MORGANTOWN — Remember when you first heard the word “gigafactory?”
It was probably back in March, when we all learned energy startup Sparkz planned to start building one this year right here in West Virginia.
But where?
Morgantown …
South Charleston …
Ravenswood?
Nobody knows for sure, and those who do aren’t saying.
Back in April, members of the Monongalia County Commission were all but convinced the plant was coming to Morgantown.
So much so, in fact, Commission President Tom Bloom said he thought a meeting finalizing the deal was imminent “a couple weeks ago.”
Now, not so much.
“Everything has suddenly gone quiet,” he added, explaining the commission has gone from thinking the factory was a lock in Morgantown, to thinking Morgantown was completely out of the running to not being sure what’s going on.
“We thought we had it and now all the sudden there’s competition in the southern part of the state that has stepped in and perhaps redirected it,” Commissioner Jeff Arnett said. “But we really don’t know.”
The Dominion Post reached out to Sparkz as well as the West Virginia Department of Economic Development regarding the status of the plant. Neither responded in time for this report.
Sparkz was founded in 2019 by Sanjiv Malhotra. The company aims to reduce China’s dominance of next-generation energy storage by commercializing the only high energy-density cobalt-free, lithium-ion battery made in America.
The West Virginia facility will join Sparkz assets in California and Tennessee.
Based on the March announcement, the new factory will initially employ up to 350 workers and could grow to as many as 3,000.
In May, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Mine Workers of America to recruit and train former coal miners to be the first group of production workers.
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