Republic of Congo has historically been the top producer of cobalt worldwide, with most mines controlled by Chinese companies.
Malhotra said the operation will be a boon to U.S. efforts to counter China’s dominance of the electric battery market. The factory is also a major step for West Virginia as the state transitions from its roots in coal production to the “new energy economy,” he said.
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