Cirba Solutions — an electric vehicle battery materials facility — is investing $323 million to establish operations in Richland County and has been referred to as “Project Viper.”
The new state-of-the-art, world-class lithium-ion battery recycling + materials facility will be ~400,000-sqft and located at Pineview Industrial Park, which is less than 1.5 miles from I-77 via Shop Road and home to Mark Anthony Brewing.
Why does this matter?
The plant will take old batteries (from hybrids + electric vehicles) and other scrap materials and put them through a process that extracts materials — think: nickel, cobalt, and lithium. This extraction process will provide enough premium recycled battery-grade metal salts to power over 500,000 electric vehicle batteries annually. Watch this video to get the rundown on the project.
Timeline
The company expects to begin operations in 2024 after breaking ground on the plant sometime this year creating ~300 jobs in the process.
Zooming out
The term “electric vehicle” has been a buzzword recently in Columbia as this news follows the Scout Motors announcement made earlier this month. Economic developments like Cirba Solutions and Scout Motors are changing the industry landscape in the Midlands.
Following the announcement of Cirba Solutions coming to Richland County, Gov. Henry McMaster said, “South Carolina has worked hard to create a business environment where the electric vehicle industry can thrive, and with announcements like this it is most certainly paying off. We are proud to have Cirba Solutions as a partner as we continue to grow our already booming electric vehicle industry.”
Richland County Council gave its final approval on a 40-year fee-in-lieu-of-tax agreement with Cirba Solutions on Tuesday during its County Council meeting.
