Battery producer Recharge Industries has partnered with professional services company Accenture to construct one of the world's largest gigafactories for lithium-ion battery cell production in Geelong, Victoria, Australia.
The facility, set to begin construction in the second half 2023, will have the capability to produce up to 30 GWh of storage capacity per year for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage markets. It will employ 1,500-2,000 workers at full capacity. The project aims to produce 2 GWh annually by the end of 2024 and 6 GWh by 2026.
Under the partnership, Accenture will provide engineering and procurement support during the detailed engineering phase. It will advise on the facility layout, including utility planning and set-up of the production lines.
Accenture will also assist in procuring, shipping and conducting final tests of all line equipment, in addition to providing ongoing process and product engineering support to improve battery production. Production equipment for the first 2 GWh production line has already been secured with binding off-take contracts and secured funding. The equipment is scheduled to arrive in Australia in late May 2023.
“Companies, economies and nations must speed their energy transition, a task hampered by ongoing disruptions in the global supply chains,” Soeren Schrader, a managing director at Accenture’s digital engineering and manufacturing service, Industry X, said. “Recharge Industries’ advanced manufacturing facility in Geelong will go a long way in helping the Australian industry tackle these challenges.”
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Recharge has also teamed up with Charge CCCV (C4V), an intellectual property company based in New York, U.S. C4V will supply intellectual property, blueprints and technology concepts to accelerate planning, engineering and construction.
“Our factory, which we are building with the assistance of Accenture’s engineering and capital projects expertise and underpinned by C4V’s IP and battery technology, will create thousands of jobs and attract large-scale investment from key players in Australia, the Indo-Pacific region, and other parts of the world,” Rob Fitzpatrick, CEO of Recharge Industries, said.
Recharge Industries is a portfolio company of Scale Facilitation, an investment firm with its global headquarters in New York, U.S., and its global innovation center in Geelong, Australia.
