Published: Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Pa. gives $1.2M to company to relocate
The company plans to create as many as 86 new jobs over the next three years.
By LAURE CIOFFI
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — With a cutting-edge research and development company firmly ensconced in Canada, it was a fluke that brought Tom Granville to New Castle.
But once he arrived, he found the opportunity too good to pass up.
"It's something that is the perfect storm. We've landed in a place that's a friendly business environment, has a work force that wants to work, and then we found Pennsylvania was going out of its way to help us," Granville said.
President of Axion Power Battery Manufacturing and chief executive officer of Axion Power International, Granville has now moved his company headquarters here and on Monday got more than $1.2 million from Gov. Ed Rendell to help with the transition.
The company is operating in the former New Castle Battery plant off Pa. Route 18 in Neshannock Township and is working on mass producing a new carbon-based battery that could be used to make hybrid cars, solar and wind energy more affordable and efficient.
Granville said he expects the company to hire as many as 86 new employees over the next three years. The jobs will range from those in research and development to sales and manufacturing.
"I'm very encouraged by the work ethic I see here," said Granville, who lives in Buffalo, N.Y.
Internet search
Axion's vice president and chief technical officer, Ed Buiel, was searching the Internet for battery production equipment, when he found he former New Castle Battery Co. Its assets were going to be auctioned by a local bank.
"Ed came down and said, 'You can't believe what we've got here,'" Granville said.
Axion made a nonrefundable deposit on the assets, stopping the auction. By April of 2006 the company was operating in the former New Castle Battery plant.
They were able to bring back some of the New Castle Battery employees and started producing the traditional lead acid 16-volt batteries used in drag-racing cars and classic vehicles. Those operations are bringing in the cash to enable the company to work on developing its new lead/carbon battery.
The battery, Granville explained, takes out the negative ions — lead batteries have both negative and positive ions — in a lead acid battery and substitutes them with a negative carbon electrode.
"This translates into a longer life cycle, less lead, and it recharges 10 times faster," Granville said.
A traditional lead battery takes about eight hours to recharge; the new one will take about 30 minutes, Buiel said.
The plant in New Castle is important because it enabled the company to figure out how to mass produce its new product with equipment traditionally used to make lead batteries, he said.
Right now the proprietary carbon electrode is still handmade, limiting production to about 50 batteries a day.
Grant will help
The Pennsylvania grant money will be used to buy more automated continuous-run equipment to increase production. Buiel said they hope to be producing 100 new batteries a day by year's end and 1,000 per day by the end of 2008.
Buiel said the first 50 batteries produced with this new technology are being used in a demonstration project at a Toronto office building operating on wind and solar energy.
The company also plans to test its new batteries with a New Jersey power producer using them to help in grid buffering and load leveling. This will provide support for traditional energy sources helping to store energy when demand is low and release it when demand is high.
Buiel said they are now targeting wind and solar energy producers, but do intend to pitch the product to hybrid-vehicle makers over the next few years. The battery could help make hybrids more efficient and less costly, he noted.
Rendell said Axion's new battery fits well into his proposed energy independence plan currently before the state Legislature. Rendell wants to take $850 million in loans through the sale of government bonds to fund alternative renewable energy production facilities and technologies in Pennsylvania. A surcharge on residential, business and industrial energy bills will pay back the loans.
Rendell said the money will be used to encourage businesses to develop and use alternative energy. "We can finally get away from our dependence on foreign oil," he said.
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