SK Innovation to Make Massive Investment in Battery Business in U.S.

SK Innovation will invest about 1.1 trillion won to build a second battery plant in Georgia despite the spread of the new coronavirus.

The company’s board of directors on Dec. 18 decided to guarantee green bonds worth 1,092.8 billion won to be issued by SK Battery America (SKBA) in January 2021. SKBA is planning to use the funds for the construction of its second electric vehicle battery plant.

SK Innovation started the construction of a 9.8GWh battery plant, its first factory, in Georgia in 2019, and decided to build a second plant in early 2020. Ground was broken for the second plant with an annual capacity of 11.7 GWh in July 2020. The second plant will roll out batteries in 2023.

The construction cost of the second plant stands at US$1.5 billion. The company’s board of directors approved the execution of 900 billion won in April 2020. The total amount of investment that the company will make to build the first and second battery plants is 3 trillion won. In the long term, a total of US$5 billion will be invested.

By 2023, SK Innovation will have a production capacity of 21.5 GWh in the United States, which is enough to power 430,000 electric vehicles. The company’s global production capacity will rise to 80.5 GWh. They say that SK Innovation's current order backlog for the electric vehicle battery business has exceeded 50 trillion won. Its annual production capacity is expected to reach 85 GWh by 2023 and 100 GWh by 2025.