LGES and Honda Joint Venture Begins ESS Battery Cell Production in the US

South Korean company LG Energy Solution Ltd. (LGES) announced on Friday that its joint venture with Honda Motor Co. has begun mass production of lithium-ion battery cells for energy storage systems (ESS) in the United States. The battery plant in Jeffersonville, Ohio, operated by the joint venture L-H Battery Co., started producing ESS battery cells on Thursday local time, according to a company statement. The battery cells will be supplied through LG Energy Solution Vertech, the company’s North American ESS integration subsidiary, for use in grid-scale, commercial, industrial, and residential energy storage systems across the United States. The plant was originally designed to produce battery cells for electric vehicles. L-H Battery stated it will maintain a flexible production portfolio by manufacturing cells for both hybrid electric vehicles and ESS, depending on market demand. The company added that the start of mass production marks an important milestone in LGES’s strategy to expand its local manufacturing base in the rapidly growing North American ESS market. ‘ESS is one of the key future growth businesses for L-H Battery, and together with the production of hybrid electric vehicle battery cells, this will become one of the company’s core business pillars,’ said L-H Battery CEO Koo Cha-hoon. According to data from market research firm SNE Research, the North American ESS battery market is expected to grow rapidly, with annual battery shipments increasing from 88 gigawatt-hours (GWh) last year to 485 GWh by 2030 and reaching 976 GWh by 2035.