The Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Canadian Energies Ltd. says a clean energy manufacturing plant proposed for Chatham-Kent (CK) will create thousands of jobs in CK and across southwestern Ontario.
Canadian Energies Ltd. CEO Mark Garvin told CK News Today the proposed solar panel and sodium-ion battery manufacturing facility is expected to create 2,500-plus direct jobs at full capacity, including engineers, technicians, architects, and skilled workers, and another 1,700 indirect, ancillary, or support jobs.
Garvin said his company has identified three or four sites for the $2 billion facility and anticipates the project will get underway in approximately three months if everything goes according to plan.
He said CK was chosen because it's a prime location and the municipality was very supportive.
Garvin cited an established workforce, supply-chain infrastructure, production expertise, proximity to transmission capacity eliminating costly grid upgrade requirements, continental distribution advantages through highway, rail, and shipping access, and leadership committed to industrial development and clean energy manufacturing.
"There's no uncertainty in terms of this project. This project is going to come 100 per cent in Chatham-Kent because all of our due diligence and feasibility say that location is one of the best," Garvin said.
If approved, he said his factory will produce solar panels and sodium-ion batteries for the world, adding that sodium batteries are the safest option and the future of energy storage.
"Sodium-ion is non-flammable and you can see cars setting on fire [with lithium batteries]. Sodium is the safest option and the next era of battery energy storage systems is all about sodium-ion," Garvin noted.
Garvin noted the proposal doesn't necessarily hinge on funding from upper levels of government because there's already enough capital funding from investors.
The massive integrated "gigafactory" campus in Chatham-Kent is one of the largest domestic clean technology manufacturing initiatives ever undertaken in Canada and the largest single investment ever made in Chatham-Kent.
The 10-gigawatt facility is designed to bring critical solar supply chains back home and supply utilities, developers, and commercial customers across the globe with high-efficiency solar panels and battery energy storage systems built in CK.
For example, one gigawatt can supply electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes or match the peak output of a large nuclear or coal-fired power plant.
