CHESTER COUNTY, S.C. — Chester County is getting a piece of the growing electric vehicle market, and a new facility is creating dozens of new jobs.
Princeton NuEnergy is building a plant to recycle lithium ion batteries for EV cars. The company will initially create about 41 new jobs in the area, all paying above-average wages, but Chester County Economic Development officials say job creation could go up before the end of the year.
“I think that’s great, I think we need it here very badly,” said Dan Schauppe.
Schauppe told Channel 9′s Tina Terry he’s excited about Princeton coming to town. The company just broke ground in Chester County and will invest $11 million into the area.
Princeton will take batteries from EV cars and consumer electronics, then recycle them into materials that can be used to create new batteries.
“Soon they will move into EV batteries, they’ll move into used batteries,” said Robert Long, director of Chester County Economic Development.
The Chester County site is the first in South Carolina, and it could expand as the EV industry continues to grow.
“The federal government has been trying to incentivize that supply chain and grow it back domestically in the United States,” Long said. “The company is actively pursuing additional rounds of funding. We could hear about them by the end of the year and could trigger phase two.”
Long told Terry that second phase could mean even more jobs in Chester County and the surrounding areas.
Schauppe is looking forward to the future benefits.
“There’s always a lot of people looking for work in this area, we need the growth,” he said.
Officials say the new site is on 22 acres of land, with plenty of room for growth.
The company says the first phase of production will start before the end of the year.
Jobs in South Carolina haven’t been posted yet, but they’ll be at this link in the near future.
(VIDEO: More businesses are using electric vehicles)
©2024 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
