Turner Construction, Kokosing Industrial, and SSOE Group landed a $1 billion design-build contract to build an EV battery recycling facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, according to a press release by the companies.
SSOE will handle the design, while Kokosing and Turner will lead the construction.
In addition, Turner is partnering with Westerville, Ohio-based Kokosing Industrial, on a $4.4 billion Honda electric vehicle battery factory in Ohio, as per Construction Drive.
Ascend Elements to build the battery facility
Ascend Elements, Westborough, Massachusetts-based EV battery material recycler, is building the 500,000-square-foot plant called Apex 1, which will produce sufficient electric vehicle battery material yearly to power over 250,000 EVs and spur 400 full-time jobs.
With clearing and grading permitting in place, the Turner / Kokosing team will be able to begin grading the 140-acre site this month while the SSOE team continues the detailed design of the process. This ‘design-assist’ involvement of the construction trades during design helps clients like Ascend save on both cost and schedule.
Mathew Bierschbach, SSOE business leader
Notably, the plant will help meet North America’s increasing demand for lithium-ion battery materials, particularly the building blocks of EV batteries like battery-ready cathode active materials and engineered precursors.
Hydro-to-Cathode
Ascend says that the way it collects those materials from used batteries, a sequence it refers to as its “Hydro-to-Cathode” direct precursor synthesis process, is the most efficient way to take recycled battery materials back to the supply chain.
Today, we’ve begun building something that doesn’t exist anywhere in the United States — a domestic source of sustainable lithium-ion cathode material for EV batteries. We’re in the middle of a global energy transformation and it’s critical that we produce lithium-ion battery material in the United States.
Michael O’Kronley, CEO of Ascend Elements
Apex 1 received federal grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
Presented as the largest facility of its kind in the US and the single-largest battery manufacturing investment in Kentucky, Apex 1 got two federal grants, from the US DOE’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Initiative, with a total of $480 million, according to SSOE.
Ascend said it plans to invest nearly $1 billion in the plant.
