Sila begins build-out of US titan silicon plant
Sila, an American battery materials company, has announced it has begun building out its first, auto-scale manufacturing plant, Sila Moses Lake, located in Washington state.
This construction milestone is said to affirm a 2025 start for the first commercial production of its Titan SiliconTM anode at the plant. Sila is also investing in workforce development through partnerships with local technical schools to ensure a strong talent base to support its manufacturing scale-up, a press release reads.
The build-out at Sila’s plant will include automotive-scale production lines ands quality systems. At the start of production, the plant will deliver enough capacity to serve multiple automotive customers, including Mercedes-Benz.
“For an innovation to have a meaningful impact on accelerating the adoption of EVs, two things are imperative. First, the new technology must deliver superior performance, raising the bar and making EVs more appealing to a broader group of people - which we accomplished with the launch of our Titan Silicon anode. Second, the technology has to scale massively so as not to become a niche; and we’re pleased to take the next step in our unwavering journey to reach global scale with the start of construction at Moses Lake,” said Gene Berdichevsky, Co-founder, and CEO of Sila, in the press release.
Last year the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) selected Sila to receive 100 million dollar in funds to accelerate the build-out of its Moses Lake plant. Sila has successfully executed the contract with MESC, whose investment in Sila will support hundreds of jobs and strengthen the U.S battery supply chain.
Sila says it will use a portion of the funding received from the DOE to invest in local workforce development through partnerships with Big Bend Community College (BBCC) and Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center (CB Tech) on coursework development and dedicated training programs to prepare students for entry-level technical and operations positions.
In the next five years, Sila expects to hire between 100-500 full-time employees and ramp plant capacity to power one million cars.
