Energy-storage company Kontrolmatik Technologies has chosen Colleton County, located in the I-95-straddling Lowcountry region of SC, for its first US-based lithium-ion battery factory.

Pomega Energy Storage Technologies, a subsidiary of Kontrolmatik, will lead the factory project and manufacture the batteries. Kontrolmatik/Pomega will make a $279-million investment in the project and plan to employ 575 people when the plant is fully operational.

Keith Stauber and Meredith O’Connor of JLL, a real estate and investment management professional services firm, led the national site selection process. The JLL team analyzed over 200 sites to identify locations with both a robust and capable workforce as well as the utility providers with the necessary infrastructure to provide the significant amount of power needed for the factory.

The factory, which is expected to open in 2024, will have a 3 gigawatt-hour (GWh) capacity and will help address domestic reliance on foreign supply chains in the lithium-ion battery market. Kontrolmatik’s utility-scale batteries are used for utility, grid, and industrial-scale energy storage applications.